Chris Davis Should Be Dead: Life As A Sober Warrior

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  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 wanna see dramatic? Like, let's go out drinking."

• 1:26Rich Roll?

  That's Chris Davis, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:39Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:44Rich Roll?

  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 Roll 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. Takes a minute, really does help us out a lot. It really helps with the visibility of the show as well. So, thank you 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/Amazon. Today's episode is brought to you by...

• 2:36Rich Roll?

  So I was in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. I was speaking at the Veg Fest 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 Settledge. I know he's listening. Shout out to Ross. How 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

• 3:19Rich Roll?

  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 Arianna 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

• 4:04Rich Roll?

  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.

• 4:49Rich Roll?

  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.

• 5:33Rich Roll?

  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 really am. 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.

• 6:16Rich Roll?

  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.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  That one well, I was actually impressed.

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  You liked the Jack Canfield one?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I did.

• 6:43Rich Roll?

  Uh, 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?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I liked that he was like, it's all a trick. Like, they're not, not gonna have to go to AA.

• 7:04Rich Roll?

  He's kinda 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 kinda saying like, listen, of course you need community, you gotta talk to people, you have to like be around people. So, the idea in the title that you're gonna do this in the privacy of your own home, uh, you know, and just solve alcoholism through isolation?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  But he does know how to sell a lot of books, so...

• 7:30Rich Roll?

  That he does.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Ninety-seven percent of those books will never leave those living rooms.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  And I will say this, that he, uh, we're talking about Jack Canfield, did we say his name, listeners?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Jack C.

• 7:42Rich Roll?

  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 on.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  And has hit the mother lode a number of times over and over. Because some of the stuff, I'm like, I need a dictionary to listen to this fucker. He was like, he's like, oh, and then I was doing this like soupy mysticism. And I'm like, of course you did, and you study that, then you move on, and then you move on.

• 8:48Rich Roll?

  What about the tapping?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  The tapping, you know, I fell asleep as the, cause 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 try it." And I was like, "I'm like you. I'm open to all that stuff."

• 9:12Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, let's unpack it a little bit because, uh, you know, first of all, I'll say thank you for, for doing this. Um, it's refreshing to do it with a friend. Uh, and it's nice that, uh, 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 a, uh, with the audience at large. So where does it all begin?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  With your large audience. Cause I'm looking, I'm like, "Oh yeah. Russell Simmons, that was great. Joseph Nows. And I, you know, I listen to all of these."

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, "Oh yeah, let's see. Doug, who's getting ready to change the planet."

• 10:00Rich Roll?

  Doug Evans, yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Jasmine, who's like awesome. John Joseph, who's hilarious. I love that guy.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  And you know him personally.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ran into him. And then Ariana, and then Jack Canfield, and then like me.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  Chris Davis.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And I'm like...

• 10:15Rich Roll?

  Here's the thing. Let me just say this right up front. Like it's really cool to have people like Arianna 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. But for me, the most personally gratifying experiences that I've had on this podcast are having people like yourself on, like 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. You know, 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 today.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  I'm down. It may get a little noisy, not as noisy as Russell Simmons was.

• 10:53Rich Roll?

  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?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  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?

• 11:11Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  That's the kitchen right there.

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, right behind us. Wow. Right. So it used to be like a private dining hall?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  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, the

• 12:03Rich Roll?

  But it's a, is it like a sober living or it's like a rehab? I mean, do people, are there people living in this building?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  No, no, no. No. The rehab next door is the, what they call I O P, 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 are riding like econo line vans.

• 12:24Rich Roll?

  My clients.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I always remind them, I go, you're kind of an inpatient, but that's awesome. Um, it's hard to build self-esteem when you have none. So throwing like high self-esteem, like client, I just, 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.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And it is like a fucking plague of locusts. Like at noon, it's just a line you don't wanna really fuck with. And then at

• 13:14Rich Roll?

  It's sort of like, like the population is similar to like the people that go to Claire.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yes. Or Salvation Army, or prison, or county jail, or welfare lines, or it's kinda

• 13:27Rich Roll?

  So who funds this operation then?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  The people that own it, uh, their company is called Community Recovery and they're just like, hey, let's just help everybody. I mean, rehab's to the rich and famous, they got their own agenda. But this guy's kinda like, you know, the, the American mental health system and medical system, it's fucking failed. It failed in the eighties. Reagan killed that thing. That's when the population of homeless people exploded and like the term became homeless. They were called bums when I was one, but you know, everybody's got, you know, like client homeless. So anyway, he's just kinda like the net catching them in the gutter before they actually go into the drain and never

• 14:10Rich Roll?

  Never to be seen.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Get another chance again. So.

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  So this is the last, this is last exit to Brooklyn?

• 14:15Speaker 01

  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 have, uh, they bring in

• 14:34Rich Roll?

  There's a podium there, so you have meetings and stuff like that. And there's a, right across the street, is the Tuesday night meetings still go on in the, that facility across the street here?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  I think so, but I think it's limping along.

• 14:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Those things have their shelf life.

• 14:47Rich Roll?

  All right, let's, let's back it up. I want to get to the superhero origin story that starts in, in the south, right? South Carolina?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 14:55Rich Roll?

  Charleston. Is that where you grew up? I mean, I know that's where you kinda went to high school and stuff like that.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:08Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  And then apparently they just line the side of the fort.

• 15:31Rich Roll?

  The red coats or the rednecks?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  The rednecks. I think the red coats have been dealt with.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  Revolutionary war, right?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Lot of red.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  The red apparently doesn't win. It's not the color to pick.

• 15:43Rich Roll?

  Paint the picture of a young Chris Davis in the south.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  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 threat in us where we're just like, fuck yeah, let's do it.

• 16:03Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of military in your family, right?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  A lot, yeah. Grandfather, Navy War II, dad, Vietnam, me, dancing around in the eighties in Frankfurt in Germany. And then re-enlisted, went right back to Germany. It was awesome. I 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, you know, went back there and then stayed there.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:53Rich Roll?

  Four tours?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Four.

• 16:54Rich Roll?

  And how long is each tour?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  I was like, wow, is, either mom is really annoying, or this dude's patriotic as fuck.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  So.

• 17:03Rich Roll?

  Or there was something, you know, that thing that just needs to be in the middle of where it's all happening.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I, 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, what 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 in, 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 on James Island, but, but not many. And all of those people end up murdered or inbred or shit like that.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  So I just grew up kind of bewildered, because I'd been up to Virginia. My, my mom had taken us to like the. The Smithsonian, so I remember seeing like Rodin's Gates of Hell, which is this giant bronze. Right. Gi- I still remember the staircase, cause you had to come in from like the second floor and go down to it. That'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 twenty, thirty 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,

• 18:30Speaker 01

  you know, we're all just like staring and 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?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  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's a YMCA right up the street from us, so. And when do, uh, 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.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  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 twelve years and nine months old. We were watching, I remember what was on the TV, we were watching this movie called Valley of the Guangui where these cowboys are chasing a, 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.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  And they were like, hey, you know, you wanna sip a beer? It's fucking awesome. It's on Netflix or Hulu now. I watch that shit all the time. I love shit like that. They, uh, I remember they had a beer and they were like, hey, you can have a sip. And it was like, okay, you know, and like, you know, a little joint and I'm like, oh, you know. I was already smoking cigarettes, so like twelve and a half. So, you know, pot, it just looked like the poorest cigarette on earth. You're just like, ah, that doesn't look like a cigarette. And I remember drinking that. Then later on, like, nothing spectacular happened.

• 20:37Rich Roll?

  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?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  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

• 20:54Speaker 01

  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. Cause 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 shit. I remember. It was awesome. It should have been a sign of like.

• 21:33Rich Roll?

  Was that, so was coke or heroin?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  I still don't know what it is. Cause in the south, we have drugs that you're not gonna hear about on the news. Cause we're all poor and stupid. I mean, meth. Well, it was, they called it tea. Like the letter T. So there was peanut butter tea, chocolate tea and crystal tea. Cause I really explored it after that first time. And it was this real clean high. Yeah. If you haven't taken drugs, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But it was kinda like mescaline. And mescaline in the south where we did it. It's got, um, strychnine in it. So you trip good, but at three in the morning, you get these terrible stomach pains from strychnine poisoning.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 22:29Rich Roll?

  But you're like 12, this happens?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  It was the weekend I turned 13.

• 22:32Rich Roll?

  Right. Just turned 13.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:35Rich Roll?

  Barely any experience with drugs or alcohol, and you got a needle in your arm.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was fucking awesome.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  But the fix is in, right? You have this amazing experience.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, was it like, alright, when am I doing that again?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was just like, oh, that was awesome. Like, inherently, I knew, well, we're not gonna do that at Thanksgiving dinner in front of the family.

• 22:57Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  But it was like, I'm not not gonna do that. Like, there was no shame or weird. It was just amazing. It was like, wow, that was great, cuz I smoked a little weed and drank a little bit. Everybody was getting into... Quaaludes were huge, and then lemon ludes hit the street. And second all, and tuna, 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. It started killing all of my friends.

• 23:21Rich Roll?

  So this must have been like 1978?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, yeah. I was born in 62, so 13, yeah, seventy-five, seventy-six.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Spirit of America.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  I still remember the bicentennial. Alright, so anyway, where does it, where does it start to ramp up and, and begin creating problems for you?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Um, well, high school took a dismal turn. I just, 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.

• 24:06Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  I'm like, biology was cool, cuz I could look at like pot leaves under the microscope. But...

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  That's such a Spicoli maneuver.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  It was so weird, but that's what I would do. And at night, I started finding out in downtown Charleston.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  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 seventies. Everywhere in the early eighties. 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 my, I found all the other people who took drugs. So I got introduced and like, learned quickly and realized I had a taste for amphetamines and speed cocaine mainly.

• 25:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Which I love, because it's just like, oh, awesome.

• 25:05Rich Roll?

  And it's so, this is the, this is the phase where everything's working.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Oh, it was fantastic.

• 25:11Rich Roll?

  Right? And so, you know, is this bringing you, like, what is the, you know, what is the, the dis-ease 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?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  I always had this odd feeling that I, I didn't fit in. And later, years later, when I got out of South Carolina, as 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. You know, it's just like, people are like, well, maybe if we're playing volleyball,

• 26:10Speaker 01

  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, but I think it's self ostracized. Ostracization. Yeah, 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. Cause 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. Mm hmm. 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. Mm hmm.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  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 with 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. You know, 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 fucking walked home. I was like, I'm done. I'm done.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  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. How old are you? Are you already 18 at this point? No, no, I was 17. My mom had to give me permission and she was pissed. Cause she's like, you're just like your father. And I'm like, okay. It's weird for a child to hear that, cause you're like. And what, what was your relationship with your dad at this time? And was he gone? Oh, he was gone. Disappeared. I hadn't seen that dude. Ever.

• 28:31Rich Roll?

  So four tours in Vietnam and then divorced and then just out of the picture.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then he just disappeared up into DC or Virginia around where his parents live.

• 28:40Rich Roll?

  You don't have any relationship with him now?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  He showed up, my middle brother, who's like an awesome dude, family guy, community guy, like really helps. 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 tracked 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. Like, 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 that stuff, I'm really super hypersensitive to that.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  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.

• 29:41Rich Roll?

  Right, just withdraw.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 29:52Rich Roll?

  But the drugs and alcohol probably brought you out of that shell a little bit, allowed you to like sort of maneuver socially.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  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 Birdwells flip flops, some ripped up fucking like Hobie t-shirt or something, Led Zeppelin shirt or something that's 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.

• 30:27Rich Roll?

  Army.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  So I go to Fort Jackson, which is seventy 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 Leonard Wood, Missouri on a fucking bus. We get out, it's freezing cold. I've never been in 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, going in this trailer, we go through a day of this getting introduced and then they're just like,

• 31:00Speaker 01

  you fuckers are supposed to be in South Carolina. So back on the bus, still damp.

• 31:04Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  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, from exhaustion and pneumonia, and I woke up, you know, like a dent on my head and

• 31:25Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  And that was my introduction to the army. Like, already, I was like, oh, there's scheduling conflicts going on in here.

• 31:34Rich Roll?

  A little bureaucratic confusion.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  I thought they'd be organized. Like, there's one me.

• 31:38Rich Roll?

  Right, so this is like a foreshadowing of your army experience to be.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  My fucking life, basically.

• 31:44Rich Roll?

  Right, and then you end up, like, how long before they send you over? You were in Germany for a long time, right?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went in. They got me sorted out at Fort, um, Jackson, ironically where I was born too. So I'm never gonna 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 gonna

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  skip Fort Jackson. I'll drive through Columbia, it's in the middle of the state, but I 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 like, "Get out of the sun," with my sleeves up, but I just grew up in that. Did that, they sent me to, um, what they call AIT, which is school. Turns out, I was kinda smart. So, I got on this radar system called the ANTPQ-37, Fire Finder Radar, which is still in existence. And the class, they told, I was like, "This is fucking bullshit, this is like Star Trek bullshit."

• 32:52Speaker 01

  But it really did work, it was Hughes Aircraft put it together. And, uh, or McDonald, Doug, 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 then after that, they sent me to Germany, which was just fucking awesome.

• 33:11Rich Roll?

  Right, so you're like a crazy bachelor in Germany, running around, going to all the clubs, just letting ladies...

• 33:16Speaker 01

  And I'm, even though I'm from a very regional, segregated, racist,

• 33:25Speaker 01

  uneducated, redneck. Getting high, I got turned on to, of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 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 US 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 to 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, and just 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,

• 34:11Speaker 01

  you already got a fucked up haircut," like everyone else in Europe in the 80s, "So, come on in." It was, it was fantastic.

• 34:19Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  It was fantastic.

• 34:21Rich Roll?

  And how, so how long were you living there?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  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 like, green and brown t-shirts, green socks, you know, their fucking green pants. And until Monday morning, they'd 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.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  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 they fuck that they make beer in. And they come out with a stuff called like doppelbuck, which is like, it should say black death poison beer.

• 35:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Cause it's just the goo that sits at the bottom.

• 35:26Rich Roll?

  But like super concentrated.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Triplebuck.

• 35:29Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  So I'm in the barracks, it's like my second day there. I remember everybody had their own stereo. It'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. I got my little bunk. They're all drinking or 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.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  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, cause it's around New Year's Eve. And I was like, I'm familiar with shotguns, cause I was like, oh, these guys are like my people. And there's like fifteen people in the living room, I had no fucking idea where I was. And I was, turns out like three miles away from the barracks. I don't know who these people were, I just kinda excused myself, made it back, I didn't know what barracks I was in, I made it back to my barracks. And I stumble 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, we don't fucking know. It was like, that was like the second night in Germany. Right.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  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 checklist of Slovakia, it was the whole communist thing, and all of

• 37:52Speaker 01

  us in Europe were aware, like, America and Russia, we're going to bomb the fuck out of each other with nukes, so. Yeah, this is, this is mid-Cold War. You cannot 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. Party like it's 1999.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  And the new wave guys were like, well, fuck it, we're gonna melt, so I'll just be dancing around in Depeche Mode and New Order. You know, and all of that music, it's fucking doom and gloom.

• 38:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  There's really a lot of doom and gloom in there. But it's like, well, if you're gonna get melted, don't sit around gloomy. Just fucking dance around to it. It's gotta get beat. You're like, fuck it.

• 39:00Rich Roll?

  Coming back for more, but first.

• 39:06Rich Roll?

  So let's accelerate this addiction snowball to, you know, where it all kind of meets its maker. Cause you went through the wringer pretty intensely. Like it got pretty dark.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  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 alone my whole life, so I kinda 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 busybodies. It's 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'd bought my first car. I had a, when I re-enlisted, they gave me a fucking fortune.

• 40:03Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  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 at home, seeing my mom, my grandfather, her dad was at our house cause 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.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  And she kept crying. I was like, what's going on? And she's like, that car, it's, it's so white trash. And I just like looked around James Island like.

• 40:57Rich Roll?

  Where do we live?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, I should have parked it behind the castle. Like little shit like that, I remember cause it's literally felt like.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  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?

• 41:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  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 swollen, bloody eye and, and you just deal with it and you go to a new town and you hope.

• 41:44Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  They're not gonna be like that. And of course, the nature of that is, you know, kick dogs get kicked.

• 41:51Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  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 and moved to California, was moving, we were gonna 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 had like ripped 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

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I just like collapsed. I left her, she found a big bag of syringes. She had no idea I even got high.

• 42:42Rich Roll?

  So you were doing the IV thing. Was that going on the whole time?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:55Rich Roll?

  But when you got out of the army, then back to the needle?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  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 twenty-four Budweisers and was like, had to pee all the time and wasn't buzzed and was really annoyed. So I started drinking liquor.

• 43:15Rich Roll?

  Twenty-four, twenty-four beers, no buzz?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing. I'd been in Germany, I mean.

• 43:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're used to the triple.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  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's just, I never saw a red flag. So I got wasted that night, like really drunk and my friend was like, dude, you gotta 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. And it was like, oh, good, back.

• 43:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  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 ex-militar, 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.

• 44:53Rich Roll?

  Did that like kind of qualitatively like change things? I mean, that's what I hear with, I've never done crack.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  It destroyed, it completely destroyed me, my life, my mind, my body in probably five months.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  I just smoked it non-stop. It was amazing. Such an amazing high. And I never saw.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  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, like 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.

• 46:01Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  No fire escapes. And after about six days of that.

• 46:05Rich Roll?

  Invisible friends.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  I got so aggravated. I'm like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. It's so loud.

• 46:10Rich Roll?

  Like crack induced psychosis.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  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. Cause I would just get really offensive and like, and I just went. I went super duper duper duper crazy. Crazy than I had ever been from too much acid or lack of sleep or coke or pills.

• 46:38Rich Roll?

  So you have this apartment, but you're literally just walking around in the streets and like sleeping on the sidewalk or what are you doing?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  No, I would sleep usually on a bench by the public library in Long Beach. I don't want to 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. Cause 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 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.

• 47:15Rich Roll?

  And how long, how long did this go on for?

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Probably about five months, the whole time I was doing crack.

• 47:23Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  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. Cause there's so much cool shit to pick up.

• 47:37Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  When you're out of your mind and like the sun hits it and you're like, shiny mine.

• 47:41Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  So I started acquiring things.

• 47:44Rich Roll?

  You're actually pushing, you're pushing a shopping cart around?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Well, I was strolling with one. It didn't feel like pushing. Pushing sounds like a lot of effort and work.

• 47:53Rich Roll?

  God forbid, I don't want to mischaracterize this.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I just, you know, had my stuff with me.

• 47:58Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Well, I had other people's stuff that was now mine.

• 48:01Rich Roll?

  And you have any friends at this point who are trying to, you know, intervene a little bit? I mean, there must be people in your life who are starting to freak out.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  But I would write checks to people I smoked crack with for like eight hundred and sixty dollars. And I'd be like, go cash this. And I'd write it out in their name.

• 48:31Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Forge it. They'd go to the bank and cash it and I'd give them forty dollars. And then they all started getting arrested for that check.

• 48:38Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  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 too.

• 49:00Rich Roll?

  And how does this, you know, where does this end up? Like, how does it play out? This is only going in one direction.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, to awesome town.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 49:23Rich Roll?

  And is this like, what year are we talking about? Like eighty six or something? Eighty nine, alright.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Eighty nine 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-

• 49:40Rich Roll?

  By choice, you had an apartment.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  It's very strange.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  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.

• 50:10Rich Roll?

  Like weird OCD thing going on.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  I don't, that's a nice way of calling completely fucking insane.

• 50:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Oh, he had OCD. So that's what I turned into, this guy who would just like 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 gonna 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.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  So I had a really terrible day because there were like forty-five homeless dudes in my area and I-

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  That's a common thing though, when you start doing that volume of drugs, you start to think there's people, you, you, you develop that paranoia where you think people are out to get you or whether they're undercover agents or otherwise.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  I'd 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 gonna 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 those big, uh, giant satellite balloons they used to send up? Mm-hmm. Those big, clear kinda looking ones? I felt like that was my mind and it had gotten a rip and it started tearing. And I couldn't, cuz 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

• 52:02Speaker 01

  really pushed it. But this time I was like, oh no, I've, I've gone Past the point of no return. Way into crazyville. Uh-huh. 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 3,000 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, 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.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  It was getting a little weird for me. Yeah. So I remember I sat down, I, I, 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, like the, the, yeah, 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.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  And I went over to reach for my crack pipe and I felt that happen to me inside. And I was like, oh no, I'm gonna die. So. I called my mom, I was like, cause that's what all tough guys do.

• 53:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  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. And I was like, shit, that never occurred to me.

• 54:01Rich Roll?

  So they were checking in with you and you would answer the phone and tell some crazy story about some, you know?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Working on fighter jets or, you know?

• 54:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Shit, the same crazy shit my dad used to do.

• 54:12Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Which was weird. Oh, 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 gonna die. Not like, I need to get better. I have to stop. Like, I just, I was like, okay, 27 peaked, had a pretty good adventure, you know? Well, like one of the very first copies of Blue Monday when it came out on vinyl, you know, met Freddie Mercury when I was doing 32 hits of acid.

• 54:43Rich Roll?

  In Germany?

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, this giant gay bar. We used to go to this giant gay bar and buy sheets of acid, a hundred sheets of blotter acid and then sell in the barracks for an enormous profit.

• 54:53Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 55:03Rich Roll?

  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 must, like the whole package is there.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 55:12Rich Roll?

  At the time, like culturally, it didn't, you didn't do that math for some reason.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  And also meeting somebody at that level

• 55:20Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  was fucking unheard of unless they did a press interview and the cameras were always way back.

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  There was no, yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  There was no celebrity.

• 55:29Rich Roll?

  Disconnected from, from a celebrity, right?

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And to like actually meet this guy and the guy I was with. Was the chaplain of the base where I was stationed, his driver.

• 55:40Rich Roll?

  So wait, hold on a second. You went to a gay bar in Frankfurt with the chaplain?

• 55:44Speaker 01

  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, it wasn't a big deal to me. And, but, you know, Mark, he kept his, you know, his uniform.

• 55:58Rich Roll?

  He kept it locked down.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, he borrowed the chaplain's, 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 were like tons of them. But we would go up to this bar because he knew where to get it and like, I'd get the money. We do this. I met Freddie Mercury. I'd done, I realized I'd taken eight hits of Superman. It was called Ubermints, bladder acid. Cause you, it's called a four-way because you tear a piece of a square into four and you take one.

• 56:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And you took eight?

• 56:31Speaker 01

  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. I also attended.

• 56:40Rich Roll?

  What did Freddie say to you?

• 56:41Speaker 01

  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. I'm, part of me was like, super naive.

• 56:50Rich Roll?

  You're in a gay bar, though.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  But you don't know that Freddie Mercury's gay.

• 56:53Rich Roll?

  Right, okay.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  I mean, who would know that?

• 56:58Speaker 01

  I mean, a giant guy. This place held 5,000 people.

• 57:00Rich Roll?

  Right, like a massive club.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  The, the DJ booth was a fire truck.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  A whole fire truck, not painted on the wall, like a hole. It was, it was gigantic.

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  That's good times, man.

• 57:13Speaker 01

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

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, a coat with a cape?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  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. These fucking like 30 dudes, all fucking, I don't know if there were steroids back then, but. Giant dudes in little white shorts and little wife beaters, but big ass motherfuckers carrying the thing.

• 57:50Rich Roll?

  Right, his entourage.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  It had a big, it looked like a chick who was the wicked witch.

• 57:54Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  And Snow White, but with a little leather cap on and then, you know, took it off and a little mustache and like shorts.

• 58:02Rich Roll?

  That is so amazing.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  So my buddy ran us down there and was like, oh, I need to talk to Freddie Mercury. And these big German, I was like, wow, we're gonna get beat to death by these. But they let us in the circle. I was high as shit, but when he spoke, I was just like, oh, he's from England.

• 58:20Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  And 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 it was like, and that was the extent of it. It wasn't like, oh, here's why I wrote this song, Chris. I was out of my fucking mind.

• 58:32Rich Roll?

  All right, so back to mom. You're at the end. You tell your mom, I've been smoking crack.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  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 gonna go live with Jesus and grow corn and shit. I don't know what the fuck I'm in for.

• 58:57Rich Roll?

  And you're like 26 at this point or something?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Twenty seven.

• 59:00Rich Roll?

  Twenty seven, uh huh.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Fried. So, everything went wrong. These people were like, oh, we're gonna 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 5:00 in the morning. And I remember eating in this Denny's. I had a little money, 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.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  It was about Marco Polo doing the, when he originated the Safran 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, smoked crack, came out, and they're like-

• 59:57Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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, I, 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. We got into the hospital and we got off the elevator.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  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 of 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. And I'm like, oh, it's a bummer. They gave me like half of an Ativan, which Ativan is just simply Valium.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  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 a 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 equality of people that were in my room, that they should leave, a couple of people hung around and they were like, you sad fucker, like, we're gonna help you. Like, I didn't realize I was in trouble. I was like, okay, I'm gonna die.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  And then I didn't.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  So there wasn't like, it wasn't like you had this moment of willingness to, you know,

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Fuck no.

• 1:02:00Rich Roll?

  Basically try to.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  And what happened was they took me into a couple of 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.

• 1:02:22Rich Roll?

  Was there like a disappointment that you woke up, like now you're gonna have to live?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Dude, no plan B. Really. It's like, oh, 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.

• 1:02:42Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Bewilderment. I mean, it was.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:03:21Rich Roll?

  Well, you didn't have, you didn't have a desire to be sober at that point.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  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, oh, in a hospital.

• 1:03:46Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And they were like. Get you tossed out there or did that help like sort of shatter the denial and get you to that place of willingness?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  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 ma- I emptied the soda and I started making a, a pipe. And while I was doing this, I remember Claire Zabel 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 is happening 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 a nape 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 pissed off. Yeah, in my detox room.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  You know, I'm like a crocodile, just like jumping on a fucking frog eating 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 all my clothes away, I weigh 130. So, one guy's like, "Dude, you're like a... Someone stuck broomsticks in skin." And is talking about the Civil War, like, "Shut up."

• 1:05:50Rich Roll?

  130? Yeah. Yeah, 'cause you're like, probably, what are you right now, like 175, 180, something like that?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  193.

• 1:05:56Rich Roll?

  193, yeah, so... That's, that's a huge difference.

• 1:06:09Rich Roll?

  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, uh... You in action. And you're somebody who is tremendously of service, incredibly giving in this program. And also, you know, unbelievably articulate in how you, um... Speak about recovery, in the way you kind of lend an, uh, an open hand to helping new people get introduced to these ideas.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  I try to emulate exactly what was handed to me. And the first thing was, 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 didn't, 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.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  Right, it's like having wheatgrass juice or something.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  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 gonna die, 'cause... You know, it's basically become...

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  A lot of them have turned into, and this is simply my opinion. You know, like, parents who are like, they don't know what the fuck, bad parents. And they're like, here, like they're sending them to summer camp.

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  They're like, oh, you're going to drug camp.

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  Or like law school, law school or rehab.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  I don't know what to do with my life.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Law school's cheaper now.

• 1:07:57Rich Roll?

  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 in Malibu than anywhere on the planet. And 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, you know, maybe are okay, maybe not, and just house these people for a while and get them through 30 days and, and bank a bunch of, you know, checks.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  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 eighties when they pulled all the funding. Same thing with mental health facilities and like, you know, the disabled, like now all, it's all private. It's all insurance. It's all profitable.

• 1:08:55Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  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 LA. I mean, remember there were all these people doing these staged fucking car accidents all the time.

• 1:09:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:09:40Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Well, yeah.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  It's kind of distasteful.

• 1:09:42Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Well, 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, sober living, you know, all these sorts of things that didn't. I mean, did this even exist 20 years ago?

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  I saw an ad with like some dude from some kooky show from the seventies. At some satellite university of fill in the blank like and their big thing was like trained to be a drug counselor.

• 1:10:19Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Like, you know, work from home, like that kind of shit. And I was just like, are you fucking kidding?

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  It's like be a therapist online, you know? I'm like, I guess if you're gonna be a phone psychic, you can work in a rehab.

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  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?

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  I, 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 forty nine 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, 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.

• 1:11:22Rich Roll?

  So how did you wrap your head around that spiritual component?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  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 still weighed a hundred and thirty, 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 wanna see dramatic?

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Like, let's go out drinking.

• 1:12:13Rich Roll?

  It gets dramatic quick.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  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

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  or some, something. Like alcohol and drugs hit me the way they're not, they don't hit other people.

• 1:13:03Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  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, 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 announce that I'm in.

• 1:13:27Rich Roll?

  Ever since I've been around, which is, you know, over 18 years at this point, uh, you know, I remember seeing you, you know, I've, 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 of vacillate in their level of, you know, emotional and physical investment in their own personal sobriety and recovery. It's something that I've dealt with, you know, I'm kind of, uh, 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

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  single day of your life. Like, how do you remain connected to that as a priority? When it's been so many years.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Well, I've watched what happens.

• 1:14:18Rich Roll?

  So it's been 20 some odd, how many years at this point?

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  26.

• 1:14:21Rich Roll?

  26 years now.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is weird. But...

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  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 gonna break the phone, or throw it on the ground, or it drops something, or cuts your finger. If you're just like, "Oh, how do I get that out?" And read some instructions, or like, put a little thing in, click, you'll feel the gentle click, pull it out, oh.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  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 one hundred percent self-responsibility. I think that, at least for me, is one of the keys to a very happy life. That doesn't look humdrum, in typical, and

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  on and on. I mean, I, I literally feel every day like,

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  like when I was ten and eleven, and like, the weather, or maybe twelve, 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 gonna be fifty-four in a few months. And I have bills in the 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, we have cars.

• 1:16:29Rich Roll?

  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, ah, 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, well, 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.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  Which I get from this magical world, you know, 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

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  But it's something for me, like, I actually understand that in my own life. But maintaining that in the forefront of my consciousness on a daily basis as I, you know, 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, because I forget, or, you know, I don't want to believe that it's that stuff in that moment.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Sure. I don't know. It works for me. 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.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  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 ya, and it's just a fucking gentle, lazy river and like, you know, stop here if you want. Oh, chocolate mountain. How about over here?

• 1:18:42Rich Roll?

  (laughing)

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Books you might be interested in. Here's 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 thirty-two 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.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  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 miss that, I don't have the right to be like, oh, maybe I'm a little ADHD, or whatever the fuck's gonna be on Time Magazine next week.

• 1:19:49Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Because, especially in LA, everybody's got it.

• 1:19:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, and speaking of that, and this is something that's come up on the podcast frequently, you know, every couple of years, somebody has, you know, 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, you know, methodology. Like, how do you process all of that? What's your perspective on that?

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Well-

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  Whether it's plant medicine or, you know, some new therapy technique.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  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 gotta 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, that, 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.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  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,

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  you know, 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, makes sense." Now it just sounds cute. I'm not alarmed. "Little baby's always making noise." And doctor's 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 somebody, because I've gotten lots of bad parenting advice. It's like, I'm sure,

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  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 gonna change the planet. I'll bet you $100 cash, some fucking idiot's gonna come out, or a well-meaning human being, let me not rush to judgment, is gonna 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

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  what NASA...

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:22:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Live on a cot, whatever he 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.

• 1:23:18Rich Roll?

  I mean, that's an experience that you've had a lot of those experiences.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  Well, I hang out with interesting people.

• 1:23:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, you've had a lot of friends die.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:23:40Rich Roll?

  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 tuned, 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.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  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

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  pretty 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 podcasts all the time.

• 1:25:28Rich Roll?

  But you're incredibly observant, you know. You, I've seen this a million times where at the right moment, you always tend to say like this amazing thing that will like shift the energy of whatever room we happen to be sitting in.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  And that stuff occurs to me. I don't have a script in my head.

• 1:25:47Rich Roll?

  No, it's totally spontaneous.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  It's my intuition. Like, half the time, if I'm thinking about stuff...

• 1:25:55Rich Roll?

  That's, 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, you know, the insight that you have into your own recovery and this level of self-awareness stands in such incredibly dark, you know, profound contrast to the lack of insight that you had when 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, is shocking to me. Like, how could you not know that? Like, that lack of self-awareness to this

• 1:26:40Rich Roll?

  point now where you have this incredible intuition about, you know, what to say and a lot of, and an incredible level of self-awareness about where you stand and where you're at.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Well, I think the, having to face myself and really look...

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  At all of my foibles and realize, I mean, I could have gone two ways. I could have killed myself out of shame, 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, I, which is exactly what fucking happened to me. I was there the whole time and just destroyed my life. I was in a victim of shit, other than bullying by myself. It sounded like friendly chit chat. So, I think now I'm like, well, let me conquer

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  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 like, I really have the freedom from learning. Cause 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

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  think religion uses that stuff because that's the same ideal, 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 kinda 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

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  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. Like, I've learned to be gentle and kind.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  At least in my actions toward other people because

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  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 the stuff I learn and just fill my pockets.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  And be greedy with it.

• 1:30:02Rich Roll?

  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're, 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 got, I don't, like, I don't, it's not like you have. I'm like, what do you do, Chris?

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  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 some.

• 1:30:34Rich Roll?

  Like making like large scale uh, images of space for NASA like one week.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're actually supposed, there's two four foot by 10 spots up there.

• 1:30:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:30:53Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. But for years, you were, you worked in production for years, right?

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  A lot of commercials and a lot of music videos.

• 1:31:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  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'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.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:31:44Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  And my brother who, who went to college, studied real estate and has worked in real estate through good times and bad times, stuck with it, raised a family, really been an asset to this 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, 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 like called the golden shackles.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Cause you're like, you're working 19, 20 hours a day.

• 1:32:31Rich Roll?

  And when you're working, the money's really good.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  The money's really good.

• 1:32:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  In perspective at the time for that kind of job.

• 1:32:39Rich Roll?

  It's that carny lifestyle, like you're, you're.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 1:32:42Rich Roll?

  Job to job.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  And for a while I loved it, but a part of me changed and I didn't anymore.

• 1:32:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So how did you reinvent yourself? Like, how did you figure out what you were gonna do next?

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  I got fired off a couple of 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 and 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.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  And then when I do, like weird shit occurs and I'm like, oh, I'll try that. Like I, I worked in the mailroom at E when E first started.

• 1:33:35Rich Roll?

  When you have that courage to just jump and like not, not know where the net is.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  The courage is almost like, I can't fucking stand not doing it.

• 1:33:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  I'm not a brave dude.

• 1:33:49Rich Roll?

  But, but having the trust that if you make that move, that something will show up and fill that gap.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Well, I haven't died from it yet. So I'm like, well, maybe this is the time, but I doubt it. Like I try not to call my own shots.

• 1:34:02Rich Roll?

  It's part of the overall surrender equation though, right?

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  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 going to 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.

• 1:34:42Rich Roll?

  What your head, what your head is telling you versus like your higher consciousness, deeper instinct.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  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 going to wear those pants?

• 1:35:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, now I'm just like, dude, shut the fuck up.

• 1:35:20Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Like now we're going to listen to really loud Devo in the car. Like just shut up. And I've just learned like, maybe I'm insane, but my life doesn't look insane.

• 1:35:33Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  It doesn't like I.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  You have a good, you have a good life. You have, you have a good setup.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:35:56Rich Roll?

  This is the tough life you live.

• 1:36:00Rich Roll?

  With that level of, of self-awareness though, with that kind of acute, you know, radar. If you could go back and, you know, chat with yourself at age 20, what would you tell that guy?

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  I would have gone back to 13 and 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, $80,000.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  And then I could have bought Kiawah Island, Seabrook Island, Hilton Head. All of that shit was undeveloped. They were just dirty islands. There was nothing there. I'd go back because my nature.

• 1:36:37Rich Roll?

  So you'd go back and make a big real estate deal.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  That's it. Yeah. Not help people, but you've seen it in the Twilight Zone and all that stuff. When you try to imagine going back with good intentions, it always ends you're the guy that's like, dude, they're going to kill Abraham Lincoln. They're like, shut up, you crazy man, witch. There's a play going on and then bam, and they're like, hey, that guy knew it. Kill him.

• 1:37:00Rich Roll?

  No, every domino had to fall for a reason to get you to this place.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  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, 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 we're like, whoa, what great form. Holy shit. Why did he do that? And the next morning I'm like, I bet I could do a gainer. You know, and you never hear the noise of the grinder. I, I just, I found a freedom.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  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, 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, you know, or his mom?

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  And she got locked up and she's crazy. And look at those ears like Alice in Wonderland when she falls into like Flowerland? And they're like, what kind of flower are you? And she's like, I'm not. And they, they all start talking shit. It's the, like Walt Disney knew it. Like everybody, I'm sure there's stories in the Bible and the Quran. It's all the same. 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, it's a little strange because if you, 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,

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  The system is human beings.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  Some are gonna mess up the 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.

• 1:40:14Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, unless like somebody has like some really fucked up shoes or something or a bad haircut, then I can't help it.

• 1:40:31Rich Roll?

  All bets are off.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  I won't say it to them, but in my head, there's a fucking routine going on.

• 1:40:36Rich Roll?

  What is, what is the daily routine of Chris Davis? Like, how do you keep yourself in check?

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  I get up, I kinda review what I'm gonna do for the day and meditate for about, you know, four or five minutes.

• 1:40:53Rich Roll?

  You do that every day?

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:54Rich Roll?

  Is there any kind of method to the, the meditation?

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  I just do it. I just, I just, no, 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 wanna 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.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  One person tries, it's a comedy routine. Their brain's gonna explode.

• 1:41:59Rich Roll?

  Right. But you enter into, into life from this perspective of service.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  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 gonna 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, it's, I don't know, I

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  really can't explain it, other than, I go along for the ride. So, in the morning, I basically, it's kinda like a lazy river, but I just picture myself on this giant cliff, and I just jump off. And, something catches me. And I'm like, I'm gonna jump, catch me, 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

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  who don't like me are. They're like, how things keep unfolding.

• 1:43:34Rich Roll?

  How does that guy's life keep getting better?

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  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 get better. But, you know, I don't give a fuck about it. I mean, I have a really thin closet, you know, got an old car, like, I'm not rocking anything. But I really appreciate...

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  And enjoy the stuff that I have.

• 1:44:02Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  I do jihad on my fucking ego.

• 1:44:30Rich Roll?

  Taking yourself out of the equation is the secret to improving your own life.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  And if I take myself out of it, there's no risk of my ego showing up.

• 1:44:42Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Now, when it tries to show up, I can tell. I'm like, ah, motherfucker. You did nothing.

• 1:44:51Rich Roll?

  I just.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Rip me off.

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  I just realized the title for this podcast is going to be Chris Davis Goes Jihad on the Ego.

• 1:45:00Rich Roll?

  I like that. What are some of the books that you've read that have had the biggest impact on you?

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  There's this woman that I discovered. Do you remember the Bodhi Tree?

• 1:45:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  I used to go down there all the time because I'm like, oh, fucking read some of this hippie shit.

• 1:45:17Rich Roll?

  Like, yeah, it's like a new age bookstore that was right next to.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  It's now going to get turned into fucking Forever 21 or some horrible.

• 1:45:24Rich Roll?

  But I think, weren't they reopening the Bodhi Tree somewhere else?

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  Well, not that one. I just went by. They're tearing it down. Wonderful bookstore. You know, it smelled like nogchampa. Is that how you pronounce that?

• 1:45:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the incense.

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  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. 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,

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  It's 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 a 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 wanna 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, I guess this is the point where I go crazy. So I pulled in, got, you know, the basic car wash and I was like, okay, nobody was around, so I was like,

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  sitting on this bench smoking a cigarette and this dude came in that I recognized and he's like, what's going on? I had just like had a breakup with this girlfriend. Who didn't know we were in a relationship. It was kinda one of those, like, I like fell for this chick and she was like, oh, yeah, no, I can't do that. And it was like, but now I see it was like one of these break open things, 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 was like, what's going on? I'm like, blah, blah, blah. You know, not a sob story, just tell them 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. He lived like right on the other side of this fence from the car wash.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  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 Bodhi tray. I'm like, do you have this book? And it was called The Game of Life and How to Play It. By this woman named Florence Scoville Shin. Who was part of the new thought movement, I guess in the twenties or thirties in Manhattan. She was like a teacher. She taught, um,

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Who wrote Sermon on the Mount?

• 1:48:20Rich Roll?

  Oh man.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Emmett Fox?

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  Uh. Is it Emmett Fox?

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Some listener will be screaming.

• 1:48:25Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  It's not Jeopardy. I don't give a fuck.

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  Emmett Fox.

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  But he was one of the people who she taught.

• 1:48:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  And I opened this book and it went right to a section about love and heartbreak and it was like boom, boom, boom.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  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 gotta play it. You gotta show. There are certain rules. And if you say these things, you're gonna 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.

• 1:49:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  So I bought that book and I've just been reading that on occasion.

• 1:49:15Rich Roll?

  So this is recent? So this is, this didn't all happen recent?

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  Twenty years ago.

• 1:49:19Rich Roll?

  You go, you just go back to?

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  Twenty years ago. Anyway, when this happened, when I found this book by Florence Shin, 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 kinda 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 was like, oh, it's real.

• 1:49:50Rich Roll?

  So you actually implemented it and it had practical like ramifications?

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:50:01Rich Roll?

  Anywhere.

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  I, I, I'd never heard of it. So I started looking into it. And I, I really dig it. Like, it's.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  I prac- it's just funny. It's like there's all this shit that works around.

• 1:50:14Rich Roll?

  So what would be like one of the, one of the things you would practice out of that?

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Well, if you have 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, uh, new chemo done. And then I saw this thing on the monitor and I was like, oh 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, I kept talking to him.

• 1:51:02Rich Roll?

  Throughout liver cancer, you thought your liver was where your lung was?

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:51:16Rich Roll?

  And I don't want to like cavalierly skip over the fact that you had liver cancer, but.

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  But I don't anymore. I had it.

• 1:51:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I wasn't even sure that was something that you wanted to talk about. And 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. Um, but I would see you, you know, throughout that and you'd be like, you'd never would say, oh, you, you would never play the victim throughout that whole thing. Just like, yeah.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  Except in the days 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 you know, it worked.

• 1:51:55Rich Roll?

  And fully in remission now.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. And I also like changed my diet. I went super plant-based. I went disgustingly plant-based, but it worked, you know? I went to go see this healer lady and she's like, eat this, but do the Western medicine, like don't be that guy. And you know, the combination, I still go back and that was a couple of years ago. So I go to UCLA every couple of months to get fully scanned and checked and like, you know, blood tests and CT scans. And they're just like. What's up with you? And I was like, I practice Wiccan, 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

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  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 gonna be dead in 14 months.

• 1:52:57Rich Roll?

  Is that what they told you?

• 1:52:58Speaker 01

  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 gotta get your affairs in order. I go, I've seen that shit on TV. What does that mean? And he goes, like, when am I in a casket? And he's like, 14 months, tops. So I was like, okay.

• 1:53:15Rich Roll?

  You didn't, I didn't know it was that dire.

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  The funny thing was, you know, they, 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? And he was like, like a fucking grapefruit. And I was like,

• 1:53:45Rich Roll?

  It was that big?

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:53:58Rich Roll?

  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?

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Well, my wife could.

• 1:54:07Rich Roll?

  Process that.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  She could get everything in order.

• 1:54:09Rich Roll?

  How did you, you know, how'd you wake up the next day and move forward?

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  I was like, I gotta find, you know, 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, you know, my wife, you know, 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 gotta go take care. I met this young hotshot guy who does, um, radiology.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  So I didn't know what the fuck that 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 in the artery into the cancer. Filled it with like these time released 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.

• 1:55:30Rich Roll?

  Exactly, except close your mouth and plug your nose.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  Exactly, which is exactly what it felt like. But he went in and I was like, listen, I'm probably gonna 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.

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:56:15Rich Roll?

  Wow, so two, two sessions and it just exploded it.

• 1:56:20Speaker 01

  Done, 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, 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,

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  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 gonna 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 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

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  shit. They don't show that shit on TV. And that's pretty much where I've learned everything.

• 1:57:44Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  Alive, dead with the umbilical cord.

• 1:57:58Rich Roll?

  And when 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 gonna do. You know, like, that's never been.

• 1:58:12Speaker 01

  But then you turn into a victim. 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 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.

• 1:58:37Rich Roll?

  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, 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, you know, reflect this, you know, reality of temporal mortality?

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  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. We got a Mountain Dew, my favorite. I had salt, sugar, nothing, nothing but fucking 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,

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  this donut was like, hey fucker, 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, now the cancer's in your elbows, or you know, whatever the fuck. I grew up watching TV. So I've seen every delivery of bad news that you could ever write or create. So that's

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  what I go on, you know. I don't watch too much ER, but I watch all these other weird shows. So I imagine bad things are gonna happen. So I had to, 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. 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. It's, once again, it's like.

• 2:01:14Rich Roll?

  That's the thing.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  So you know, I got my own struggles, but they're fun. You know, they certainly keep me right sized.

• 2:01:25Rich Roll?

  We gotta close it down here, but I gotta ask you one more thing before we go.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:01:31Rich Roll?

  And that is, you know, you could probably see this coming, but it's really to...

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  I have no idea what you're up to.

• 2:01:37Rich Roll?

  Oh, come on, man.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 2:01:40Rich Roll?

  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?

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  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, free Western world, everybody's like, self-help,

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  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..."

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  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 of 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 masses 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, Free Bird, the big guitar part was playing.

• 2:04:00Speaker 01

  But I don't remember that part of the conversation. I remember afterwards, you know, we went over here and listened 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 cleared. 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?

• 2:04:29Rich Roll?

  Well, I think what it is, is, is this bizarre spiritual equation that bends the time-space continuum in some kind of strange way. Where that shift where you click, you know, 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, the universe conspiring to support you. Like something happens where when you tap into that, that desire to improve in a very genuine way. And you're able to kind of shut off the chatter of the thinking mind.

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  Under the threat of potential death.

• 2:05:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  Or terminal homelessness.

• 2:05:11Rich Roll?

  It doesn't even matter what motivated you to get there, but once you're there, stuff happens.

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:05:18Rich Roll?

  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.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:05:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nobody teaches, nobody, nobody teaches you how to ask for help.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  But if you are drowning, the Boy Scouts teach you to yell, "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, so.

• 2:06:23Rich Roll?

  But that butts up against this kind of masculine prerogative that to ask for help is to imply weakness.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  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, I, that's what I look at, the grim reality of it, you know, and I, 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 kinda pointless and kinda meandering and boring. But the second I ask for help, I mean, it's unreal. Unreal. Like, I fucking got it. There really is something. I'm sure there's somebody, like, picturing me in, like,

• 2:07:15Speaker 01

  some dirty old worn-out, like, wizard costume right now. I'm sure we sound like that on the radio.

• 2:07:22Rich Roll?

  No, you look like, you, you look like you just walked offstage with social distortion. You know? You have this sort of, like, skater punk, you know?

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  It's weird, because I'm totally in the new wave.

• 2:07:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But, uh, no, you're hip. You look like, you, you know, you look like you spent time in Long Beach or maybe Laguna, that you spent time on a surfboard, but also, you know, in the punk scene.

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  Which I never did. I saw The Clash in Nashville in eighty-three.

• 2:07:49Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:07:49Speaker 01

  But that was for the let's, the, the rock, what was it called? Combat Rock Tour. Which was a dance team, which has new waivers. But I saw the show and I was mortified. I was like, what the fuck?

• 2:08:01Rich Roll?

  This is not for me.

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  It's punk rock.

• 2:08:02Rich Roll?

  Well, that's so funny, cause 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 Cro-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.

• 2:08:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that dude's awesome.

• 2:08:22Rich Roll?

  I can't connect emotionally with the music.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  I don't know that much about, I just got turned on Bad Brains five years ago.

• 2:08:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  Which is awesome, which it weird because I really liked them. And John said, those are the people who turned him on to.

• 2:08:36Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. It was all about Bad Brains for him.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:08:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  And New Order and all of them. Dude, I love that shit. Kraftwerk.

• 2:08:50Rich Roll?

  That stuff too.

• 2:08:52Speaker 01

  All of it. I love it. Like that's like happy music. Plus punk rock to me was fuck the government. Basically that. And I'm not gonna 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.

• 2:09:13Rich Roll?

  So you didn't have that rebellion.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  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 of it. I, 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.

• 2:09:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you seem to always have that kind of operating system. You're never like, 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 gonna do this new thing. We'll see how it go, you know, you're just open.

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  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 Joe, 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 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.

• 2:10:35Rich Roll?

  And you've helped a ton of dudes get sober and stay sober.

• 2:10:39Speaker 01

  Some dudes helped me. It just seems the most natural. I would never even question whether or not I'm gonna help somebody. Which is weird because I wasn't that guy before. I was not that guy. They didn't want anything from me. 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 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.

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  That's weirder. Let me go back there. This is frustrating. Let me try this. Just kinda that. Luckily, you know, I stumbled into this. I mean, so far, like, you and I have never been in an argument.

• 2:11:34Rich Roll?

  No, we never have.

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  I don't owe you any money.

• 2:11:36Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  I haven't borrowed anything from you.

• 2:11:39Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. You haven't showed up at my house at three in the morning, knocking on the door.

• 2:11:43Speaker 01

  I don't even know where the fuck you live. Yeah, my address, which is rare. I don't give that thing out, but.

• 2:11:48Rich Roll?

  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.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was wondering, did you ever see that documentary Seinfeld did called Comedian?

• 2:12:10Rich Roll?

  I think maybe I saw parts of it.

• 2:12:13Speaker 01

  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. 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. And he goes, oh, and this guy's here. He's

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  like, oh, he was, uh, Larry David's agent. I may be getting that part wrong. But he was Seinfeld's agent and then now he's Orion Williams agent. Like who's next? The parrot from Beretta? And it was like, and Orion's face just cracked. So when that just kept echoing in my head. I'm like, oh yeah, Arianna 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?

• 2:13:28Rich Roll?

  I gotta keep it, I gotta keep it diverse and eclectic.

• 2:13:33Speaker 01

  Well, you have, cause the eclecticness really threw me. I'm like, there's no Ryan Marie's. I'm like, this dude's batting it out of the park. Like Mind Body Green, like, what's the guy's name? Doug who's doing Juicero?

• 2:13:46Rich Roll?

  Doug Evans.

• 2:13:46Speaker 01

  Dude, I got a man crush on that guy.

• 2:13:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's amazing.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  That dude is awesome. And I get it. And you know, Russell Simmons, I mean, dude, those dudes dropped the fucking Beastie Boys, License to Ill.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  Oh, what a great record.

• 2:14:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Russell's a special guy and you know, it's been

• 2:14:06Speaker 01

  And then me.

• 2:14:06Rich Roll?

  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.

• 2:14:22Speaker 01

  I'm still mystified, but I said I would show up and do this. Like, I love you, I'll support you, do whatever you want.

• 2:14:29Rich Roll?

  How do you think it went?

• 2:14:30Speaker 01

  No one's crying. We're good. The phones haven't been ringing for us to get off the air. There's no phones.

• 2:14:38Rich Roll?

  I thought it was good, Ben. I dug it.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  I enjoy it.

• 2:14:41Rich Roll?

  I love you, man.

• 2:14:41Speaker 01

  It was good, it was a nice break and it's five o'clock. Time for me to go home.

• 2:14:44Rich Roll?

  Let's go. Peace, brother. Plants.

• 2:14:58Rich Roll?

  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, uh, in my sober adventure and journey. So, uh, I appreciate him tremendously and I hope you guys enjoyed our conversation. Uh, 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.

• 2:15:42Rich Roll?

  He's just a dude, uh, 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, 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/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.

• 2:16:56Rich Roll?

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