Crazier Than I Thought (Full Book - Free)

Seeing The Matrix an Autobiography and More

Jan 05, 2025

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ISBN: 9798346172475

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Table Of Contents

Chapter 1 -Introduction Pg. 4

Chapter 2 – The Early Days Pg. 7

Chapter 3 – Becoming Different Pg. 12

Chapter 4 – Little Mr. Perfect Pg. 20

Chapter 5 – Little Mr. Perfect Continued Pg. 35

Chapter 6 – Adderall Pg. 50

Chapter 7 – Fuel, Heal, Feel: All About Drugs Pg. 62

Chapter 8 – Still Okay, Good Even Pg. 76

Chapter 9 – Just A Six Pack Pg. 94

Chapter 10 – The Minor Fall Pg. 113

Chapter 11 – The Major Lift, The Way Down Is The Way Up Pg. 116

Chapter 12 – Getting A Bear Stoned Pg. 137

Chapter 13 – Just Be Nicer, Here Comes The Crazy Pg. 143

Chapter 14 – Tables And More Adderall Was Prescribed Pg. 153

Chapter 15 – Especially Flawed Pg. 163

Chapter 16 – Hurtful Truths And Infectious Lies Pg. 182

Chapter 17 – Cocaine Is Weak Sauce Pg. 200

Chapter 18 – Rehab Pg. 208

Chapter 19 – More Drugs, More Hypnotized And Getting Naked With Annie Pg. 224

Chapter 20 – Even More Drugs? Pg. 242

Chapter 21 – Done Pg. 248

Chapter 22 – DON’T PULL YOUR PARACHUTE! Everything Is A Lie Pg. 260

Chapter 23 – How To Solve All Of Your Problems Pg. 268

Chapter 24 – The Real World, The Matrix Explained And Hypnosis A Hypothesis Pg. 283

Chapter 25 – A Reason To Fight Pg. 30

Chapter 26 – Days In The Life Pg. 315

Chapter 27 – Conclusion Pg. 335

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Drunk and high, the night sky was dark, the city lights were bright, 13,500 feet, the door of the airplane was open, and I was about to jump.

Disclosed within are deep dark personal secrets and truths. Disclosed within are wild stories and adventures, accounts and experiences with drug addiction, skydiving, suicide attempts, amphetamine induced psychosis, massive traumas, being brainwashed by a cult, depression, ego, insecurities, anxiety through the roof and obesity nearing 400lbs.

As to protect others; names, locations, dates and any otherwise incriminating details have been changed.

Within are the ways I have dealt with and overcome; overcome by losing 115 pounds, overcome by starting new businesses, overcome by deprogramming from the matrix and overcome by possibly* setting a world record marathon time. Within are the ways you can deal with all of this uncomfortable shit as well. Within are the ways you and I can both awaken to our true selves and thrive as we were always meant to.

Beyond this is a deep dive into the human mind. A deep dive that scoured for answers as to why we are suffering and answers to why and how the United States has gone completely insane. After such a deep, extensive, relentless, and painstaking 32 yearlong dive, one simple answer came to the surface.

This one simple answer really explains our suffering, and subsequently this one simple answer enables us to thrive in ways never thought possible. Thriving is possible. However, there is a cost. If you decide to continue, if you decide to overcome and become a version of yourself you never thought possible; you must be willing to pay.

The cost – you will never see yourself or the world the same as you do now.

Before proceeding a few notes need to be made. This book is only for those who #1 truly want to thrive and #2 have at least started to wonder what has actually happened to America. That is not some reverse psychology draw tactic, it’s simply the truth.

Feel free to enjoy chapters 2-5, however they aren’t necessarily necessary for this story. Beginning at chapter 6 will be just fine.

Furthermore, many are suffering, and many are suffering now. Due to high demand this book has been RUSHED into production; please forgive any grammatical errors.

Some of that within is written in a way representative of a silver-tongued PhD level linguist, and the inverse is true as well, poop jokes and boobie references will be made.

This book is dedicated to the broken, to the addicted, to the lost and of course to those who are no longer with us. RIP Rick.

Now, Red pill or blue pill?

A legal note: The stories, experiences and opinions within (above and below) are just that; stories, experiences and opinions. Subsequent opinions and statements are NOT intended to be medical advice and are further NOT to be used for the pursuit of illicit, immoral or otherwise unhealthy behavior. By continuing to read you hereby grant the author and all affiliates a full and complete release of liability. All changes to one’s perception of life; physical, spiritual, financial, and otherwise are the sole responsibility to the reader or otherwise consumer of this text.

Chapter 2 - The Early Days

Being the youngest of 3 boys meant I couldn’t rely on speed and power and instead needed to rely on cunning and sneaky approaches. My first memory was walking around the corner to see a pair of hands, “peak a boo” and then bam! my dad appeared. I don’t know where the guy came from! Science does however tell us that children under a certain age simply lack the ability to understand that there may be something behind a door, a wall or even a pair of hands in this case. As we age, we are led to believe that we know and see the obvious; ya know what’s right behind a pair of hands. However, that just isn’t the case and this book is here to help us all see it.

A strong desire to be independent had me walking by month 9. So independent that I had learned how to put pull-up diapers on before I had learned not to poop in them. The sippy cup lid on a Barnie cup made me feel like a child so it had to go. And when it came to the applesauce airplane you can bet, I was the pilot. I remember being so aggravated anytime someone tried to help with anything from shoe tying to wiping my ass. This naturally independent streak seems to have played out through the years in both beautiful and destructive ways.

Like most children I hated wearing clothes; bare ass naked I would run through the orchard of a property my parents were starting to build a house on. A heavy rain led me to put some cowboy boots on, but that was it – a free spirit you could say. I still remember what my parents’ house looked like with its bare wood frame; a truly magical photographic in nature memory. The builders picking up a 2x4, cutting another 2x4 and then nailing them together was the coolest thing ever. A fire inside for the love of building was ignited and stayed blazing for a long time.

Only about 2 at this time, all I could understand about this house building stuff was that 2x4’s, nails and hammers were quite important. Still naked AF, I would scurry about finding all of the scrap nails and 2x4’s I could just to present them to the builders. Wonder what the builders thought of such gestures from a free ballin’ toddler. One day; and this is now creating a tear in my eye, a builder called me over, presented a hammer and nail and told me to hammer it in. Aside from the gift of human flight, the gift of getting to pound a nail into the floor was probably the best gift I have ever received. And wouldn’t ya know – 30 years later the floor still squeaks in that very spot.

While 2x4’s, nails and hammers seemed to be most important to actually building the house, what seemed to be most important to the builders were their “man sized tool belts”. I wanted a man-sized tool belt more than air itself. They were just so cool. All day every day I would talk about, dream about and beg for a man-sized tool belt. And I don’t know how my mom actually found a child sized- man sized tool belt in 1994, however she did, and that Christmas was a special one. When I saw what was inside the box I screamed “a man-sized tool belt”! Words cannot describe the elation, joy and empowerment that thing gave me.

By age five or so I had outgrown said man-sized tool belt and was off to kindergarten. And apparently my free-spirited nature was still with me. I hated wearing underwear, so I didn’t wear any underwear. Without any underwear my testicles were visible to the ladies when we all sat crisscross-applesauce in a circle. The following Monday, my teacher Mrs. M brought me a special present of underwear and she told me not to be embarrassed. It was the first time I had ever felt embarrassed, very, very embarrassed. Guess we all have grow up at some point, and yeah, I have been wearing underwear ever since.

Somewhere around this time my parents started fighting which eventually led to their divorce. While in the kitchen, just opposite the “fireplace room”, as we called it, I would hear tumultuous conversations. Being so young I didn’t know what they were fighting about but I did know that they were not being nice to each other. Why couldn’t they just get along? Why couldn’t they just be nicer to one another? What caused such meanness? Perhaps that’s where I learned how to be such a smack talker as well as someone who just wanted to unite opposing forces.

First, second and third grade were pretty normal you could say. Perhaps I still didn’t have much concept of “self” and therefore fit in quite nicely and was comfortable with conformity. While decent grades came quite easily, my reading comprehension struggled in the third grade. Fortunately, my buddy James was a very proficient reader, but he really struggled with math, and math was my strong suit. We formed quite the cheating scheme together. Whilst giving each other answers I found it important that we disguise our “yeses” and “noes” as to prevent our teacher Mr. I from catching us. Speaking only one language I still felt like a fancy linguist. James and I would disguise our “noes” with statements like “that probably isn’t correct” or “if only it were so easy” and disguise our “yeses” with statements as “a smashing finding you have laid upon” or “that is quite alright my friend”. Mr. I probably knew exactly what we were up to. But hey, finding a way to (at least to us) use a cunning and baffling nature to beat the opposition was fun. Seems there can be great power in the way we use our words.

From the students’ perspective, the social structures that were set up at the grade school I attended were first, second, and third grades; then fourth and fifth grades, and finally sixth, seventh and eighth grades. In the third grade I wanted nothing more than to be in the fourth grade. It wasn’t just a grade higher but the classes were on another part of campus. That different part of campus was like another world; a world of bigger, better, smarter and more powerful people. Such a world must lay the path for ultimate wisdom and truth, right? Mehhh, as it turned out, not so much. In fourth grade we did learn about the California gold rush in the 1800’s and even had a gold rush week which involved searching for gold painted rocks in the sand. These gold painted rocks could then be turned in for “lucky bucks” and small items could be bought with said lucky bucks. Now, our teachers told us about the gold rocks a few weeks before this gold hunt, and I even saw the gold painted rocks they had. So obviously I found a way to get some gold spray paint, picked up a bunch of rocks while walking home from school and in preparation for gold rush week made some of my own friggin gold, man. And well, my counterfeit gold rocks were caught, my lucky bucks were suspended and the fire under my ass for more mischief was lit. P.S. don’t cheat the system, instead game the system.

I was always the chunkier, thicker kid of the group, and around this fourth or fifth grade time our PE teacher checked our weights. Being by far the heaviest all of my class mates they all “ohhed” and “ahhed” at my weight when the teacher called it out. And so what, I didn’t care; I was bigger and far stronger than all of them, beetles under my feet if and when I choose them to be. Now, the truth is I didn’t care at all about what could have been a shameful moment until the PE teacher later approached me with a private apology for the event. That is when the real shame kicked in, that’s when I first felt different than others, that’s when everything changed.

By this point my parents’ divorce was finalized; my dad kept the house and my mom went from rental to rental before finally buying another house herself. During these years my two older brothers and I would spend Monday through Wednesday with mom and Thursday through Sunday with dad. You could say this was comforting because I knew when I would get to see who. There were no more nights of screaming, crying and begging for my mother. This lasted just a few years until my mom decided to full time move back to Colorado to take care of her mom. Aside from a number of visits to Colorado myself, that was the last time I really spent that much time with my mom.

Chapter 3 - Becoming Different

The sixth, seventh and eighth grade regimes were next, and this is when I really became interested in people. Quickly I became both very curious and fascinated by the behavior, actions, ways of thinking, dressing and speaking of different people. Even more so was I curious about the ways of interaction that different groups of people adopted and used. It would be incorrect to say that cliques and groups didn’t exist in the fifth grade and all of the sudden did in the sixth grade, however I feel the 6^th grade is when the different peoples of the school yard began to truly form alliances. Stereotype others I did and still do; yearn for and pray for unity between everyone it’s true, I still do.

Experts say that it is very common for us to feel different than others, and supposed experts say that more often than not the truth is that we are all very similar to one another. Maslow’s law as pertaining to the hierarchy of human needs states that our needs are; physiological (air, water, food, etc.) first, then safety (personal security, money, health, etc.), next is love and belonging (friends, family, acquaintances, etc.), then esteem and finally self-actualization. Sure, looking at the construct of what a human is and what a human needs, we are all similar with these needs being core to us. However, the way we go about securing and receiving these needs can vary drastically. It’s safe to say at this point I saw things differently than my peers, went about things differently than my peers and searched for things differently than my peers.

Around this time my oldest brother became interested in SCUBA diving and before you knew it, I was taking SCUBA lessons with him. It was about a 45-minute drive from my home town to the world-famous Monterey Ca where the SCUBA school was. My relationship with my brother was a bit rough in the early years and this gave us a little time to bond, which was nice. The school consisted of several nights of book learning, then getting hands-on experience with the gear. The next step was going SCUBA diving in a pool, and finally we did a few open water dives. Truth be told I didn’t really like water and the idea of somehow losing air while under water terrified me. Really what drove me to do it was my thought that doing something as crazy as SCUBA would somehow get me some street creds, would somehow enable me to take some souls and make motherfuckers say “damn”. Turns out life isn’t only about being the craziest and most outlandish person around; however, it took another 20 plus years to realize this.

Even as headstrong, egotistical and gung-ho as I was, I remember questioning if someone as young as I was should really be SCUBA diving, but hey, backing out wasn’t an option. In the pool we learned how to control our buoyancy – basically learning how to float underwater. We also learned how to remove and put our mask back on, remove and replace the mouthpiece that provides us with air and more. I was still pretty portly at this time which meant I needed to wear a lot of counterweights. Since I had no ass but big love handles, I really had to strap the weight belt tight. And lo and behold on one of the pool dives my weight belt popped off due to a retaining pin on the buckle coming undone. With loss of all of my counterweight I shot to the top of the pool. Good thing I was just in the pool about eight feet under water, not, oh let’s say in the ocean sixty feet under water.

Next were our three or four open water ocean dives we needed to complete in order to get our SCUBA certifications. Conditions were rough and visibility was very poor. I remember other instructors deciding it was too dangerous for students and called the day off. Not for us though; my brother, another gentleman in our class and I all followed our instructor into the water. About one fifty yards from shore, we met our instructor at a tagline that went to the ocean floor. Using the tagline we all proceeded to the ocean floor about sixty feet underwater. Here we again did the drills of removing and replacing gear, confirming we understood our communicative hand signals, etc. All went well and we proceeded back to shore to refill our air.

During the next ocean dive we actually swam around exploring sea urchins, fish, cool sea rocks and more. It was really pretty cool man, breathing underwater, exploring a world humans know little about and having others around to experience the same thing is something I will never forget. SWOOOOOSH!!!! Out of freaking nowhere a massive sea lion flew past us going Mach 1. It was less than ten feet from us! It freaked everyone out. This was the first time I felt truly mortal, truly outgunned and completely powerless. I completely surrendered, and the level of peace that accompanied that surrender was something very special.

On the next dive we were all at the tagline sixty feet under water and after a few more drills we started to go exploring again, but then - “ting”. My weight belt popped off, and I was in trouble. See, when you are that far underwater you must surface slowly as to avoid the bends. Surfacing too rapidly can be deadly. Quickly I grabbed my BCD and tried to rid my vest of air and when I started to quickly rise, I inverted myself and tried my hardest to swim downwards. But this was all to no avail. I was in trouble and I knew it; shooting to the surface I was becoming dizzy, my ears were starting to pop and I was breathing out as fast as possible. What I remember most from this event was how hard I was breathing out (due to the air in my lungs decompressing) “HUHHHHHHH” all the way to the surface, which took 30 seconds or so. When I surfaced, I was fucked up dizzy, confused, ears hurt like hell, I started to go black, leaning forward my face almost hit the water, and that clearly would have been bad. Dazed and confused I took a few deep breaths, that brought me back to reality enough for the danger to be mitigated. Mask on, I put my face back in the water, visibility was better and I could see the three other divers all looking for me. Still not quite with it though, I tried screaming down to them, which doesn’t work in water. Soon the instructor looked up, realized what had happened and the rest of the group surfaced as well. This was the last of my SCUBA diving adventures, but hey I walked away with a piece of paper that said I was certified and capable SCUBA diver (hand on face).

Back at school the girls consisted of 2 or 3 cliques; the preppy ones, the goth gals and the inbetweeners. At this age I had started to like girls a little but they were still grody to the max in some ways. It was quite the conundrum; fortunately, I have since figured that one out. Compared to the boys there was more intermingling between the cliques, especially when it came time to do warring with the boys. When it came time for boy versus girl playground war, the girls would all bond together and create an army that would always defeat the divided boys. Touché ladies; touché.

When it came to the boys, there was the group of jocks, the nerds, the punks and the Hispanics. Oohf! Did I just categorize one group simply based on their ethnicity, eeeek whoops. However, it was kind of true, the relatively small California cowboy town I grew up in consisted of about 70% Caucasians and 30% Hispanics. Back in the day there were some real racial tensions and divisions. It saddens me to say that there was some racism amongst the adults and that did have some trickle-down effects.

Somewhere around this time we were given some sort of writing assignment, and while I do not remember what the writing assignment was exactly, I do remember what I wrote about. Racism, I wrote about racism, I in fact explained racism at its core at its most basic levels. My writing described two tribes from way back in the day; one tribe was made of green people and one tribe was made of blue people. You can bet your booty I had the wisdom not to use black and white as the examples. In this writing, it being from a freaking sixth grader, I explained that one day the green people and blue people met for the first time. I explained that their tribal brains quickly felt FEAR and hence they started fighting. Of course, I made it plain that this was wrong, but I didn’t stray away from the basics that racism is rooted in ignorance (ignorant simply means to be undereducated) which leads directly to fear. And what does a tribal brain do when we fear something? That’s right; we either attack or run.

To be clear, racism is retarded (retarded simply means to lack basic mental capabilities to a meaningful degree). In this modern world, anyone who is afraid of someone based on the color of their skin is actually acting retarded. We can now say; don’t be retarded, don’t be racist.

When it came to relationships and friendships with my peers you could say I was a jack of all trades, master of none. That is, I spent a lot of time between the groups. James, Dill and Josh were my closest friends both at school and at home, however even with said closest group of friends I didn’t completely feel as part of the group. I never felt equal; always lesser or greater. The cult I was inevitably brainwashed by, in part described their members as egomaniacs with an inferiority complex. And while it is important to remember that generalizations can feel acutely accurate “an egomaniac with an inferiority complex” described me to a T.

Always lesser or greater with no or very little middle ground, I often felt quite tumultuous. Whether I was literally in the middle of a group or across the field from a group I would watch, listen and silently question everything everyone did. I would then usually copy, mimic, or try what others were doing. And in the following case it was drugs.

See this was still only around the sixth grade, however a few of the girls got ahold of their aunt’s “happy pills”. They told me a little about them but then shut their mouths. My curiosity was raging; not only would they not share, but they wouldn’t explain them. Once a day as recommended, I would take one allergy pill and without really thinking about it much, one day I took 10 or 12. It definitely got me high, but it wasn’t really a good high. A bit off I felt, slightly dazed with a partially augmented reality. I may have done this a time or two or more but that was it - I mean we don’t really abuse drugs that we don’t like.

Odd, everyone including myself saw me as a goodie two shoes (mehh, for the most part at least). It now being almost 20 years later I am shaking my head in disbelief that I took all those allergy pills. Seems drugs might be a bit like skydiving; the first time is either a big deal or it isn’t and because we usually get away with it, we may try again and again and again.

Like for many other kids, BMX bikes were a big part of my childhood. Early on a buddy and I created quite a silly trick, I think we called it the “dog pee onie” or something like that. We would pedal up to speed then stand on one pedal sticking another leg off to the side of the bike …. and pretend to pee like a dog. Let’s just say boys will be boys. Doing “pop-a-wheelie” and “peg rides” were pretty freaking sweet as well; or at least we all thought so. The route from my dad’s house to the school I attended only went on one main road, and passed through a few pieces of private property and involved climbing through a small ditch and also following a well easement road, but all-in-all the journey was quite doable. Around this time, I and, well even more so my friend had befriended some kids a grade or two above us. Now remember that inferior side? Yeah, well I always yearned for the power, wisdom, knowledge and abilities of the older kids. I saw them as ultimate foreseers. And one day my buddy and the ultimate foreseers, had me leading the group of six BMX riders because we were all going to my house. Or so they said, but as I rode from the main road to the well easement road they just kept on the main road; laughing, laughing and laughing “hahahaha we really ditched that loser”.

Whether it was because of getting ditched or not having much of a relationship with my mother, the hole in my heart is still there. With such vast fears of abandonment, I have since not stayed too close (with few exceptions) to anyone for very long.

While I definitely wasn’t a goodie two shoes, I was a good kid / a good young man with fairly traditional morals, a yearning to unite and a desire to help.

Chapter 4 – Little Mr. Perfect

Many of us have seen or at least heard of the movie “The Matrix”, in which the very nature of the actor Keanu Reeves reality is challenged. Now questioning the very nature of reality is fascinating and very important hence the point of the movie “The Matrix”. And further questioning our programming within the matrix is of equal importance. For a long time, many of the most brilliant and great minds have questioned, discussed and philosophized the true nature of our reality / the matrix. Truth is, I do not know the very nature of reality and I am guessing you don’t either, however I will say that there are many real-life, real-world matrixes within the matrix.

I personally define the matrix or matrixes as states in which we exist where we are unaware of our programming. Along with self-help and personal discovery, along with a hopefully interesting read and informative text, I really hope this book serves to open our eyes to said matrixes and our programming within.

The largest or most overriding matrix of all of the matrixes is the American dream matrix – the American dream of go to school, get a job, save money, buy a house with a white picket fence and 2.3 children. The American dream morals of right and wrong, do bad and go to jail, the nuclear family, don’t do drugs but drink up that beer, hate drug dealers but praise our doctors, etc. Now I am not here to say whether the American dream is right or wrong, good or bad, however it has many of us including myself as a young man on a singular path. Little Mr. Perfect (that was me) was trained and programmed by this matrix, however Little Mr. Perfect isn’t me and never was.

As the formative years led to the constructive years, Little Mr. Perfect was built. Heading from grade school eighth grade, to ninth grade high school was another big step. Again, I thought that this time the older ones in high school must be all powerful and all knowing; silly me. The high school I attended recommended students take some sort of summer school intro class, and wanting to do right and get ahead I took the class. Preseason football camp also occurred during the summer and of course Little Mr. Perfect participated in that as well. Being one of the fresh young bucks around the high school really had my ego and insecurities raging; kind of like always, just at that time more than ever.

The concept of ego and insecurities or “an egomaniac with an inferiority complex” has come up a few times now and I think it’s important to dive into this a little. I believe a lot of the anxiety humans feel is at the intersection of our egos and insecurities. Think about it - our egos (whether big or small) make us feel grandiose, better, more capable, etc. and our insecurities have us feel less than, not worthy, incapable, etc. An example of this is from just yesterday when I went to package a few handmade side tables to ship to my aunt. The first side table was in the garage in the last place I put it, however the second one wasn’t. Over the past few months, I had gotten rid of a lot of stuff in preparation to move. When it wasn’t in the garage or any of the closets, I began to have a little bit of a panic and some real anxiety came upon me. See, my ego had me thinking I was too good to make a simple mistake and my insecurities were afraid of my aunt being upset with her table being gone. Hurrying to the back room my ego had me beating myself up about possibly needing to pay my aunt off for the table and my insecurities had me raging worried about losing a few hundred bucks. If it were just my insecurities at play or just my ego being big, I don’t believe this anxiety would have arisen; it’s right between the two where I struggled and I imagine it might be similar with you as well. Anyway, turns out the second side table was upstairs where I actually left it last. The crisis was averted and I took a deep breath being thankful for finding the side table. Thankfully, as of this writing, these days such anxiety and mini-panic attacks are pretty rare. However, back in my late formative years, through the constructive years and beyond, anytime I was around anyone or any group of people my anxiety would be raging. It was so constant I knew no difference.

After the summer football camp and summer school, we had a few weeks break before the standard school year started. During this time, I went to back to Colorado to visit family. My cousin and I both had nice mountain bikes and had gone on a few cross-country style rides. The last ride we took started with a big long downhill which was great, and as you could imagine going back up wasn’t so great – we will get to that part soon. After descending a few thousand vertical feet over six or eight miles we reached the valley floor. There was a small waterfall and a bridge we crossed over. At this point we knew we should turn around as we had one heck of a trek back up the mountain. “Uh oh, I believe if we crest this next bend and go up that mountain, we will have a shorter trip back home’’- this was from back in the day when I knew everything, turns out back in the day I didn’t actually know everything. Going round the next bend was a few miles of relatively flat track however we were soon faced with a massive mountain of jagged rocks and boulders. We were already running low on water and food and were hot and tired, but I insisted that the top of the mountain would be a ridge back to the car.

Even though we were already hot, tired and nearly out of water we made a decision, the decision to go my way. Riding our bikes up this steep mountain was very technical and slow. Quickly it became too much and we began pushing our bikes. The mountain bikes we had were equipped with special pedals that required special shoes that clipped to the pedals, fine for riding, not so fine for hiking on jagged and loose rocks. Foot step after foot step we made our way up. After an hour or two we reached a vantage point, and - we weren’t where I thought we were going to be. At this point my cousin and I both knew we were in for a lot more than we bargained for. Unable to ride up this mountain we thought we might be able to ride down. While the terrain was very steep, we took a very methodical and slow approach to riding down. Going down, my rear tire slipped. To gain stability I let go of the brakes, but then going a bit faster, my front tire got stuck between a few rocks, and over the handle bars I went. Aside from being slightly banged up I felt fine, however, as it turns out that accident caused a back injury that would soon change things.

Back on the valley floor we had a smooth cruise back to the base of the mountain that we had originally ridden down. My cousin could easily outpace me and quickly he went ahead. Pedaling and pedaling I was quickly getting more and more exhausted; one last slurp and all of my water was gone. I decided to just go hard in hopes of reaching the top of the mountain, however that is not what happened. Losing my breath, I sort of slumped over, resting there on the side of the bike path. Hot, exhausted, out of water and banged up, at this point I still had a long way to go and realized at that moment shit was real. Just like the SCUBA moment with the sea lion, I surrendered to the moment and an overwhelming sense of peace overcame me; however, this time I was in human territory, territory where I knew I must fight. Realizing that I was going to have to fight, my anxiety took over and I started to walk my bike up the steep and rural switchbacks. Time and time again I went for a sip of water from my camel back but nothing came out. Sometimes in life we must keep going, just keep going, and just keep going I did until reaching the top of the mountain where my cousin, his air-conditioned car and a bottle of water awaited me.

The trip to Colorado soon ended and I was back in California getting ready to start the new high school adventure. Now, remember that bike accident of going over the handle bars? Well, one day doing something as normal as walking to the refrigerator I felt a ping, very acute and very painfully I felt a nerve zap in my lower back, so painful my knees buckled and I almost fell down. Just a quick nerve pinch and the pain went away as quickly as it came on. I hoped it was just a fluke deal, however that wasn’t the case. Turns out I had pulled something out of alignment in my back and that led me to be extremely susceptible to the nerve getting pinched. Truth be told it was a rare enough occurrence it wasn’t that big of a deal. Well, rare enough as long as I avoided impact at all cost. Football was off the table because of this, tho truth be told I was happy about that. See, I didn’t really want to play football all along; in fact, it was my programming and ego that had me wanting to play football. That American dream programming had me believing that tough young men SHOULD be tough and prove themselves on the football field. My ego knew I was big and strong and could take some motherfuckers souls on the field. Me at my core truest self didn’t want to have to prove anything to anyone, didn’t want to run around in hot smelly pads, didn’t want to get hit and hit others, and frankly I was happy to have a valid excuse to back out.

High school was a whole new school and with a bunch of new people to meet, had me pretty excited. Perhaps it was never being content with what I had (physically or otherwise) that led me to always enjoy new things, people and adventures. The high school already had the cliques of jocks, emos, band people, hicks, and others prearranged from students that were there in previous years. I quickly fell into running with the hick clique mostly, however as before I would always bounce around from group to group. Soon my best blue jeans had Skoal rings and I made sure my boots look used but still well oiled; as a man should. Liked fairly well by many, on my teachers’ good sides, and a 3.5 GPA pretty much had me up to snuff, course I didn’t feel that way.

On top of friends, being on my teachers’ good sides and a healthy GPA, I had lost some weight and now had big strong muscles; it’s what most people knew me for. However, even with all of this I was extremely anxious and insecure about everything all of the time. Was my shirt clean, does my t-shirt make my muscles look big, is that essay I just turned in going to get an A plus or an unimpressive B minus? That person looked at me funny; are they judging me, whoops I didn’t pull all the way into the parking space bet that makes me look stupid, I am still a loser virgin, and holy crap I am fat. The back-and-forth battle of being too good or not good enough led to a constant state of tension and turmoil; however, it’s all I knew, and therefore knew no different.

Perhaps Little Mr. Perfect wasn’t so perfect, perhaps Little Mr. Perfect had some inherent flaws, however, eyes on the prize of the American dream had me headstrong bull rushing many things in life. Only fourteen at this time I was upset that the state would not issue me a work permit until I was fifteen; I mean shouldn’t a fourteen-year-old be not only independent but also providing for the household? Getting to the High School was always interesting; sometimes I would hitch a ride with my older brother and sometimes I would carpool with friends and their parents; always addressing the elders with “ma’am” and “sir”. During this first semester of freshman year I took a required flora culture class, I really liked it and was actually really good at it. However, making flower arrangements isn’t the most badass and manly thing one could do, so my floriculture career was put on hold for the next fifteen years or so.

A few weeks into the new school year, my peers and I had settled into the new routine. A routine of mine would be to spend the afternoon at my buddy Dill’s house before being picked up by my dad on his way home from work. Dill was really into the cowboy and bull rider thing and therefore many afternoons were spent talking about the wildest and craziest bull riders. We would also shoot 22’s, subtly acquire as much of his father’s tequila as we could without it being obvious, and chew lots of tobacco. Being able to take a shot or drink a beer with a dip in our lip was seen as something cool so we definitely practiced that malarkey as well. It is now fifteen plus years later and I am no longer in contact with Dill, but I believe he is still wrangling ranch animals and is now a loving father. The point here is that the dude is not a bad guy, and I don’t blame him one bit for the following (remember boys will be boys and that includes ripping on each other). “Fat ass, fat ass, fat ass,” Dill would always call me a fat ass. When I was actually overweight, he would call me a fat ass and when I wasn’t overweight, he would call me a fat ass. No matter what I was doing; jumping in the pool “fat ass”, eating food “fat ass”, working out “fat ass”. Throughout our whole friendship; “fat ass, fat ass, fat ass”, frankly I didn’t mind, just us boys being boys.

While I didn’t mind it, the constant name calling did something to my mind. I began to believe that no matter what, I was morbidly obese. My reality about my body size and shape became augmented, to the literal point of being delusional. A little later in life I became very muscular and was borderline six pack ripped, yet when I looked in the mirror, I saw a five-hundred-pound whale. I now understand that this is called body dysphoria and it’s very real. Oftentimes it affects the biggest of body builders and the skinniest of anorexic girls (oh hey and boys as well). These days I am still somewhat portly and still very much have body dysphoria, however it’s not the problem it once was because I can fully accept it. Now here is the real reason I bring all of this up and this is crucial to understand. If we are told something enough times, over a long enough period of time, by enough people we will begin to believe whatever we are being told. We will believe whatever we are being told. Fact or fiction, we will begin to believe. At the beginning of this chapter, I referenced the Matrix’s and the programming of the American dream; let this be a strong priming moment to understand that maybe we are more programmed than we ever thought possible.

Sorry for getting a little off track there, but please let that seed be planted that it is possible to be programmed (by whatever source) to believe some downright lies. Nearing the age of fifteen now I couldn’t wait to get a job. The necessary work permit took a few weeks to process so you bet I had that turned in a few weeks before turning fifteen. Soon I found myself working at the world-famous Casa De Fruta. Well, I am not quite sure it was world famous but for a truck stop it was really very nice. There was an RV park, hotel, restaurant, playground, candy store, gas station and a fruit stand. I worked at the fruit stand and boy hoody lemme tell ya I took pride in my fruit stacking; just like the good little young man I was.

Stacking fruit on the weekends, being in school all week and going to football games on Fridays kept me busy and seemingly on the right track. Before too long I had saved one thousand dollars and used it to buy a quite nice older chevy 4x4 truck. It was a pretty darn good ole truck and that thing genuinely taught me a lot through the years. Fascinated with building and machines had me changing engines in it a few times, swapping half-ton for one-ton axles, and I even went to far as to cut it in half, remove some bits and weld it back together. Cutting it in half was of course to shorten its wheelbase and make it more suitable for rock crawling. I still hold cutting my truck in half as a feather in my cap as that’s not something every teenager does. Now the reason I bring this truck up is because it was a sizeable interest of mine. Oh yeah, and one more thing; the guy that sold it to me admitted to a drug problem. I believe he preferred uppers and told me that getting sober required he lock himself in a room at his mom’s house for a month just to get through the withdrawals and get back on his feet. See, my mind back then was ignorant and petulant enough to wear a high hat and drink stolen alcohol yet very much look down on others who struggled with drugs. I don’t know if that was part of my programming as a young man in America or if that was me just being a dick. Turns out drugs, alcohol, addiction, morality, right and wrong are not as black and white as I once thought.

By this time, I had decided that the best fit for my forever career would be to be a police officer, ya know gotta nab those speeders and grab those pesky druggies. My eyes were always on the prize; always looking forward, always thinking when I get this or achieve that then I will be happy. A goal of mine was to get my driver’s license on the day I turned 16. To do this I needed to get my learner’s permit on the day I turned fifteen and a half. Just like with the work permit, I had scheduled my exam weeks in advance and on the exact day I turned fifteen and a half I received my learner’s permit. I was ecstatic but still not happy, I wanted my real driver’s license, then I would be happy. Or so I thought. My dad is often times slow, methodical and careful as he proceeds with most stuff and he took this approach with teaching his kids to drive as well. Hard-headed and gung-ho, I wanted fast pace full-on freeway driving right off the bat, but nope, first he had me slowly learning throttle control with the car in park. Mirrors, seatbelt and finally gears, we were taking things slowly. I don’t think he even let me out of the driveway on day one. Oftentimes throughout life I have wanted to rip my hair out when dealing with my father’s engineer’s ways, but I’ll give this one to him; driving is gnarly and learning should take some time. After a few weeks of painstakingly slow training, my dad would finally let me drive to work with him in the passenger seat (having an older licensed driver in the passenger seat was a requirement for those with only learner’s permits). At school some of my friends were fifteen and a half, or even sixteen and they still didn’t have learner’s permits or driver’s licenses; it drove me crazy. I genuinely couldn’t understand how people could be content and happy with the current day and whatever the universe was dealing them.

Well, how could anyone be happy and content without one, two or three drinks? Happy and content without four or five drinks? I have mentioned alcohol a few times already. Had alcohol already become a problem? Well, no it hadn’t but the way I saw alcohol, the way my friends saw alcohol, the way society saw alcohol back in those days, heck the way society still sees alcohol was the real problem. Really quickly I would like to shout out the book “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace for helping not only me but thousands of other people change the way they see alcohol, to further understand the truth about alcohol and to forever change our relationship with alcohol. It took Annie a whole entire book to break down our old systems of beliefs and rebuild new ones about alcohol, so it would be crazy for me to try to do it in one chapter. So let me take a slightly different approach and say that I saw alcohol as this big shiny diamond in the rough, I saw alcohol as needed to have a good time, I saw alcohol as needed when times were tough. Speaking of tough I saw alcohol as a manly and tough thing to consume. My dad drank very responsibly and I saw a few drinks every night as healthy. My friends’ parents drank when they were upset and they drank when they were getting wild and crazy at the lake, and come on, how could a young man not see such fun having as something cool. TV, billboards, magazines and heck even my teachers talked about drinking – alcohol, alcohol, alcohol; alcohol everywhere. It’s no wonder that with such societal programming many people including myself ended up having problems with alcohol, really big problems with alcohol. Remember the red pill you took at the beginning of this book, well for the sake of you, take another. Just like many other ideals that have been forced down our throat; to truly overcome and thrive we must change the way we see them and in the case of alcohol we must change our views of it as an ‘’elixir of life” to just another drug. Alcohol a drug? Yes absolutely!

School continued on as usual; the emo’s were pretending to be sad; the jocks were already gearing up for the next seasons football, and of course we hicks hung out at the ag barn. Kind of like a Harley rider saying, “rabble rabble rabble” we hicks would stand around in circles saying “haggle-pee-woof, haggle-pee-woof, haggle-pee-woof”, and anytime someone got a new pair of boots the tradition was to spit chew spit on them. On occasion some of us managed to maintain a somewhat gentleman-like disposition, but scholars we were not. Soon Christmas and the New Years break came around, which gave me an opportunity to work more, and before you knew it a new semester of High School began. New classrooms and different parts of the campus meant some change, but the people were all the same so things quickly fell into place. During the first semester I took “Intro To Shop” which I enjoyed but I didn’t learn a whole lot because I was already familiar with most of the tools and basic building procedures. This second semester I took “Intro to Automotive” which I really liked because it was a whole new arena of tools, machines and building to explore. Not only this but I really liked the teacher and little did Mr. Argon know he ended up teaching me one of the most valuable life lessons of all time – however, that life lesson took 15 years to actually realize.

So, there we were, that is, the three amigos. James was holding an alternator in place; Dill had a wrench and I was underneath the truck and readying to place a bolt. James abruptly sneezed, Dill spooked and a wrench was dropped on my head. Quickly I became a little hot headed, got up from underneath the truck, grabbed a hose and proceeded to spray Dill with it. Hey, it was a hot day and this serves as a great reminder that we humans are just slightly refined monkeys. Things were happening quickly and before I even quit spraying Dill I looked to the left and there was Mr. Argon watching the entire thing. “Hey boys!” he proclaimed, “Casey, sorry I have to do this but that’s negative one point” (we had a simple task card where points were given for completing various tasks – and apparently revoked for shenanigans). Handing my card to Mr. Argon I was slightly upset and being a tad hard on myself because I knew I knew better. But that’s it; just slightly upset and only a tad bit hard on myself. See I understood why I was being reprimanded, I understood that it was fair, I understood why I was a tad bit upset and because I understood these things the pain / turmoil felt from the event was extremely minimal. For fifteen years this event has stuck with me and its only of recent I have come to understand the importance of understanding the reason behind our pain, hurt, turmoil, depression, anxiety, etc. etc. I would like to both drive this point further home and expand on it a bit with an example. Have you ever gotten a stomachache from eating way too much chocolate? And subsequently have you ever just gotten a stomachache for no apparent reason? Chances are you answered yes to both; now pretending both stomach aches were equal in discomfort, which one was more difficult to deal with. Yes! It was the stomachache for no apparent reason. See this is because of the lack of clarity as to why you were “in trouble” or suffering, this lack of clarity causes confusion and confusion leads to never-ending turmoil. Now in the bigger picture and in these modern times there are many ways we are “in trouble” or are suffering; mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, medical, etc., etc. Understanding the why of our suffering not only gives us the chance to fix the problem (obviously) and if not, then at least it clarifies things leading to peace of mind and peace of mind is an important piece of life’s puzzle. – Oh, and P.S. Little Mr. Perfect still managed to receive the student of the semester award from Mr. Argon.

Chapter 5 - Little Mr. Perfect Continued

The previous chapter was getting pretty long and frankly we were only about halfway through so I decided to break it up. This chapter is basically the same as the last, just with a different name. Huh, using a different title for the same thing? Yeah, it’s a little trick I learned from our friends at the government. By this time, I had my real driver’s license, oh yeah, I got it the day I turned 16 and during a recent discussion with my father, he reminded me that I had scheduled the earliest appointment available that day. Getting my license was a pretty big deal to me as I am sure it was the same with you - a ticket to new lands, freedom, and happiness. For months, heck for years I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license, I wanted nothing more. It was engrained in my head what once I got my driver’s license, I would be free, happy and suddenly the world would be perfect.

Soon I drove to the next town over, but no, what I was searching for wasn’t there. The following day I drove a town further away and even up into the hills. Finding lakes, streams, parking lots leading to hiking trails and more. While I was ecstatic for this new freedom, I still wasn’t happy, I had no peace. And I am sorry to harp on the negative but I must stress again just how anxious, uneasy and perhaps you could say discontent I was those days. Driving over a bridge I found a beautiful parking lot leading to hiking and biking trails – “this place would be perfect if only I wasn’t so fat and had my bicycle”. Looking back at my car “this car would be perfect if it was just a little bigger”. At the next location I thought “I would be so happy here if ……”. No matter where I was physically or mentally, no matter what I had or didn’t have I was in a constant state of “destination fixation” where once x,y and z, then things would be perfect. Truth be told this is no way to live, however I spent the next ten plus years living this way, until I finally fully realized that like they say, the key is acceptance. These days things are far from perfect yet accepting that the universe is infinitely smarter than me leads to much gratitude and peace of mind.

Somewhere around this time I had quit working at the fruit stand, started working at an offroad vehicle State Park and even wound up with a girlfriend. Work, school, friends, a serious relationship, and more had me quite busy. My girlfriend, let’s call her Katie, was a fun and likable girl. The puppy love phase was something else man, constant dopamine dump. Things had gotten pretty serious, and we came to know each other quite well. (Now as I stated at the beginning of this book names and rough dates have been changed and with some of these stories I do my best to be vague simply to respect the privacy of others.) Everyone knew Katie as kind, sweet, bubbly and extremely happy. However, I knew different; Katie was kind and sweet but she was also broken and broke bad. Early in her life she lost an immediate family member to cancer and it forever haunted her. I firsthand saw the struggle, strife and horror this caused her, yet she hid it and hid it well from basically everyone. After a few years our relationship ended and we really went our separate ways. Somewhat recently through friends of friends I heard she passed away; while I am not sure what got her I do have my suspicions. I will also say that I had a recent interaction with a police officer who happened to be Katie’s cousin and also a distant friend of mine from high school. Bruce (the police officer) told me that her loss really bothered him as he thought she was actually super happy and full of love for life. RIP Katie and I guess the moral of the story here, as cliché as it is, is that oftentimes we really don’t know what others are suffering with. Let this be a reminder to you and me both to simply try to simply be kind to one another.

Now I really struggled with where or even if I was going to put this paragraph in the book. The reason I struggled with this is because what I am about to point out may sound highly insensitive to people like Katie and her family. Please accept my hand on heart in that I am trying to help not hurt. During the few years I dated Katie, I participated in a few Relay For Life events with them. For those that don’t know, Relay For Life serves to raise money for cancer research and provide a safe, empowering and helpful environment for anyone directly or indirectly affected by cancer. These events also included “teams” who would specifically support a particular person or cause, speeches by cancer survivors, raffles and more. To be clear, these events were full of good people trying to do the right thing. One day I mentioned to a colleague that I was participating in one of these events and their response was “Don’t you see, don’t you see? These people, before going to these events stop at Starbucks for a cup of coffee made from beans sprayed with glyphosate, a cup of coffee in a paper cup with a petrochemical wax coating, a cup of coffee with fake fats and refined sugars. Don’t you see, don’t you see? These people go to these events and spend most of their time sedentarily sitting, sitting and covering themselves in aluminum and benzine sunscreens. Don’t you see, don’t you see? The raffle prizes are not for gym memberships, the raffle prizes are for candy, KFC coupons, petroleum-based makeups and more. Don’t you see, don’t you see? It’s all of these things that are causing cancer in the first place. Don’t you see, don’t you see? The money raised here will go to cancer research for new cancer drugs, not cancer cures. Don’t you see, don’t you see?!!”. And truth be told I didn’t see, I was completely blind. Beyond this I thought my colleague was completely out of his mind and out of place for such accusations. Today I do see and today I hope you see as well. If we as individuals or as a society want a snowball’s chance in hell at a happy and healthy life, we must become aware of the matrixes that are all around and the programming within.

By this time most of my buddies had their butts in gear and had received their drivers’ licenses. They all drove trucks because that was supposedly the manly thing to do. I drove my car on the week days and truck on the weekends; I do have a practical side you know. Now I’ll say that gawd Joe Rogan is right when he says one young man is dangerous, but a bunch of young men are super dangerous. Typically, not wanting to break my truck I would ride with others as we went flying through mudpuddles, jumping water bars, flying through fences and all sorts of other truck mischievousness. During the weekdays we would box or do wrestling “UFC” style as we called it. Still the biggest and strongest, I typically won. One day the gents said I should box the neighbor boy; he was small but they all knew he was one hell of a boxer. “Whap” his left hook caught my jaw and I went black. A swing and a miss from me and a “thud” his right hook found my face and I went black again, this time almost falling over. Back and forth I would swing and miss wildly and he would “whap, whap, and smack” my face. With a glass jaw I was taking baby naps with every hit. Apparently even through boxing gloves the gentleman managed to break his finger while pummeling my face. Finally, a wild strong right hook of mine found his face and night night he went. The little guy totally whooped me but I technically walked away with the W, and good thing that was because my insecurities would have been beating me up if I had lost.

I would like to point out that the title of this book is “Crazier Than I Thought” for a reason, and while my friends and I managed to shenanigan pretty hard, this isn’t the real crazy stuff, the crazy comes later. It also feels important to point out that I believe young men should be out and about pushing the limits, being rambunctious and punching each other in the face a bit. Now wouldn’t you know it, being the rednecks that we were, we found out that we could hit wild pigs with our trucks and then barbeque them up. This type of pig hunting was typically reserved for the weekends; we were pretty good about having a sober driver but the rest of us riders would be getten drunker den shit. I would like to point out that I was the reserved one of the group, generally the one pulling in the reigns or even staying in with my girlfriend. The “pussy” of the group was something I didn’t like; the wild ones got the attention I wanted and I believe this is something that really egged on my later-in-life wild actions.

Summer came and summer went which led to the first semester of my junior year. Aside from algebra school was pretty easy, a 3.0 or 3.5 GPA came easily, was still in a relationship with Katie and had a good job. Still very interested in people; in their mannerisms, their thought processes, their body language and their actions while in groups. I would carefully watch the teachers as they taught the students and when I could I would watch the teachers when they were with other teachers. When it came to dealing with different groups; whether that be teachers, administrators, the jocks or emos or hicks I learned how to act natural. And I mean “act” literally; I had learned how to act naturally in many situations but I had no clue how to be natural.

The State Park I was now in but still new to working at, was very large and well-known for its motorcycle, ATV and 4x4 trails. As a “maintenance aid” my duties mostly included picking up trash, cleaning bathrooms and then helping other people in more senior positions with whatever they were working on. After getting over the grodiness of cleaning public restrooms the job was great; walking around in nature picking up trash, driving trucks on dirt roads and trails and helping with multiple construction projects. It was great; however, my time there was a bit rocky at first. See, I hadn’t yet had time to learn how to act natural in this new work environment. I had preconceived notions of work being purely professional, punctual, I’s dotted and T’s crossed. Yet I witnessed cussing, joking, other employees ripping on one another and more. So, I attempted to fit in with similar actions, however I missed and I missed hard. One time my boss was getting on my case, yet I thought he was joking, so I flipped him off – in a joking manner that is. On another occasion I made fun of a co-worker’s pink car engine. One weekend another co-worker took my words as combative and wanted to have a fist fight. Apparently, I was almost let go within a few weeks of working there. Somehow however, I scraped through and ended up being one of the park’s top maintenance aids. This was mostly managed by me working alone as much as possible; the good guy yet the “third wheel” you could say. I now know that such difficulties within social environments can for some folks be attributed to autism. I still find this a bit baffling because sometimes my social acuity is off the charts high and sometimes I am completely baffled by social situations. On a number of future occasions this baffled nature of some social situations led to being put in tricky and uncomfortable spots. This “third wheeling” of partaking with groups yet not quite being part of groups also stuck around for years to come.

At this point I was going to school full time and working part time. This sounded completely inadequate to me, so from the second semester of junior year and on I went on independent study so I could also work full time. Looking back on it I should have stayed in school with my peers to learn and grow socially, but at the time all I could think of was work, work, work and get ahead, get ahead, get ahead. My boss had a strongly held belief that everyone should spend at least 6 months cleaning public restrooms so as to teach them the importance of not destroying public restrooms. And I believe he is right. Ever since spending a year cleaning public restrooms, I have forever treated the bathrooms I use with respect. And like I said once you get over the grodiness of cleaning public restrooms it’s really not bad. However, I will never forget the time – check that the MULTIPLE TIMES I had to clean shit swastikas off of the restroom walls. By shit swastikas I literally mean shit swastikas, like poop on finger then draw a shit swastika on the restroom wall. According to my co-workers it was a thing and had been happening for years. Now we have tried to find life lessons within some of these stories ….. and I guess the life lesson here is, don’t be a Nazi. Yeah, that’s it; don’t be a poop art Nazi.

Somewhere around this general timeframe a person that was near my immediate tribe (sorry for the vagueness) started to struggle with heroin use. Over the course of a few days or weeks I saw this person (who I love dearly) start to act a bit off; sometimes a little lazy, sometimes a little confused, something was different with them. When the opportunity arose, I went for a rummage in their room and found a broken glass tube with burnt black stuff in it. Still confused, I presented such findings to another close member of the tribe and subsequently this is when everything became clear. A very white-collar tribe we were, so what did we do? Yeah, freak the fuck out! Instantly remove this person from one of their living locations, sequester, watch like a hawk and very quickly force them into rehab. Now here is the deal, and it’s an unfortunate one; often times there is no right or wrong way to deal with addiction. Again, the whole tribe really freaked out about this situation …… yet we didn’t completely freak out about another tribe member’s severe alcohol addiction. Further to this we all knew aunt Betty drank way too much wine and abused her Xanax, yet we still managed to sweep that under the rug. To be clear, all of the above situations were drug addictions, yet we thought so differently of them. A big part of this book will be to level the playing field of drugs and what they are; to reduce stigma of some and increase the stigma of others.

At the time of said tribe member’s heroin struggles my reaction was of great hurt and that is simply because I loved this person, and because of my hardcore bootstrap mentality I thought they should “just stop” and carry on with living life the “right” way. These days I look back at myself from when I knew it all and am surprised at the vastness of my ignorance.

After a year of working as a “maintenance aid” mostly picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms I applied for a Sr. Maintenance Aid on the all-new Trail Crew. The park already had a state appointed Trail Crew working and the idea was for the park to create their own Trail Crew, learn from the more senior state appointed Trail Crew and slowly take over (psst, governments and their bursary right!). The opportunity was exciting because it meant spending most of our time deep in nature on the trails with all new tools, equipment and building processes. And as you could imagine I was pretty excited when I got the position.

If you are a Californian, I would like to both thank you for your tax dollars and apologize for wasting so, so many of your tax dollars. The first few months consisted of getting state certified to ride quads (ATVs), getting a full $1,000 plus set of custom riding gear (which we never wore) and then “checking trails”. The idea behind “checking trails” was to get appointed with the vast trail system, see what needed fixing, and get a game plan to get to work. However, this checking of trails manifested as my two coworkers, and I trail riding nice new and powerful 4x4 quads all day every day; just fucking off having fun basically. Little Mr. Perfect did feel bad about this because I knew we had already found plenty of work to do; however, after over a year of working for the state and dealing with their extremely wasteful ways I caved and just went along with it. Learning to ride quads definitely takes some time to get good at; and with all of the fucking off we did, we quickly became pretty proficient on them. My two main coworkers were a bit older than me but still fairly young and with that in mind I am sure you can imagine just how on the edge we would ride these things. Thirty plus miles an hour, trees on one side and rocks on another we would drift the corners, jumps and whoops we would hit full throttle. It’s amazing we never had any serious accidents, well, except for the incident with a thousand-foot cliff, but we will get to that one a bit later.

While we were busy fucking off, the larger state appointed Trail Crew was busy working on bigger projects. They would often work with the CDC Fire Camp Inmates. In the state of California, the Department of Corrections has some nonviolent offenders living in rural minimum-security facilities. Their main role is to help with wildland fire fighting in the summer months, and in non-fire times the state uses them to help with other projects like trail making, fence building and other rehabilitation projects at the state park. I was told that the inmates were pretty cool and minded their manners because working with the fire camp was a hell of a lot better than being in real prison. I was also told that they will challenge you if they get the chance. One day both Trail Crews and the CDC guys were all working together. As I was walking alone, down a steep double track trail, one CDC gentleman approached carrying a pick axe, another approached with a chain saw, another with a Polaski and another with a rock bar. Soon they surrounded me. “Hey fool, you new here?” “How old are you, homie?” “Damn you sure is lucky to be free”, “You cool homie? Like wassup?”. Fat little privileged me was now surrounded by four or six big ole boys; and ya know how I mentioned they were nonviolent offenders? Ya, well that applied to the charges they were in for, but some of these dudes had teardrop tattoos. Terrified, I realized I had three options; one, answer their questions honestly (which we weren’t supposed to do), two, say I couldn’t answer their questions, and three, just lie. Ignorant to the social aspects of this situation I decided to lie, which they easily caught, and the situation became awkward. There was a little bantering back and forth, and the situation quickly ended with them sluffing me off as I didn’t show them respect. While this situation was a bit rattling, it calmed my nerves about working with these gentlemen because it was clear that their incentive to not go back to real prison kept things safe.

Another occasion had the CDC crew building a split rail fence up a long steep road. My duties were to act as support; bring tools and materials to and fro. This had me in a 4x4 side by side vehicle and with a small trailer attached. I sped down the twisty and smooth trail next the river bed, power on and power off managing both understeer and oversteer, absolutely flying, like always. The river bed and trail split and up the steep hill I went and soon found the fence building operation. The CDC crew leader said we needed to pull some tools from another part of the park and asked if I would take one of the inmates with to help with not only loading the tools but physically seeing where this project was going. Hanz the CDC crew member and I loaded up in the side by side and I started putting up the hill, however as soon as I rounded the bend, I floored the machine. Engine screaming, wheels spinning and trailer bouncing. Hanz quickly proclaimed “Ah gawd damn it cracker, you crazy!”, so yet faster I went. “You fool, you ginna kill us both” Only slowing slightly for the bumps in the trail, we began to bounce all over the place, “You mother fucken crazy cracker, got damn!” Down the hill and rounding a corner it was tight between a big rock and tree; we slid through by the hair on our chins, “Ah mother fucker, you cool fool, you cool, but why the white man always try to kill us niggas?”. The ride was short, only a few minutes, however the banter continued. With a skeet and a skirt, we slid the side by side safely next to the pile of tools we were picking up, “Did you have fun?” I asked. “Dyuuum fool that was the most fun I had in years”. A quick fist bump meant we were cool and we successfully completed the task at hand.

The following week or maybe month, both trail crews and the CDC guys were working together. The project was to rehabilitate a huge hill, heck, depending on what parts you are from it could have been called a mountain. Years of untamed erosion had washed all of the shrubs, plants and grass from this mountain, so our job was to go in and basically restore the place to its original condition. The base of this mountain was wide, the top was narrow and the entire face was very steep. I wouldn’t be lying saying it was probably a thousand foot vertical from bottom to top. About three quarters the way up this mountain the flat face became a crested face; to the right was an all but vertical and deadly drop, and to the left was a not so vertical but still steep and shrubby eight-hundred-foot hillside that met a dry riverbed at the bottom. One day my boss told my two coworkers and me to hike up the hill and grab a few tools. He specifically said not to try riding up it with the quads. At the base of the hill still on our quads my co-workers decided we should just go for it. I said we shouldn’t, but like they said their, two to one vote outweighed mine. We clicked our quads into four-wheel drive, backed up a bit and went for it. The three of us in unison were full throttle taking on this mountain. The first half went well, however the next half got steeper. With powerful machines, we managed to keep climbing, but steeper and steeper it got. Soon we were riding a narrow crest with certain death to the right and a bad time to the left. Full throttle, it was so steep we were now barely making it uphill, with our quads now partially sideways on this crest. I was the third rider, we were all slowing, and before you knew it the quad in front tipped, and then the second quad tipped. My coworkers had flipped to the left with their quads. They managed to stop themselves from falling down the mountainside, but the same couldn’t be said for their quads. I managed to quickly stop and dismount my quad and pull of my helmet, but even as I did so, we could still hear their quads tumbling, rolling and uncontrollably trashing down to the mountainside all the way to their resting place in the river bed below. Trembling, we all breathed a sigh of relief and then made a very uncomfortable radio call into base, letting them know that we had fucked up. The situation ended with broken egos, quads, and write-ups for my coworkers. Somehow, I managed to escape the write-up.

Now there is another short story I would like to tell from the time working with the CDC inmates. It was during the same job as mentioned above. A long, hot, sweaty, dirty and arduous day was coming to an end; everyone was around, the park trail crew, the state trail crew and the CDC guys. One of my coworkers said “pheew long day, can’t wait to go home”. And I remember this like it was yesterday, with a somber yet peaceful voice one of the inmates said “yeah man I have been wanting to go home for seven years now”. My coworker started in with “aw man I didn’t mean….”, and before he could finish his sentence the CDC guy said “no problem, man, you didn’t mean nothing by it”. A heart wrenching gut punch, and suddenly things became so quiet you could hear a mouse pee. In this very moment it seemed there was much mutual respect, almost much love and a sense of unity between the simply tired and the truly broke.

My time with the state Trail Crew continued and lasted a year; a year of not only life lessons but some pretty great experience with skid steer machines, power augers, quads, dirt bikes, trucks, back hoes, mini bull dozers and more. Now I won’t bore you with all of that, however I would like to touch a bit on the relatively few times I worked with the CDC inmates. I walked away from the experience thinking about how good the program was; gets the inmates out of real prison and into some very tough yet way better situations. These inmates were learning valuable technical skills. They made a little money and / hence the state got a great deal on labor. And the cherry on top was that the incentive to follow the rules was so great that the rules really were followed, meaning things like fights and escapes were all but nonexistent. This all seemed like such a “good” thing and I wondered why more of it wasn’t being done. My future years in college studying Criminal Justice would lay the path to a highly plausible answer.

Nearing the end of my time working for the State Park I was working full time, had graduated High School early, managed one and then another serious relationship, partied, kept up with friends and even bought and sold a few cars. And this was when it* happened ………

Chapter 6 - Adderall

Adderall – amphetamine / dextroamphetamine

Drug type – stimulant.

Drug class- controlled.

Propensity for misuse, abuse and addiction – high.

For those who decided to skip chapters two through five, welcome and thanks for joining. This book could so far be summarized as follows. There was this dude named Casey. He was the youngest of three boys and grew up upper middle class. While Casey dude had some failings, he really had a lot going for him and was working very hard to get ahead when, it* happened.

(Continued from chapter 5) …… Nearing the end of my time working for the State Park I was working full time, had graduated High School early, managed one and then another serious relationship, partied, kept up with friends and even bought and sold a few cars. And this was when it* happened. I now know that it* is commonly referred to as “burnout”.

Young, fit, strong and healthy with little record of physical or psychological illness. I now had a little depression kick in, my memory was beginning to become a bit off, I had trouble focusing, and more ills quickly happened. So just like we have all been programmed to do, I went to the psychiatrist. I had heard of ADHD and Adderall, maybe that was my problem, I thought. Truth be told, all I really remember from the first doctors visit was being handed an ADHD evaluation sheet with ten or twenty questions. Questions I now realize were quite vague; do you ever have trouble focusing? Does this ever affect your work? Do you ever sleep too much or too little? Do you ever find yourself uncomfortable in situations others aren’t? Etc., etc. Of course, I answered yes to basically all of the questions, so a diagnosis of ADHD was given and a prescription for 20mgs extended-release Adderall was put in my hand.

Filling the prescription only took fifteen or twenty minutes and once back home I took that first pill, a pill that would forever change everything. Thirty minutes after taking it I found myself outside on the front walkway of my dad’s house, I took a deep breath and finally “ahhhhh” everything was right in the world. I felt calm, I felt warm butterflies in my stomach, I could hear the birds chirp and quickly I was off dreaming, scheming and smoking cigarette after cigarette. High as a kite, but all I thought was that the medicine was working well. Something I have not mentioned in this book is that growing up I was oftentimes interested in legal text, I liked how black and white with shades of grey all over the rules were. I had even on a few occasions considered becoming a lawyer. Now about an hour after taking that first pill and still high as a kite, I was dreaming and scheming about starting a law firm, a huge law firm, a law firm that made billions of dollars all while doing it in a good way like taking down pesky telemarketers. Peace, calm, happiness, ideas of grandiosity, and more. I wasn’t high, the medicine was working; oh, how naive I was. While I don’t remember exactly, I would be willing to bet my day then consisted of deep cleaning everything I could.

The next day, the day following, the day after that and even the day after that consisted of a morning dose of 20 mg extended-release Adderall. I had energy, focus, peace of mind, calmness. I was getting more stuff done than normal and I was even sleeping better. It really was the cat’s meow, I was not only doing better than when I was burnt out but I was doing better than ever. Things were looking good. Things looked so good that I decided to quit my job at the State Park and focus on college full time.

Even though the college I attended was just a junior college one town away from home I was pretty excited. Excited for the new landscapes, new teachers, new students, ways of doing things and more. Just as before I thought entering college would lay a path to ultimate truth, wisdom and power; funny I kept being wrong about this. Still wanting to be a police officer I studied Administration of Justice. The first semester consisted of a few prerequisite classes, one elective class and one degree focused class. Just as before the ins and outs of the studies came fairly easily for me.

Now I have thought long and hard about how political I should make this book, and if I could stray away from politics all together I would, however the story really needs the politics to be embraced within. Bear in mind this was 2010/2011 at a college in California. While this particular college wasn’t particularly left leaning for California, it was nevertheless in California, which made it left leaning. Further bear in mind that circa 2010/2011 was when the left were the ones that were antiestablishment, antigovernment and anti the man. During this first semester in some Intro to English class or whatever it was, was the first time I was really introduced to the antiestablishment rhetoric.

I remember liking the English professor; she was a middle aged white-washed Asian lady. She taught her classes well and was good with her students. She also started to break down some of the Matrixes that so many young Americans are indoctrinated into. Relating to Coca Cola, Nestle, Kellogg’s, Target and more, she laid down some foundational truths about these seemingly “good” companies maybe not being so good. She talked about their finances, their not always so good environmental procedures, as well as some of the really nasty and unhealthy aspects of some of their so-called foods. She described how one thing can lead to another, and she started to show how profiteering motives trump human morality and more. She really started to explain the system; the system that she was, I am, and you are a part of. None of what she put in our laps was put on too heavy, she just placed it out there for her students to begin to chew over. She did a good job of not going too hard or too fast and this is because seeing the food matrix, the financial matrix, the medicine matrix, the chemical matrix, the drug matrix, the housing matrix and all of the real-world matrixes at once can be way too overwhelming. It took me another 12 years of manic highs, depressive lows, suicide attempts, drug addiction, obesity, financial wins and financial losses and more to finally see the system, to finally see the matrix for what it is. Again, for those who joined at this chapter, matrixes are defined as “states in which we exist where we are unaware of our programming” – programming that when undone shows us the door to ultimate truth, power, and wisdom.

Before I knew it a month had passed and I was back at the doctor for a checkup. While the “medication” seemed to be working, its effects were already less than when I first took it, so the doctor bumped me up to 40mgs extended-release Adderall per day. This bump up of course led to more focus, more clarity, more energy, more of let’s say a high “hummmmm-ing”; this “hummmmm-ing” was like a calm energy. That’s the best way I can put it. Soon some side effects crept in; my nail biting got much worse, I would sweat profusely from my armpits and my ass got a little leaky. My leaky ass was worked around by frequent trips to the restroom, oh yeah and I was peeing more frequently now, so hey I guess those restroom trips were serendipitous. And what does everyone do for sweaty armpits? What are we PROGRAMMED to do about sweaty armpits? That’s right, antiperspirant deodorant, and when the standard antiperspirant deodorant didn’t work, I stepped up to the clinical strength stuff. When the clinical strength antiperspirant not only didn’t work but started making messes of my shirts, I found that the synthetic black athletic type t-shirts wouldn’t show my massive armpit sweating. Looking back at it, these side effects should have been enough for me to leave Adderall well alone, but hey, I now see that the drug already had me.

We are over one thousand words into this chapter and you may be thinking “hey mother fucker you promised us some real crazy shit by now, so where is the real madness?”. Well, truth be told I forgot how long Adderall seemed to work for me, I forgot how long I took it before the real insanity popped off. And truth be told I now see that just as with many other drugs they seem okay for a while, they seem to help and make our lives better for quite some time before they finally wreck our shit. I promise the crazy is coming, in the meantime read along and enjoy.

The college campus was big and beautiful, the classes were interesting enough. I not only had some money saved from the State Park job, but there was now some trickle down from some familial inheritance. I was losing weight and to top it off I was young, slightly hung, full of cum, jacked on Adderall and had a crazy bitch of a girlfriend which meant the sex was great. On top of this, the perfect California weather was perfect as always and now not working meant I could spend more time with friends on the weekend partying and playing my favorite sport, beer pong. Even though the come-on of my morning dose of Adderall was euphoric and the all-day energy was great, there was still something missing. Just as stated before, no matter where I was and no matter what I was doing, my ego, insecurities, and complete lack of any sense of spirituality lead me to be in a constant state of tension, always anxious and discontent. Even though everything was perfect; everything was fucking perfect, there was still something I needed to either let go of or find.

Around this time one of my friends lived on a ranch which had been in the family for generations and was hundreds if not thousands of acres. It was a pretty spectacular place, away from town enough to be well, rural yet still close enough to town that a grocery run wasn’t a big deal. This ranch had cow ponds for swimming and fishing, large hills and big flat lands. On top of this there were multiple homes and one really cool “entertaining” room where a whole bunch of us would party it up. Whenever I would go up there those same old thoughts of “if I had this or that then I would be preeminently happy”. There were areas to do burnouts in trucks which were often hard to find and they had that, areas to hunt that were hard to find as well and they had that, fishing ponds, beautiful homes and rural settings, all of which were hard to find, particularly all in one location, and they had that as well. I knew; well, thought I knew, if I had all of those things then I would be peaceful, happy and content. It’s like, even setting aside the drink and the drug, life had me constantly chasing the dragon.

One semester led to the next and one doctor led to another. Soon my prescription was bumped up from 40 mg Extended-Release Adderall (the maximum dose in extended-release form) to 60mgs Immediate Release Adderall, 20 mg in the morning, 20 mg mid-morning and 20 mg in the early afternoon. And believe you me I was such a good boy I made sure to always take all of my medicine. Drug, medicine, medicine, drug?? Yeah, I was confused too, however we will clarify this conundrum in the next chapter.

Now I don’t know about you, but I spent about twenty years of my life in school; grade school, high school, college, fire academy and EMT school – yet there is very little I actually remember. However, I do remember this; it was in a Criminology and Justice Studies class when we were learning about drug charges, their sentencing and further learning about the jail and prison systems. Professor Mith, that’s myth with an I, was not only a professor but also a career Sheriff’s Deputy in the same county my beloved tribe member with the heroin problem lived. To be clear Professor Mith was a good cop, a good man and a good professor. He taught us about how drugs would be found on (or in) a person’s body, in their car during traffic stops or during buy and busts. We also learned about how different charges were brought about for different drugs, amounts and what the intent was for the illicit substances. We learned the processes from initial charge, to court hearing and further proceedings if needed. It quickly became clear that the amount of trouble someone could get into for a small bag of dope was pretty severe. Pretty quickly someone could be caught up with some significant jail or even prison time. Part of the curriculum was to do a deep dive into the jail and more so the PIC (which stands for the Prison Industrial Complex), and without doing a deep dive here I will say that these systems are totally fucked. The recidivism rate for prisoners is through the roof, they don’t really get any help and oh yeah most of these prisons are FOR PROFIT institutions – what the fuck society!!

Yes, yes, yes, there I was taking a high dose of a very powerful prescription drug all while learning about how the system deals with drugs; hey, the hypocrisy is real, but I was blind. Growing up and through the years I really did have a pretty hard ass boot scrappy mentality to lots of stuff including drugs and drug addicts, however things really changed at this point. When it came to the immediate tribe member with the heroin problem, I knew that they were a good person. A person that would never hurt a fly and a person that didn’t deserve to get completely fucked just for a small mistake. It was at this time I decided to no longer pursue a career as a police officer; I couldn’t see myself as being the one to induce such troubles for the troubled when what the troubled need is help, not the book thrown at them. To be clear, I back the blue and am very pro police; police often times do a very tough and very important job. My belief in some realistic drug reform must not lie on any individual police officer and must be placed in the lap of the bigger for-profit system.

Now remember last chapter when I talked about working with some CDC inmates on big environmental rehabilitation projects? Remember how it seemed that program was a really, really good thing, such a good thing I didn’t understand why more of it wasn’t done? Now if most of these big prisons are for-profit and their product is inmates and their service is housing inmates, then wouldn’t it serve the business to keep as many inmates in the system as possible? If keeping as many inmates locked up as possible was the goal, wouldn’t it make business sense to not really help these people? Wouldn’t doing things like introducing mandatory minimums further serve their agenda? The answer to everything here is yes. Now if this prison system, check that prison matrix, is corrupt on a very big level with profits being the only thing in mind, is it possible that other matrixes (like soon to be discussed medical matrix) also just have profits in mind and don’t really help the people within? Oh yeah, absolutely.

Don’t worry, I am not a communist and I do believe in being punished fairly for crimes committed. Somewhere around this time I started to do a lot of duck hunting with the same buddy Dill as mentioned before. Every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday (the only days the wildlife refuge was open) we would wake up way before sunrise to check in at the main desk a few hours before sunrise and scurry off on our bicycles with gunracks to one of our favorite spots. Still an hour or so before sunrise we would set up decoys, find and make cover for our bags and set up weeds and sticks to aid in our hiding from the ducks. Hunting is literally like the game between cat and mouse, and this game of man vs duck was made all the more exciting by a nice morning dose of Adderall. From check stand to truck ride to a parking lot to a bike ride to a pond to trudging through the pond to setting up decoys to securing hideouts all leads up to the moment right before you are allowed to begin shooting. Then, one duck comes from left to right, ( just a spoony so who cares), two more ducks come straight in and those were mallards, dang we wished it was shootlight. Finally, it happens, the clock ticks over one more minute, that single moment between no shooting allowed and shooting allowed is really quite the time not only to be alive, but to be in the moment as well. Now I would love to tell you all about how we would start blasting at this moment and that sometimes did happen, however it is amazing how freaking smart the ducks are, and they often times really hunker down at the exact moment we were allowed to start blasting.

While duck hunting really is cool and I did a lot of it, I would like to back off of the hunting aspect and focus a bit on the social aspect of it, or at least how I saw the social aspect of it. The parking lot (where everyone would gather before and after hunting) really was just a big sausage fest of tough guys trying to be the meanest, baddest, realest and toughest duck hunter possible. Or was it? I now see that ego is blind to humility, so I am sure I just didn’t see the many folks who were just hunting for fun with nothing to prove to anyone. And with not seeing those modest folks, duck hunting quickly took on meaning for me in being one of the baddest duck hunters around. While I am sure I failed at that, the meaning of being the baddest duck hunter quickly became an identity. With this new found duck hunter identity it became something I must do as much as possible or I would be failing. Not only did this newfound identity include lots of duck calling practice, but having the best gear, decoys and ammunition possible. Then and only then would my vast insecurities become secure in being this tough duck hunter man …. Or something like that. I know when looking at it that way it sounds quite silly. However, we must point out that identity is the single largest driving factor in the human condition and when we are not truly true to ourselves, turmoil and anxiety will be abundant. While one may argue that identity crises are part of growing up, not outgrowing them can have some not only serious personal but societal ramifications as well. We will do a deep exemplative dive into this a bit later on, but for now the story and further understanding of the human condition must go on.

Right ‘round the age of 18 is when I was originally prescribed that first 20mg dose of Adderall; a year and even more passed. School, duck hunting, parting, buying and selling cars as well as amazing sex with my crazy bitch girlfriend made it pass quickly. Before I knew it, I was at 90mgs Immediate Release Adderall daily and really loving it, but just for reference, people usually don’t go past 40mgs daily. Of course, I didn’t know that back then. Heck there was a lot about Adderall I didn’t know. However, I had heard a few things through the grapevine so one day I asked my doctor; “Hey I kinda heard Adderall was like a drug or something? I heard this because you could get in trouble for giving it away or selling it? 90mgs isn’t too much is it?”. To which she replied “Oh no, no, no sweetheart, don’t worry. I have multiple cops on 100 mg, you are fine”. I knew better, I fucking knew better! But this wonderful moral greenlight was a magical ticket for this amazing pill.

Chapter 7 – Fuel, Heal, Feel: All About Drugs

(Edit – This chapter …... or article we could call it was originally written as to be BOTH a chapter in this book and a standalone article. With that in mind please understand that it may “read” a little differently and MOST importantly please understand that this isn’t just the most important chapter in this book but is probably one of the most important things ever written in the history or ever!!). End of edit.

You and I can probably agree that food, medicine, and drugs are pretty important. Generally speaking, we all know that we have to eat, we all agree that medicine is needed at least sometimes and even if we don’t do drugs ourselves, we can all agree that the ramifications and negative consequences can be pretty severe. Now if for any reason we want to change our relationship with food or drugs or medicine (or anything in life for that matter) a good way to start is to change the way we see that thing. Also, of pivotal importance is to understand that the recognition of truth must precede action; see, if in any arena the awareness of a truth does not precede action then the result of said action is void or of lesser consequence. I believe that our societal conditioning; check that, our PROGRAMMING has led to some pretty significant and unfortunate misunderstandings in the true meaning of “food”, “medicine”, and “drugs”. To further put weight on this; again, society generally sees food as needed, medicine as good, and drugs as bad. As we are oftentimes wrong about what food is, what medicine is and what drugs are, truth is not preceding action and therefore will forever limit our ability to ever really make changes as needed.

Fortunately, we can unravel the mysteries above with this simple explanation. If our favorite part about something is its fuel, then its food, if our favorite part about something is the way it helps us heal, then it’s a medicine and if our favorite part about something is the way it makes us feel, then it’s a drug.

Fuel – Food.

Heal – Medicine.

Feel- Drug.

Before diving into “All About Drugs” I must clearly state that the information within is in NO WAY here to assist you with pursuit of illicit, immoral or otherwise unhealthy actions. I must also state that the forthcoming information is a culmination of both facts and personal opinions. As is with everything, it is up to you to decide for yourself – that said I really hope you go hard with red pilling yourself here (red pill as in accepting truth, not a drug reference).

In America and most of the western world there are legal drugs, there are illegal drugs, there are semi-legal drugs and there are prescription drugs. Some legal drugs include; caffeine, nicotine and alcohol (and even marijuana in some places). Some illegal drugs include cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and LSD. Some semi-legal drugs include; nitrous oxide – commonly known as “Whippets”, amyl nitrates – commonly known as “Poppers” and dextromethorphan – commonly used as to “Robo Trip”. These semi-legal substances are legal to buy and use as they are intended, but are (I am actually not 100% sure here) illegal to use to get high. Some prescription drugs include; Adderall, Ritalin, Ambien, Vyvanse, Xanax, Valium, Percocet and many, many more. It may also be appropriate to point out that there are what are known as “designer drugs” and simply put these designer drugs are mimics of the real thing. The reason these designer drugs were / still are a thing in some places is because they were chemically altered a tiny bit from the illicit substance. They were mimicking the chemistry and subsequent effects, but because of minute yet sufficient chemical differences between them and the controlled drugs, they were subsequently not technically illegal.

Again, our definition of a drug is that it is something that our favorite part about is the way it makes us feel. And with that in mind we can, temporarily at least, throw out the prerequisites of “legal”, “illegal”, “semi-legal”, and “prescription”, and simply lay out the different categories of different drugs. There are stimulants, depressants, benzodiazepines, opioids, hallucinogens, barbiturates, hypnotics, tranquilizers, cannabinoids, sedatives and more! ……. Now I knew somewhere around here I would really struggle with simplifying such a vast topic into bite-sized bits, but I’ll try. And I must go back to the pharmaceutical drugs for a second here just to make something very clear. If a “medication” your doctor prescribes is what is known as a “controlled substance” then it is a DRUG, aka it has the ability to make us feel good and subsequently (like all other drugs) poses the risk for one to misuse, abuse or get addicted to the drug.

Ahhhhh, okay let’s boil the many different categories of drugs to these four; uppers, downers, hallucinogens and inbetweeners. And the following drugs are drugs that I can just about guarantee you or someone you know will encounter. Uppers include Methamphetamine, Cocaine, Crack, Caffeine, Adderall, Ritalin, Focalin, Concerta and many, many more. These uppers typically make us feel, and wait for it, that’s right, up! Happy, energetic, euphoric, talkative, productive and beyond. Many of us love our coffee, with its nice little morning caffeine buzz to get our day started. While it is very much possible to overdose on caffeine and die, usually the worst that happens is that extra cup made us a little jittery and gave us an upset stomach. Above caffeine, quite a way above caffeine, are uppers or stimulants like; cocaine, crack, Ritalin, Concerta and Focalin. These drugs are like super coffee, super, super coffee and make us feel even more “up”, more energetic, more euphoric, more talkative and all around produce with an even higher high. With the higher and better highs comes more risk; overdose can lead to higher heart rates, increased sweating and even death. On top of this, these higher highs come with the ability to eventually ruin our lives with misuse, dependence and addiction. Above cocaine, Ritalin, Concerta, etc. (at least in my opinion) are the big daddies of the upper / stimulant world, Adderall, methamphetamine, and Vyvanse. These drugs produce even more euphoric highs, even more energetic highs, even more productive highs, etc. And as we are beginning to see here the higher the high the higher the price there may be to pay. These drugs are easier to misuse and get addicted to, and once addicted to these drugs can be even harder to get off of. In summary these uppers / stimulants typically bring us up; a few cups of coffee or a tiny bit of cocaine equals a little bit up – and a lot of methamphetamine or Adderall equals super up. One can typically partake in a small amount of “up” without too much trouble, however massive amounts of “up” will eventually lead to mania, psychosis, tweaking the fuck out and the inevitable life destruction.

Now, now, now you have probably heard of Adderall and Ritalin as ADHD medications; and I am sure you have heard of methamphetamine and cocaine as horrible, evil life ruining drugs. So why did I clump them together? Well, across the board with pharmaceutical drugs; especially the ADHD drugs they are very, very, very closely related to their street drug counterpart. Guys! Setting apart the technicalities here, Adderall is methamphetamine and Ritalin is cocaine. Without going into full blown conspiracy theorist mode, I’ll just say that the FDA has found stimulant medication to be helpful for treating ADHD and therefore allow it to be prescribed. I can personally attest to the fact that for all intents and purposes, Ritalin (and Focalin and Concerta) are the same fucking thing as cocaine. And while I have never done meth, I can personally attest to the fact that Adderall (and Vyvanse) made me go insane and tweak the fuck out just like methamphetamine does to so many others. On top of this I have the personal account of many tweakers (aka meth addicts) who tell me that they actually prefer Adderall to meth. This is wild shit man!! However, I must slow my role with the sociological aspects of these drugs and continue laying path to the basics of what the deal is with many different drugs we will or may encounter in our lifetime.

Next up are the downers, and you guessed it these downers typically bring us down a bit, or perhaps a lot. These downers include; barbiturates, sedatives, tranquilizers, benzodiazepines, opioids, depressants, and more! These downers include the drugs; alcohol, Xanax, Lorazepam, Clonazepam, Valium, Percocet, Fentanyl, Vicodin, heroin, Oxycodone, Oxycontin, Ambien, Lunesta, and more! Many of us have had a few drinks at least a few times in our life and typically a few drinks make us slightly relaxed, sedated, silly and slightly inebriated. A few drinks piled on top of a few drinks piled on top of a few more drinks make the above feelings even stronger. However, you didn’t need me to tell you this about alcohol, but what is very important to point out here is that I placed alcohol in with all of these other drugs because it is a DRUG like all of these other drugs. Xanax, Lorazepam, Clonazepam, Valium and more are all in this group of downers but specifically belong in the drug class known as benzodiazepines and are typically prescribed for anxiety. While alcohol and benzodiazepines are different, their effects are roughly similar. These benzodiazepines make us feel relaxed, sedated, peaceful, happy and content. To be clear, alcohol is different than Xanax and Xanax is different from Valium, so on and so on, so their effects are all different but they are still in the same boat. Like all drugs the above have a propensity for misuse, abuse and addiction (WARNING – BE CAREFUL WITH BENZOS PEOPLE!!). In fact, the only drugs that can cause death while detoxing from are alcohol and benzodiazepines. Next in this group of downers are the class known as opioids including Percocet, Fentanyl, Vicodin, heroin, Oxycodone, Oxycontin, and more. These opioids are commonly prescribed for pain management and as many of us in the western world know they are highly addictive. While reliving pain, these opioid drugs also make us feel happy, relaxed and sedated. We have all heard about how bad and life ruining heroin can be and just as with many of the uppers, the pharmaceutical industry effectively has copies of the street drug(s). The deadly counterparts to heroin are Percocet, Vicodin, Fentanyl, Oxycontin, etc., etc. Finally, I put the drugs Lunesta and Ambien in this class of downers though they technically fall into the specific category of drugs known as hypnotics and are prescribed to help people sleep. Generally, they have a downing effect, a calming effect, a slightly euphoric effect, and a slightly – well hypnotic effect. Like all other drugs our favorite part about Ambien and Lunesta is the way they make us feel, but by golly I must say that these drugs are weird and often times have people completely forgetting what they did while on them. Kind of like sleep walking people often do things like try to drive to work in the middle of the night, send weird Tweets or Facebook posts and in my case, I would always make a midnight sandwich, only knowing I did so because of the plate left behind in my room the following morning. In summation these downers typically bring us down. Usually one can get away with using a small amount of downers but just like any other substance or group of substances too much can have both immediate and long term horrible effects. Generally speaking, as a society, we know that drinking too much is a bad thing so I’ll leave that poor horse alone and say that generally speaking as a society we know that opioids are really gnarly so I will leave that horse alone as well. However, I would like to point out that the anti-anxiety medications known as benzodiazepines are really gnarly and once addicted are really, really hard to get off of. I would also like to point out that those hypnotic sleeping drugs are just fucking weird and would recommend leaving well enough alone - I mean there are plenty other ways to get high – oh shoot I wasn’t supposed to say that.

Now we can talk a little bit about hallucinogenic or psychedelic drugs. Some of these are DMT also known as Ayahuasca, LSD commonly known as Acid, Psilocybin commonly found in Magic Mushrooms, Ibogaine, and Mescaline often known as Peyote. And there are many, many more. It’s amazing how many plants (oh hey and even toads) are psychoactive with hallucinogenic effects, but the ones listed above are the most common. People oftentimes talk about going on a psychedelic “trip” or “journey” and this is because the effects of these drugs can distort time, space, colors, and make one see things (or not) as well as often lead people to other realms, dimensions and realities. These drugs also seem to help people see ….. let’s say within themselves, see their soul, see their traumas, see more than what normally meets the eye and actually end up really benefiting from the experience of the drug. In fact, the science and anecdotal stories from people who have done these drugs actually show that they have helped heal serious traumas, anxieties and PTSD. With all of these helpful aspects of these psychedelic drugs, are they actually drugs? Whelp, no! In fact, many of these psychedelics are actually truly beautiful and amazing medicines that have helped many move in a positive direction. Hmmmm, no wonder the Matrix makes them highly illegal and uses propaganda to scare us away from them. Now I will back up again and say that if one (like I did) decides to use these substances for recreational and not restorative purposes, they then fall into the category of a drug and should be used carefully. To sum up, most of these psychedelic drugs or medicines as I believe they should be called, are relatively safe and have little risk of addiction. However it is possible for one to do too many of them for too long and end up ….. let’s just say a little out there.
And finally, we get to the group of drugs I call the inbetweeners and that is because they belong to multiple classes or don’t really technically fall into the class science defines. Some of these drugs include nitrous oxide commonly known as Whippets or laughing gas, amyl nitrates commonly known as Poppers, Ketamine commonly known as Special K, MDMA commonly known as Molly, Marijuana commonly known as weed, and even Nicotine commonly found in tobacco. Nitrous oxide is medically used in the dentist office to assist with uncomfortable dental procedures and is also available at every head shop nationwide. The first few times one does nitrous the effects are PROFOUND, oftentimes giving the user a completely overwhelming head rush with a “wow” feeling. In fact all I said the first few times I did Whippet was “wow” and the same is true with others. The main dangers associated with nitrous use are fainting, asphyxiation and horrible, horrible life ruining addiction. Amyl nitrates commonly known as poppers are not so common these days but can still be found at most head shops across the US. Just like nitrous, it legal to use to make whipped cream with (hence the common name of Whippet), but not necessarily inhale. These poppers are not legal to inhale and are therefore sold as “room deodorizers” again, sold as not to be inhaled by humans. Effects of poppers include a head rush, euphoria, heightened sense of touch and relaxed muscles. In fact, because of its muscle relaxing properties, it is often used in the gay community before having butt sex. The main risks with poppers are a drop in blood pressure and a greatly weakened immune system. Ketamine or Special K was originally around as an animal tranquilizer and general anesthetic for humans, and quickly found roots as a street drug for its relaxing, sedative, dissociative, hypnotic and peaceful effects. While ketamine seems to have the effects of a downer it is technically a psychedelic drug. These days ketamine is being prescribed as part of therapy routines as to help those with addictions, traumas, PTSD and more. The dangers of ketamine include disorientation, confusion, heart rate issues, increased blood pressure and of course addiction which we have seen is all around bad! While the dangers of ketamine are real, there do appear to be some real therapeutic benefits associated with its roots as a psychedelic drug ….. or medicine we should call it if it actually helps us heal. Next, we will talk a little bit about MDMA also known as molly or ecstasy. Like ketamine, MDMA is a psychedelic drug however unlike Ketamine its effects are that of an upper; elevated mood, euphoria, heightened senses, feelings of love, light and well, ecstasy. MDMA is most commonly found in the rave or EDM music scene. The main dangers associated with MDMA include increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, and dehydration. It is also quite addictive. While the dangers associated with MDMA are VERY REAL so are its benefits as a psychedelic. Again, MDMA has been shown via clinical studies to help therapeutically for those with addictions, anxieties, traumas, PTSD and more. With a hand on my heart, I will say that, aside from maybe caffeine, MDMA is the ONLY drug / well medicine that has helped me in life; let’s save that story for later though. An important final warning about MDMA (and many other drugs for that matter) is that the real true MDMA is extracted from the bark of the Sassafras tree, however a lot of “Molly” on the streets is completely synthetically made and therefore could be cut / made with who knows what and therefore can pose many unknown dangers. And finally, we can talk about marijuana and nicotine however I think we all know about weed and cigarettes – all I will say about weed and cigarettes is that the best part about them is that they do not ruin your life, and subsequently the worst part about them is that they do not ruin your life.

Ahhhhh, okay now, how do we sum things up? Well, since the beginning of time man has been after the many ways to change our state of consciousness and as man and technology have evolved so have the drugs. The discussion of different drugs, the good, the bad and the ugly could go on forever, and that’s not what we want to do here. However there are a few concluding points I would really like to make.

First let me pose a few leading questions. Have you ever had a few really strong cups of coffee, sent a bunch of emails, done the dishes, showered, done your make up and got the kids ready for school in a fast paced and all-American glorious fashion? Yes, you probably have …. Or at least something like it. Now, have you ever had a few really strong cups of coffee on a cool Sunday morning and calmly and peacefully read a book or watched funny animal videos on TikTok? Again, yes you probably have ….. or something like it. And now here are a few more questions. Have you ever had a few too many drinks and straight up raged with the boys or went totally crazy white girl wasted? Again, yup you probably have. Subsequently have you ever had a few too many drinks and instead of going totally crunk n crazy did you do something like sedately sit on the couch eating too many potato chips low key laughing at the sitcom you were watching. Again!, yes you probably have ….. or something like it. So, the point here is that we see an upper drug having both upper AND downer effects and we see a downer drug having both downer AND upper effects. And first off it is important to simply understand that there can be more than one effect of a particular drug; however, there is a more important point to make here. This is that society has grabbed onto the false idea that if one gets some calming effects from speed (or vice versa with other drugs) then they do have the greenlight to take some DRUG because it has medicinal benefits …… and frankly this is just malarkey.

Don’t worry, we are getting close to wrapping things up but there are a few more things to go over. So! What is the difference between all of the different drugs out there? Right! They all make us feel different - differently. And subsequently what is the similarity between all of the drugs out there? Right again! They all make us feel different! Keeping this in mind is absolutely crucial and allows us to correctly label and see all drugs as DRUGS. See, when we see something like alcohol as acceptable and therefore not bad or not that bad, our relationship with the drug is flawed from the beginning, and we all know what happens when truth does not precede action. And again, if we see some drug as a helpful “medication” then we can bet our asses that we are set up in a bad way from the very get go.

Obviously, my entire point here is that drugs are DRUGS and seeing that from a chemical standpoint sets us up for a truthful relationship with whatever substance it is (whether using it or not). HOWEVER, I will very much admit that the sociological aspects of these drugs do in fact affect the way they play out in our lives and society in general. Street level cocaine, meth, heroin, etc. have extreme dangers with the possibility of being laced or tainted. On top of this the legal ramifications of getting caught with these street level drugs quickly puts people in very hot legal water. Prescription drugs have the benefit of being clearly labeled, dosed and are pure. Now in my very strong opinion one of the main dangers of prescription drugs as a whole is that (obviously stories like mine do exist) they are not typically prescribed in absolutely obscene doses. This leads to the sort of middle ground of addiction or drug use where life seems to be mostly okay and because of this we do not realize how much the drugs are negatively affecting us. And again, similar points could be made about alcohol (and even marijuana) as it is both legal and socially acceptable.

At the end of the day the South Park character Mr. Mackey was mostly right in saying, “don’t do drugs, cuz drugs are bad -mmmmmmgkay”. With that said, drugs are surely here to stay and a healthy understanding and LEVELED PLAYINGFIELD of our perception and understanding of these drugs lays a path for a truthful foundation for us to build upon or NOT.

Look, if you are coming down, are starting to get sick and need just one more bag of smack, you are loved and are being prayed for. If the booze from the night before is wearing off, you are getting sweaty, anxious and just need one more bottle for today, then I totally feel ya brothers and sisters. If the atrocious morning depression just won’t go away without some crank, addies or Ritalin, then you too deserve to feel better. If your anxiety is acute or ongoing, is through the roof and a zany or valium is all you need, don’t feel too bad. You are loved as well.

Oh yeah. At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned food, but haven’t since and that is because there is one more drug that must be mentioned. It is, if not the most addictive drug in the world, then close to the most addictive drug in the world. Most of use it daily, it’s in every aisle of every grocery store, it devastates our health and controls our lives in ways we never imagined. The drug I am referring to is refined sugar! However, we will take our hand out of that cookie jar and save that subject for another time.

“My favorite part about drugs is the way they make me feel”- from a sticker at Burning Man.

Chapter 8 – Still Okay, Good Even …

Now the truth is that going over ten years back, remembering lots of details and the mindset behind my ways is a little tricky. It can be even more tricky to extract important life messages from such happenings …… oh well aside from the message that WE HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED BY THE MATRIX!! I HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED BY THE MATRIX …. YOU HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED BY THE MATRIX!!!! ….. “Ah hem – cough cough” excuse me …. But yeah, that’s a pretty important message for sure. Anyway, I was a sleepy sheep who kinda didn’t know any better, and hey I didn’t want to know any better – the grass in that field was like no other. However with the truths expressed within Chapter 7 you will be able to see the real insanity of a (for all intents and purposes) totally fine young man being prescribed copious amounts of medicine ….. oh wait, DRUGS!

Now where were we, well, where was I? That’s right, going to college, having lots of great sex, partying with friends, had the body of a stallion and the strength of an army ….. and was really loving life …not. Yeah, I really had everything going for me yet I was still as insecure, anxious and uneasy as all heck. But that morning dose of my medicine really helped with things.

One relationship ended and another one quickly began. Megan, yeah let’s call her Megan, a blue-eyed blond was fun, funny, kind, willing, exuberant, etc. etc. We had gone to different schools so our first time meeting was, well our first time meeting. A few texts quickly lead to “well come on over and hang out if ya want”, so I did and it was incredibly uncomfortable. I mean, boy goes to meet girl for the first time and it’s not a planned date and he doesn’t bring flowers and then they end up hanging out with her sister and going to Target … I mean how … well completely reasonable is that? Back then I was so boot strappy, stern, tense and idealistic that for things to be okay everything had to be perfect before okay was okay. We were polar opposites in that regard, and in fact that was the most beautiful thing about her, she was okay with okay. When she was sad, she was sad and when she was happy (which was more often than not) she was happy. Megan was happy to cheer someone on while driving through a 4x4 course or she was happy to take silly photos and post them on social media. She was even plenty happy to laugh along with her sister while turning on the lights at their neighbor’s house. Now Megan’s sister Romy is blind. Since blind people don’t rely on house lights, Romy was doing us a favor and turning them on. Because Romy didn’t have her cane and this was a new environment, she relied on Katie to guide her a bit, and when Katie forgot to tell her about a step Romy fell, to which they both laughed. When Romy reached the light switch, she ended up turning off one light, then turning on a fan, then on and off with the right light. Megan was trying to instruct her but confusion about which switch did which was abundant. Megan was busting up laughing, lights and fans were going on and off and in between Romy’s own laughter she cracked the joke that “if only she had a little light, she may be able to see a little better”. Whilst I obviously didn’t say anything I was rather taken aback, I mean laughing at a blind person who fell and is now struggling seemed wildly inappropriate. Not right, not okay, not acceptable! You could say my social and emotional IQ still needed to grow exponentially back then.

Anyway Romy finally got the light turned on, the happenings of the day continued on and later when Romy was going for a nap I asked her if she wanted the light off, to which she paused and said “…..yeah, sure”. Seems the spirit of the universe or God puts people in your life so we can teach other lessons; Megan taught me that it’s okay to be okay. And in case you have never had a blind person as a friend I can tell ya that Romy taught me that people are just people ….. something that my vastly insecure AND egotistical ways couldn’t grasp – turns out that humility blinds ego. Don’t get me wrong Romy is a beautiful, amazing, awesome, capable person ….. but a person none the less, just like you, just like me.

I was probably just about 20 at this point, had just finished college and had received an associate’s degree in Criminology and Justice Studies …. I actually made it all the way through college without ever reading a book., Heck I had never actually read an entire book before starting this one. Okay, I had listened to a few but never read one cover to cover, an interesting feather for my cap. Anyway, my eyes were still heavily on the prize, as I had decided to not be a cop and instead do EMT school and a fire academy. Cops had the power but fire fighters got the glory. Glory sounded nice, my ego wanted it and my insecurities needed it.

While I was in really good shape, being comfortable with my previous girlfriend for a while did have me a little bit physically soft, interesting how comfort will do that to ya. Anyway, with a new not only mental challenge but also a physical challenge coming I spent the few months before EMT school and the fire academy training physically quite hard. Now I’ll bet ya that you have experienced a good runner’s high at least a few times, but have you ever experienced a runner’s high while blasted on legal meth? Yeah, its fucking awesome!!!! I would run 5 miles 4 or 5 times a week as well as do multiple weight lifting sessions at the gym, racquetball, long heart pounding intensive sex sessions, run with my girlfriend and do pushups all of the fucking time. God I was strong!! However at that time I felt weak, soft, fat and completely inferior ….. it’s really amazing how our minds can …. let’s just say, be so off.

Oh yeah, every morning was still Adderall, every mid-day was still Adderall and every early afternoon was still Adderall. One month I would see my doctor on the 8^th and the next I would make sure it was a few days before the 30-day cycle so I would go on the 4^th or 5^th of the month. I let myself believe that this was okay, ya know, just making sure I had my medications. But to tell ya the truth I now realize this is just what drug addicts do, we play the games we need to, to enable us to play the game we want to. Back in the day I think the pharmacies would refill prescriptions 2 or 3 days before the 30-day cycle was complete. At this point I was in fact taking my Adderall as prescribed, but hey a few extra days a month was good insurance, insurance I would soon need.

With the fire academy and EMT school starting soon I had done my due diligence of getting books, turnouts (fire fighter gear), my car serviced, full uniform, boots …. learned how to polish my boots and was ready to go. I again thought that I would soon be in the land of bigger, better, stronger, more powerful and of course more glorified. I thought that being around these people and then becoming a true firefighter would not only be good for society … but also be good for that external validation I so truly desired.

At this point Adderall had become a really good friend of mine, a friend who I loved, thought was amazing and thought was truly a godsend for me. However, I wouldn’t tell anyone about this friend. ….. weird, see on a few occasions I did take medicine; a special mouthwash, antibiotics, and even Tylenol when I had a really high fever and never hesitated to mention those medications to others. I had Adderall on my night stand, in my backpack, wallet and in both of my vehicles. Yet, while I knew I was up to something, I knew this “medicine” was a little too good to be true …. So, I guess I knew I was cheating – and now it’s clear, when you are cheating you don’t tell others about it.

The inaugural meeting for the new fire recruits was held in the late evening, which meant Adderall had me have a long day of making sure my papers were in order, my clothes were lined up, and that the oil was checked in my car ….. made sure my papers were in order again, made sure my clothes were lined up again, and checked my oil again. Yeah, that’s Adderall for ya. We (that is all of the new recruits) were instructed to meet in the courtyard of a training center that mostly consisted of classrooms. Once arriving and getting out of my car I walked trepidatiously toward where I thought I was supposed to go, and there were others doing the same thing. Looking at someone I tried to see if it seemed they knew what they were doing and as they looked my way, I made sure to quickly look away. Looking away quickly led my eye to see another young man looking as nervous and confused as everyone else. Soon a few folks started talking, we convened and found our way to the classroom we were told to meet in.

Twenty-seven dicks (that means guys) and three chicks were all piled into a small sized classroom. All of us were new recruits, some cool and calm, some like myself were nervous as fuck, some knew what was about to happen and some didn’t. And what happened next …. was pretty normal. A career firefighter and teacher or DI aka drill instructor walked in, introduced themself, told us a little bit about what to expect, melodramatically fear-porned us, said a few more rambles, then had us head outside where the training for our programming would commence.

We were told to form one line then count off numbers 1-5. People with number one then became a group, aka a squad, people with number two became a squad and so on and so forth. We were then instructed to have our squads line up in unison, pick a squad leader, have the squad leaders pick a platoon leader and before you know it Recruit Class 32 was in position. We were then taught how to stand at attention, how to stand at ease, how we would address our instructors and how the platoon would act as one during certain grouping and de-grouping times.

So far everyone was really quite nice, little to no yelling and shouting, cool and calm were the vibes. We were then told to pretend as if we were grouping for the morning and a DI would be arriving. So we all scurried into our little lines, our platoon leader went to the front of the class and loudly said “Recruit Class 32 – ATTENTION” and at once we all did our best to do the motion from moving from “at ease” to “attention” all while in unison proclaiming “Recruit Class 32, thank you sir!!”. Now standing at attention we waited and waited and waited. It had been a long day of Adderall; the seemingly relaxed vibes had become rather serious and I would have been able to hear a pin drop if it wasn’t for my heart beating so hard.

Standing at attention meant we all had our left feet 45 degrees to our body and our right feet 30 degrees to our body, straight legs, stomach in, chest out, hands at our side, fingers to our palms, thumbs slightly straightened, chin up, our eyes looking dead ahead and only dead ahead. Soon a man in plain clothes approached the group, walked around the group, looked up and down at a few recruits and then walked the lines making sure every recruit knew of his presence. ….. And I’ll make this plain, we were under no legal obligation, we were under no moral obligation and no one was holding a gun to our head to stand at attention, but that is what we signed up for and agreed to do, so it is what we all did.

Now, lemme ask if you have ever been called to your boss’s office? Yeah, bet you have! And you know that feeling? Again, yeah I bet you do! “Nervous” isn’t the correct word, and neither is “high strung” and neither is “anxious” ….. in fact, I don’t know if there is a good word to describe a feeling of overwhelming intensity. And truth be told standing at attention whilst you can feel eyeballs looking you up and down having no idea if something is going to pop off is a feeling of 10x the intensity of getting called to your boss’s office. This totally overwhelming anxious intensity was in all of the recruits …. And I know this because most recruits said so. Kinda funny how our brains are, I mean we are often completely safe while in our bosses office or whilst standing at attention ….. yet our minds feel like they are on the rev limiter about to pop.

Speaking of the rev limiter and about to pop, what Adderall does is allow an already high strung / high revving brain to rev even higher and be happy there …… that is until the brain finally blows up due to the fact that it is high on speed. However, just as race car drivers are good at taking their engines to the limit without blowing them up, I was good at feeding my brain and body Adderall until I was on the rev limiter all day, every day. And one more race car analogy; even if an engine has a really good rev limiter it will eventually blow up if pure oxygen and nitromethane is continuously added, and so will one’s brain with Adderall. Mine sure did.

With my brain at the rev limit, I continued with the other recruits standing at attention while the drill instructors talked to us nicely, and meanly, and seriously and satirically. After not too, too long of this we were dismissed and told when and where to report back.

Now hindsight is 20/20 but memory isn’t and with that in mind I must again express that my recollection of fine details and dates may be a bit off. With that said I remember the first day; or one of the first days of the Fire Academy, a day I will never forget. The training started at 7:00 AM or should I say 0700, which meant that we actually stared at 6:30 am for a recruit run PT session. In any case, we all finished with our initial morning PT then quickly put on our dress uniforms and lined up in rows, then were put at ease by our squad leader and then at 6:59 am were called to attention by our squad leader. See, we would stand at attention until our drill instructor arrived and “excused us” or whatever the formal term was. At ease we stood, and stood and …. stood. The drill instructor made sure to show up rather late; but hey some low-key taunting is expected in such arenas.

And after what felt like a lifetime, a drill instructor arrived and said “good morning recruits”, to which we all replied “Recruit Class 32, thank you Sir!”. “How is everybody doing today?”, said the drill instructor. “Good, … Sir …. Recruit Class … Thank You ……”. See when a DI addressed the group, we were all supposed to respond in unison with “Recruit Class 32 thank you sir or ma’am” and then answer their question, yes in unison. At the beginning of the academy, we were pretty bad at such recitals and had to do a lot of pushups because of it, so quickly we learned how to do such recitals and then got in trouble for other shit and were made to do more pushups …. We sure did a lot of pushups. Anyway, I think the DI then told us some stuff or something like it, then had us do some stuff or something like it, and then head inside to our classroom where another DI would teach a class.

In our dress uniforms we proceeded into the classroom where we sat in alphabetical order with name plates front and center on the desks, to the left of that sat our binders and to the right we would place our writing devices. We all lined up at ease, then attention when instructed by our platoon leader and then again waited at attention until another DI arrived. And in walked an older gentleman, slender yet strong …. And immediately it was clear that he had some sort of energy about him. Back then I wasn’t at all aware of the concept of peoples’ energy ….. however I could sense something with this DI, everyone could. “Good morning everyone, hopefully you guys didn’t have to wait too long. I was stuck in a bit of traffic”. “Recruit Class 32 ……” we all started in with, and he quickly put his hand up as to stop us. He then continued with a “Hey guys, you have been through a lot these first few hours” (or maybe it had been days, I honestly don’t remember), “you have been through a lot, I want to just talk with you a little bit’’. He gave us the greenlight to slouch in our seats if we so chose, he said we could address him by his first name if we wanted, during this talk we could speak freely without being addressed first. Human to human, heart to heart, man to man; he had freed us from the leash but we stayed at heel. Someone asked “sir, were you really stuck in traffic …. Or….?”. To which he replied “yes, again I apologize, really didn’t expect traffic in this direction, how long were you standing at attention?”. Another recruit chimed in “actually not long at all, I think we were wondering ….. wondering if, ya know you were jacking our jaws”. The raspiness of this gentleman’s voice was like none other but it soothed like Velcro scratching a mosquito bite. And in this voice, he responded “folks you have been through a lot already, all of this fear porn is real and anything could happen at any time in this line of work”. He had primed us, he had already caused a disturbance and an emotion (we will talk about that more later). He had “disturbed” the situation by giving us freedom and the emotion he created was peace within us. With his impressive voice he continued on telling us about the heinous being true and also the beauty. He talked about being inside fires during a certain point and seeing the “roll-over” in which the smoke near the ceiling will roll and burn in ways never seen by someone not truly within the fire, he mentioned the peace and calm one could feel in that situation. He talked about the real honor it can be to be with people as they die and the beauty of hugging someone as they ball after their entire house burns. This gentleman somehow got us to the other side …..and what that other side is may be talked about later.

We were all drawn into him, we all could sense everything he was saying, we knew that he …. “FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!” He dialed up not only the frequency but the tone of his voice and now it wasn’t so soothing, like nails on a chalk board it created an immediate sense of emergency. “GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!- SAVE THE BABIES, SAVE THE BABIES!!!”. All of us including the girls had big dick energy, were high strung and ready to do some badass firefighting baby saving shit, so we all ran through the doors to go be awesome! The tone of his voice changed again, this time to make a statement before continuing the completely bamboozle and freak us out “you just ran into a fire without putting your gear on first, half of your faces are burned to a crisp, now there is smoke in here and babies are still dying’’. Scurrying back to wherever we had our gear in the class room we donned it, and yeah, our masks were blacked out (which is a common training practice because you often can’t see in fires due to all of the smoke). “SIREN: WHAHHH WHAHHH WHAHHH, DI: THE BABIES SAVE, THE BABIES!!!”. Without the ability to see all 30ish of us recruits found the doorway to where the fire was and of course we all clogged it, ya know just trying to be badasses. “PHOOOOOMM A FIREFIGHTER JUST TOOK A LOT OF FIRE, AHHH HELP HELP, WHAHHHH, WHAHHHH, WHAHHHH”. It was, let’s say 11:30 am, we were inside of a college building with fresh air, air conditioning, clean floors to crawl around on, an operational drinking fountain not but 12 feet away and there was even a taco truck outside. ….. Yet, we were all freaked, we were all in a raging fire and babies were dying!!! “GO GO GO GO FASTER, DOWN THE HALLWAY ARE THE BABIES!!!”. “SAVE MY BABY, SAVE MY BABY”. “THE MOTHER IS RIGHT HERE!!! YOU HAVE THE CHANCE TO SAVE HER!!”. A number of recruits were trying to communicate with each other, which was met with the DI’s making a “WHSSSSSSSSSS” sound, “THE FIRE IS RAGING AND YOU CAN’T HEAR IN RAGING FIRES LIKE THIS!!!”. This back and forth continued for some time, all of us recruits were getting more and more freaked, frazzled and confused. And soon “WAH, Wahh, w……”. “Okay guys, you lost the babies all died, all stop, all stop, all stop. Take your masks off”.

Obviously, I don’t know what my face looked like after removing my mask but I do remember the faces of my fellow recruits and it was like nothing I had ever seen. Blank stares, sweating, messed up hair, confusion, glances here and glances there. We were all in completely random areas of this college hallway; some of us laying down, some standing, some leaning against the walls and some on our hands and knees. For a second that felt like an eternity it was quiet, and after that eternal second the DI said to take some time to gather ourselves, get our dress uniforms back on and meet back in the classroom.

Back in the classroom we all lined up at attention and were ready for a beating. See, “taking a beating’’ is common in these arenas and no I am not referring to getting kicked and punched but I am referring to having to get screamed at whilst doing intense physical activity. At attention the DI aka gentleman (as he really seemed to be) walked back in and said “guys just take your seats” …. Nah we didn’t do any of that “Recruit Class 32 thank you, Sir” shit, we just sat down. And there were a few more eternal seconds where everyone was silent and he just kinda looked around at us. Yeah. And I forget if he gave us another speech or simply just said “I’ll see you guys in a few weeks” and walked out. Ya know when you do something really stupid as a kid and instead of getting in trouble your parent just sighs and states that they are just disappointed in you? ….. Yeah that, and it fucking sucked!!!

Standing back at attention we were ready for another DI to address us, and then we took a good ole beating, not for killing babies but instead because a recruit had his zipper showing.

Again, memory is not like hindsight and with that in mind I must again state that the specific details of the above may be slightly off; however I received a strong message that day, a strong message that was hopefully conveyed to you through my account of the above experience. (Hint hint – hypnosis).

The schedule for this fire academy was Saturday and Sunday. Both days were long, physically difficult and mentally taxing. On top of this, most Monday nights had us doing some sort of classroom lecture and through the week we had book studies to do. This academy was stringent; two strikes and you’re out, mess up on a midterm or final and you are DUN which spells done. In the mornings we would do PT, then get in our dress uniforms, then more PT, then yard training drills, classroom lectures, etc. etc. Oh yeah, and do pushups for everything we did wrong …. heck even for everything we did right. With my hand on heart and hat off head please let me say thank you, thank you, thank you and God Bless to all the first responders out there. Y’all are very FUCKING important to society. And of course, the reason I just said those nice things is because I will soon mention some things that could perhaps sound disrespectful to those in uniform, though that is not my intent.

Some people worked fulltime whilst doing the Fire Academy, and I honestly don’t know how they did it. In my case, during the Fire Academy I also did an EMT school. While the Fire Academy was para-militaristic, the EMT school was more like 75% college class and 25% military structure. It was a lot of work doing the two together, and yes I did work hard and yes I did graduate both and yes I have forgotten almost all of it. All that is beaten into my head is to stay away from powerlines and the meaning of CAB – that is if someone is doing dying in front of my I will hopefully do some CAB on them. CAB - Circulation, Airway, Breathing. EMT school and the Fire Academy were both great experiences and I am happy for that, I am happy for the experience, and the experience of the experience is what I am trying to share in this book in hope that it somehow helps you or someone else.

At this point in life I had a lot of good stuff going; a healthy relationship, Fire Academy, EMT school, lots of working out, managing friendships, etc. Yet I was still wildly insecure and had a massive ego that was going to long lengths to do things that I thought people would think was cool, was good and was merit worthy. On the outside it looked fun but inside it was absolute hell! And fuck it, here is a spoiler alert – these days I pretty much do believe in God, do value myself, care very little about what other people think (be careful with double edged swords) and am using my still massive ego to try to be awesome – for myself, my family and to serve God and not much else. It’s a great way to feel and to be living ….. or at least way of trying to live. It’s way the fuck better than before, and I promise if I can get to a better place, so can you.

And yes, of course Adderall every morning, noon and early afternoon (just consider this the case for every single day, unless I say so).

As for the Fire Academy and EMT school, I will absolutely say that they were great experiences; I grew physically, expanded mentally, learned technical and pragmatic skills, conquered fears and of course learned more about the human condition. Until this point, during this period and heck even to this day I judge both individual people and groups as black or white; good or bad, smart or stupid, meaningful or not meaningful, etc. It was and still is a failing of mine. Because Recruit Class 32 was a group of up-and-coming public servants I figured that each individual and the group as a whole would for surely be “proper”, “intelligent”, “respectful”, “willing” and carry the utmost of “integrity”. A lot of our weekend training happened in my small(ish) town an hour or two away from where many of the other recruits lived. My father’s house had a number of empty rooms, so heck, quite a few recruits bunked there on the weekends. After one weekend a few dishes were left undone, a bathroom was dirty and a few belongings were left behind, etc. I didn’t think this much of such as an “offense”, but it happened again, and then again even worse. To this I was aghast and so was my father to be honest …. So I sent a group text to all the other recruits with a stern ramble of needing to show respect have integrity and live up to such picture perfect ideations. To which a few recruits responded with something to the effect of “yeah man we probably should have done better ….. but maybe chill a little”. Now to be clear, the point of sharing this is in no way to shame my fellow recruits, they were good dudes, sure they slipped but no real biggie. In fact, what I wanted to point out here is that we humans are complicated on both the individual and group levels; black and white views on people isn’t the healthiest of mindsets. Oftentimes we humans are both good and bad, smart and stupid, honorable and douchy, caring and mean, etc. Grasping this notion is of pivotal importance and I hope this message will play out more and more as this book goes on.

Through my teens and to around this point, my drinking was “recreational” - heavy, definitely heavy, but still “recreational”. My friends and I had many high school parties, get- togethers and weekly beer pong whenever we had a house with parents who weren’t around. I really enjoyed the “rah rah” of the social interaction, the games, the banter, the love and the fights. I loved people and I loved being around people. That is, with the exception of constantly feeling out of place, that people were judging me, that people hated me, that I wasn’t worthy, etc. Again, the FACT is that our favorite part about drugs is the way they make us feel and with that in mind I can extrapolate to understand that my second favorite part about drugs is what they enabled me to not feel so I could feel what I should have felt all along. That is; worthy, capable, equal, helpful, loved, needed and important. And it’s quite odd; what enabled me to feel those things was what inevitably made me not worthy, not capable, not equal, not helpful, etc. etc. There really are some universal truths; to every reaction there is ….., Yin and Yang, without darkness there can be no light. Yeah, I know it may sound like hippie hoopla but it’s sure true my friends.

I had been taking Adderall for around two years now and about one or two months into the Fire Academy was the first time my brain went past the rev limiter, only a little past the rev limiter, but still past. We were doing a number of hose drills; basically laying out a bunch of fire hoses this way and that way, charging them, spraying them, doing pushups, moving them for one mock scenario then moving them again and yeah getting yelled at and doing a lot of pushups. Now remember that DI that made us think we were in a live fire trying to save babies? Yeah, he was on the drill grounds that day. I think we all really liked him and he taught us a lot of practical stuff about laying hoses that day, however that is not the point here. See, at the end of drills and nearing the end of the day we were getting yelled at to do this and do that, nothing too new, but I became overly anxious. I started running from one location to another, picking up one hose then checking my breathing apparatus, getting in the face of another recruit saying that we MUST do this or that, etc. etc. The DI walked up behind me and softly put his hand on my shoulder, to which touch I flinched so hard I almost broke my back. Having turned around as well he put both hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “Recruit, what’s going on son? You seem to be completely freaked! Breath for a second. Are you okay?”. And of course I knew what to do with the situation, yeah manipulate it! We were still staring deep into each other’s eyes and I don’t know how to explain it …. but all I can say is that he had confusion in his eyes. This gentleman was very wise; he had seen hundreds of recruits freak out before and he had dealt with an equal number of tweakers on the streets. So hey maybe he didn’t know how someone could be doing both; tweaking and doing fireman shit. Yeah ….. yeah. I probably took a deep breath or two, apologized, made an excuse and of course protected my egotistical ass.

About halfway through the Fire Academy and EMT school was my 21^st birthday; I had a late night EMT class which I of course attended whilst high on drugs … oh sorry, whilst properly medicated to assist with schooling and basic life functions. So yeah, I did allow myself to grab a six-pack on my way home that evening – respectful, reasonable, healthy, good and just.

Chapter 9 – Just A Six Pack

Just a little medicine and just a six pack, huh, yeah …. years later I would find myself saying just 20 beers, just 150 mg Adderall, just a little Molly, just a little Coke and just a few Shrums …… hey they were all justs, so just because they were mostly taken at the same time didn’t make my actions unjust. Mmmm, wow, writing this and remembering such mentalities is rather interesting. But hey we’re not to that point of the book, so back up to “just a six pack after school”.

It was probably close to 9pm when I finally got home from the evening’s EMT class. It had been a long day of taking Adderall, working out, maybe studying a bit, and of course protecting my ever so frail ego, so of course I was tired. Finally sitting at my desk, I popped the top of a Budweiser Platinum, drank it and enjoyed it. Popped another top and enjoyed that one too. Popped another top and ….. yeah, drank half of it and went to bed. (Bet you weren’t expecting that.) That night I slept well and the next day I felt great after my Adderall had kicked in. That evening, I probably had the other two Budweiser Platinum’s. The following days and through the weekend I didn’t drink anything, didn’t have much desire and had stuff to do. Sounds like pretty appropriate alcohol consumption, doesn’t it? Definitely not alcoholic behavior, right? I clearly had control, I thought.

Now a shout out to Alan Carr’s book “Easy Way” and “Annie Grace’s” book “This Naked Mind”. They are both fantastic and I highly recommend them! Also, Annie, in the off-chance that this book finds you, let me apologize now for some big-time future shit talking I am going to do. In any case both Alan and Annie reference the Pitcher Plant, and it seems the Pitcher Plant is a real plant with fascinating abilities. Apparently, this plant is big and red, it is shaped like an upside cone and is really exciting and enticing to flies. It’s beautiful color and nectar is extremely delicious, so a fly lands on it and really enjoys what the plant has to offer. The nectar is like none other and other animals stay away from this plant; it’s really perfect. So why would the fly leave? At this point the fly could easily fly away, however it doesn’t because everything is well and good. More on this later.

The Fire Academy was tense and strict and stern, on certain tests it was one fail and you were DONE! Six months of hard, hard work and knowing it could all go wrong in an instant plays quite the games with your psyche. I guess when you are 21 years old the idea of failing something such as a Fire Academy may seem life ruining, however the mentality of being wildly afraid of failure is not healthy and in fact is quite hindering. And spoiler alert I did end up graduating, however I came damn near to throwing it all in the trash.

Now the truth is that I am proud of never having actually read a book before graduating college, a Fire Academy, EMT School., (And heck I even started writing my own book.) However, I probably shouldn’t be proud of that. Just as I am proud of making it through a Fire Academy without ever getting yelled at on an individual level, I probably shouldn’t be. Folks like me will (well, used to) go to extreme lengths to protect our insecurities. We will stop at nothing …… and oftentimes this comes across as being a perfect little people pleasing angel. It’s a truly impressive skill some of us folks have, however it’s not one to be proud of. It’s in fact incredibly exhausting; and very detrimental and dangerous to others when we start to lose the game that only we are playing.

During the Fire Academy we did a LOT of work with ladders, we trained a bunch with the solid 10-footer and trained just as much with the 20ft extension ladder. We would have trained a lot with the big dog 35ft extension ladder; however, those were in short supply so we only had a little bit of training with those. We all knew the final test on the final day was to perform the skills drill with the 35ft ladder, This had not only been a big discussion amongst the recruits, but also beaten into our heads that it was by far the hardest skills test and what failed most recruits. It just so happened that I had never even performed / trained on certain aspects of said 35ft extension ladder, so I was sure happy to have the opportunity to come in on a nonscheduled day to do ladder drills. It was of paramount importance to do that, going into the skills test without ever having actually done it would have been completely crazy!

We were given the opportunity to come in on Friday to do said practices and it just so happened that I had Thursday night bowling planned with friends. And long story short, Friday morning found me extremely hung over and in no shape to do ladder drills in 95-degree heat. This was a fuck up, a big one, the pitcher plant had me, but I remained blissfully ignorant. Three days later I was in full fire fighter gear, had a roof ladder in hand and a 35ft extension ladder at my feet. Mortified, I was mortified, not from the EXTREMELY DANGEROUS 35ft ladder we were leaning against an angled sheet metal roof but mortified of failure, of letting my ego get bruised. Put up, or shut up, and I ended up putting up and graduated the Academy.

And having also passed EMT school meant I could breathe a bit and by breathe, I mean drink.

Megan was a sweet girl, a fun girl, a free-spirited girl and one who could not only truly live in the moment but also accepted shit when shit went wrong. Perhaps opposites attract. We had been together for about 7 months at this point and ended up staying together for a total of two years. To this point I had been a good man to her; protective, leading, caring, capable, etc. She deserved a good man; lots of Adderall, some beer and lots of hard ass work seemed good and while it was good, it was just a band aid on a man who was broken inside.

After the fire Academy and EMT school the next steps were to take the National Registry test for EMT certification and start applying to fire departments. However, I started to put these things off …. And off and off, which really wasn’t my style. About 49% of me was afraid of failure and knew I wasn’t the real deal, knew I would never be able to actually become a fire fighter or EMT. My thoughts were “oh that EMT school wasn’t really a real EMT school and that Fire Academy wasn’t a real Fire Academy; I am definitely not trained enough to continue”. This is known as imposter syndrome which is a fascinating, fascinating aspect of the human condition. The other 51% of my reasonings to delay and eventually never pursue EMT or firefighting at all was because I was seeing sheeplike behavior. This sheeplike behavior is kinda a massive part of the human condition I now know. However, there were many aspects of the human condition I simply didn’t understand then and didn’t know why such sheeplike behavior absolutely repulsed me – more on this later (hint, hint, the matrix has programmed us).

Megan and I were very close and shared almost everything, except I hid my Adderall right in front of her face. Yup, I would take it in the car with her and simply say “it’s about noon time for my crazy meds”. Yeah, that was my go-to; that these were my crazy meds prescribed by a doctor to help me. I was constantly high on legal speed around her and her mom and dad and even whilst taking her blind sister shooting ….. yeah ….. but hey anyway I still believed my own lie that Adderall was a medicine, so that justifies everything, right? And hey around this time I had my tonsils taken out and when asked what medicines I was taking I mentioned the anti-depressant I was on, maybe some sort of sleep aid and yes, I also mentioned Adderall. See, I had taken so many pills I started having fucked up sleep which probably led to depression which meant more pills and worse sleep which led to a natural body part having to be surgically removed …. right ….. yeah, so I allowed my tonsils to be removed via razor knife, then given more drugs for the pain after the surgery that was only needed because of drugs annnnnnnnd then because swallowing drugs in pill form would be hard with castrated tonsils I was instructed to only take my legal meth (Adderall) and legal heroin (Vicodin) - these were the really important ones to take they said. Ahhh, I fucking love the moral greenlight that ignorance is given when a doctor tells you to take drugs.

With not wanting to pursue firefighting or becoming an EMT, I decided to further my education within the Criminal Justice realm and go to University of California Humbolt, UCHU? Cal Humbolt? Whatever it is called. Now I have brought up the term “matrix” and “programming” and even “sheep” and a little weight needs to be put on this. Feel free to look up the definitions of those words if you want, if not I will be clearly defining them later in this book. Now imagine you and I were to chit chat in the street; a little bit of joking around, a few “blah blah blahs” and then I said “man, people really are band waggoners and follow others too much” to which you would probably say something to the effect of “oh yeah definitely, I just don’t understand why people aren’t more individual and do their own thing” and I would probably say in return “super glad you are awake like I am, stupid sheep people need to wake up”. Then you and I would go on our own ways with our pompous asses filled with high quality wine glass fart (South Park reference), we would both feel smarter, more powerful and more in tune than the rest ……… yet we could both be very wrong! See, our entire reality is based upon what we interpret. So, we must ask ourselves, what are we not seeing? What are we simply incapable of interpreting? How close are we to understanding the big picture? There is a lot we are both missing, there is a lot I am missing, and even though I am the one writing this book, I find myself saying “baaaaaaah” quite often. Even though we may never see the all of the details of the big picture, I believe this book will simplify things enough for that to not matter.

Within the human genetic code, it seems there is a psychological map that lays our instinctive nature to revere authority, trust our leaders, to consume and regurgitate, to “click and run”. We can’t beat this out of others but we can beat this out of ourselves. However, at this point I didn’t understand any of this and found myself in a college classroom with overpriced books and slave labor merch branded with a big “H”. You can bet your ass I felt cool!

The Criminal Justice studies major, oh sorry Criminology and Justice Studies (that’s more inclusive we were told) was new to Humbolt University and therefore found a number of us new students listening to our professor Mrs. Birdy. She told us what to expect, what not to expect, and even to expect a bit of the unknown as this was a new major for the college. She then gave us the fear porn spiel of this not being high school and this being a real college and how other things wouldn’t fly here …. right, didn’t we hear that when going to grade two from grade one, middle school to high school, from one job to the next? We sure did! Seems we are told this all of the time in life and its only half true because we have always been living in the real world. Or have we?

Twenty-five or so of we students listened to Mrs. Birdy for some amount of time and were then asked to introduce ourselves, chit chat and maybe express our beliefs on the modern-day criminal justice system. We did and everything went well. We were even excused from class a little bit early, but told again not to expect that sort of thing because this was the real world. We all really liked Mrs. Birdy. She was kind, well spoken, educated, helpful and struck a perfect balance between leadership and fellowship.

Now please remember just a few paragraphs above mentioning our genetic code and with that in mind please accept that our reality is based on what we perceive and if our perspective of reality is rooted in trusting leaders or authority figures then our reality could be flipped completely upside down. Control the narrative, control reality.

Back in Mrs. Birdy’s class we all had our assigned literature for the “Race and Gender Studies” curriculum, and on top of this we had all fulfilled our prerequisites that gave us a general understanding of how the criminal justice system worked and ways in which it didn’t work. So, we were led to focus on how it didn’t work. We were taught all out inequalities, injustices, marginalized groups, disproportionate representation of women and POC (people of color) in the criminal justice system, the workplace and society in general. We were led to believe that there were big problems, big problems that needed to be addressed; addressed assertively and addressed now ………. And we did this by being warmed by our slave labor sweatshirts, a classroom cleaned by Juan and talking about whether or not women are physically stronger than men. A few hours later I went to another class which ended up being pretty much the same thing. And the next day was fairly similar, this time with an algebra class mixed in. Rinse and repeat. Basic arithmetic was a strong suit of mine; however, algebra definitely wasn’t, so I had to struggle through that a bit …. But who really cares about that? I was living in an apartment style dorm room with a roommate who was plenty cool enough to get along with, which was quite nice. I befriended everyone fairly quickly which was cool and of course started to watch the cliques form all around me. The first night we all went out to the bars I ended up low key hooking up with one lady and soon started fully hooking up with another lady and another lady. Yup, Megan and I were still dating, she had cheated on me so hey – reciprocity and revenge, right? More on that later.

It’s quite odd in this moment while writing this - I feel quite sad in a sort of beautiful way. Not sad because of my overall experience with the school and acute confusion about what transpired there, but sad because I was once again a loner surrounded by limitless friends, friends who were just that, friends. And the beauty comes from seeing young humans be young humans; get drunk, smoke cigarettes, cheer and rah rah with the saying “Si se puede” yes, we can. And to those who are struggling SI SE PUEDE, YES WE CAN! Yes we can overcome, but we must first know what we need to overcome, and that what is what’s to come later. A big bootied white girl taught me how to hula hoop and next the hula hoop location was the gazebo where we would love, laugh and argue. After the sun set past the gazebo, we would walk to the campus market for junk food and whilst walking we would show off our light-up shoes noting the silliness of now being adults but still acting as children. The campus was located in a redwood forest near the ocean; and with the size of the trees, the smell of the ocean breeze and a hodge podge of pretty decent humans, the setting was really picture perfect. However, I couldn’t sense any of that because I was so tense, scared, fearful and insecure. So insecure, I was fucking the fat bitches.

And speaking of fucking, well I am not going to give you a bit of erotica here but I will explain a few things. First, she liked a man that she knew who she was safe with, a man that respected her boundaries, a man who understood that no meant NO, AND a man who understood that go meant GO! When we had privacy our eyes would lock, our lips would meet, her hands would quickly be undoing my belt, my left hand would be firmly holding the back of her head and as she ripped my belt off I would push her against the wall with a large amount of both force and smoothness. And once we were both in our underwear, I would completely fail at undoing her bra straps, to which my inabilities were reprimanded and it made clear that I must now make up for it. With a beginning position of missionary my body slowly slid down hers and back up with a slightly quicker motion, slower then faster, slower then faster and soon her hand was grabbing mine to place around her neck ……. Annnnnd I said I wouldn’t give ya any erotica and apparently I did, whoops, anyway the point is that she liked sex and so did I. She liked that I was big and strong, she liked that I could protect her, and during after-sex cuddling she talked about the stereotypical women things she could do for me and the stereotypical man things I could do for her. Both of our actions and desires here were completely reasonable and understandable and mutually respectful and completely fucking normal, but of course there is a but to this situation which manifested within only a few short months. (No, she didn’t get pregnant and it wasn’t her body that got infected).

With studies being plenty easy enough and some sizable, not unlimited, but sizable trickle down of familial inheritance I didn’t have to worry much about money. So, I would buy beer, drink beer, take my medicine, take more medicine, then buy beer and drink beer. We took a “race and gender studies” class, an “intersection of justice and inequalities” class, a “modern justice for POC” class and were basically taught that white man bad, white man racist, white man bad and white man owe victim everything …. Because white man oppressor. And yeah, yeah, there are some serious fucking inequalities in this country and white privilege is fucking real ….. no argument from me there, folks.

Even though my drinking was getting worse and worse and my Adderall consumption was going over my monthly allotment, I was still a hard-headed good dude who wanted to solve problems. There was some public space near the campus that was in a state of disrepair and knowing how seemingly well the CDC fire camp inmate arrangement worked out I was soon proposing to my professor Mrs. Birdy ideas for getting some of those who were in trouble working on these public grounds. Community service, restorative justice, education for those in trouble, free work for the city – win, win, win! Restorative justice, sounds great, because it is! It’s too good is the thing. Anyway, the idea quickly fell through and it was back to the grind.

The semesters were about three months long and it had now been about two months into this first semester. A gentleman named Mistoe had befriended me; he was kind and soft, his demeanor was smooth and calm, he was from Spain, he was a fair bit older than myself and a hell of a lot more wise. He was a good dude; I now see he had a sense of people and in no way was he judgmental or combative. I trusted him, not for any of his guidance but for his wisdom. I never really liked weed but hey, I was trying to learn to like it so one day I asked him if he could help me acquire some. Weed was technically illegal back in the day, but barely because it was all over the place. And when I asked him to help me he obliged on one condition. With the utmost of respect, he sort of got on my level and said “ya know Casey, you are really like this and this and this and see things like that and that and that, I like ya for it, there’s nothing wrong with how you are but there sure are different ways to see things”. Again, he knew people and he said that he would help me get weed if I would go with him so he could show me a completely different lifestyle. He talked about “lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle” and that he wanted to show me something I had never seen before. And truth be told I was completely enamored to see what was in store.

Anyway, he ended up taking me to a dorm room with a couple of dudes who were smoking and selling a shit ton of weed. Slightly taken back I remembered what he told me, to look around, to get a sense of things, to see something completely different. After securing the weed he told me about that lifestyle, about a culture within a culture a culture whose ideals were opposite to mine. The idea of a lifestyle solely focused on chill and not go was so foreign to me I had to shake my head a bit, take a step back and reevaluate things. I didn’t really have any words other than “hmmmmm” and that for someone with such a big mouth that says a lot. Now I don’t want to shout out those pot heads but I do want to shout out Mistoe for putting his arm round my shoulder, asking if I wanted to be mesmerized, and then mesmerizing me not by the pot heads but by enabling my eyes to open to vastly different realms.

Megan and I were still going fairly strong at this point and until around this point I really had been pretty good to her, though far from perfect since I was too uptight and my insecurities lead to some clinginess. Clinginess that eventually got worse and worse. By this point I had gained 20 or so pounds, up to about 230 from 210. Even with that I kept some sort of workout routine and I remember this clearly; while running a lap around the stadium my calves started to hurt in ways I hadn’t felt before. I felt the same hurt in my knees, and that combined with my massive body dysphoria led me to conclude that no way should or could someone at 230LBS do much running. I told myself I would get healthier and lose a little weight and then start running again. In any case, I truly believed I couldn’t run much so I actually couldn’t. Odd, with the addition of 100 lb. and 10 plus years of age I found myself capable of running miles without stopping.

Egotistical as all heck, still compromised by vast insecurities, seeing some recent weight gain, led to some depression kicking in, so again I went back to the doctor. I like to feel good; don’t you like to feel good? Adderall had been great and was still great but I needed more up so I figured that a doctor could maybe help with that. After a session with the MD on campus I walked out with a bottle of Venlafaxine and a bottle of Clonazepam and a bottle of Lorazepam. In layman’s terms one anti-depressant and two benzodiazepines (remember ya gotta be careful with benzos people). The benzos were nice because they are drugs, and as for the anti-depressant, I would have to wait a month for that to start working. Hope is a really powerful thing when it comes to drugs. We know they will work and we hope they will work as well as last time, however they never do. Nevertheless, we remain ever so hopeful.

Hopeful that one month from now the antidepressant would start helping, and believing that if a doctor believed an antidepressant would help, I guess I must be depressed, I greenlighted myself to behave in more and more depressed ways. As a child I remember when I went home from school early because I wasn’t feeling well my mother would pick me up in the office. Every time she walked into the office she would give me some interesting look, she would sort of frown as say something to the effect of “oh my poor baby I guess you aren’t feeling well”. I would feel nurtured and loved. And after getting home I was told it was okay to rest up so I would feel better soon again with more nurturing and more love. I believe my mother got her nurturing, love and paise in similar ways when her mother would say “oh poor Karen she tries so hard”, she got the love when she tried … and failed. Hmmmmm.

During this month of waiting for the antidepressant to kick in, not a whole lot happened; more school work and classes, more of the indoctrination to the belief set that the system is fucked, white man bad, everyone is a victim, we must prepare to fight these systems of inequalities. I continued relations with a few ladies, would go to bars, would try to exercise a bit, would do this and that more and more alone. One evening I went to return a dish to a lady neighbor of mine, she happened to be smoking hot, however this evening when she opened the door, she looked tired as shit. So, I proclaimed “whoooo, you look rather tired”, I knew she had been working really hard on her studies and I was trying to show sympathy, but even though my intent was kind, I was heavily reprimanded by her and her roommate. They told me it was never okay to tell that to a lady and that I was mean and this and that. I replied with excuses and my reasons, but to no avail. They slammed the door on me and told me to go away. It hurt and it hurt bad! Another generally similar situation happened and it hurt even worse!! Like a puppy dog who had just been scolded, I put my tail between my legs, ran away and whimpered in a corner. Just trying to help, just trying to fit in, just trying to be understood, and understood I wasn’t, hated I was …… or so I thought. Again, it’s very true that our reality is based upon our perception and our perception is deeply rooted in that we believe. My beliefs were wrong and therefore my reality was not in tune with reality. I was becoming a little bitch and an even bigger wimp bitch I would become.

With the passing of a month, I still hadn’t felt any benefit from the antidepressant, so my dose was upped and I was told to wait another month. During this month I went home for Christmas. I had an old ragtag Mazda Miata, and it was fucking awesome!! The drive home would take about 6 hours in this sports car on the California coast, and it couldn’t have been any more perfect, yet my reality was still hell. Megan and I spent some time together, probably did some partying and maybe a little bit of gift opening, but that’s about it.

The start of the new semester was interesting, probably because new things are interesting and speaking of interesting this is when some interesting things happened. See, there weren’t many students in the Criminology and Justice Studies department, maybe 30 of us. We all knew each other’s faces and a number of us knew each other fairly well. Most of us were white, a few black, a number of Hispanics and even an Asian guy. We were all human, we were all people, we all saw color and then quickly forgot about it. We were acquaintances, friends and mates. We all enjoyed getting to know people from different parts of the states, we all joked and laughed about our differences, we were all just being young adults. Young adults who had just gone through a semester and had started another semester of learning all about how bad the white man is and how corrupt the criminal justice system is and all about every different type of inequality known to man. This eventually led to some clashing in the classroom, clashing over stupid shit, clashing for reasons we will discuss later in this book. And after class we would all hug it out so to speak, we would all sort of scratch our heads in confusion as we were getting hostile with each other based on ideas projected upon us, not what we could see, which was that we were all just a group of nice and completely reasonable young people.

The concept of “waking up” is a very interesting one for sure. I believe Mrs. Birdy saw that her group of students was waking up to these numerous systems of inequalities. Again, these systems of inequalities are real and should be recognized, yes 100%, but again we will get to how we actually do that later. Mrs. Birdy said to a small group of us “you guys are kind of here and have seen x,y,z things and there are others who are a little further along and I want for you guys to see how they are starting to create change”. So, the next week a group of 6 of us went across campus to sit in on a “Intersection of Race and Worldwide Inequalities” class. As we walked in, “hellos” were said and the professor welcomed us. We took our seats furthest from the door and were ready for the class to begin. Soon, much professing and discussion about Apartheid began, and for those that don’t know Apartheid was a systemic push for racial segregation to keep the minority group of white people in control – yup pretty fucked. The professor kept talking about gorila, the and gorila warfare. “God-ie-a” or perhaps “ga(r)-de-a”. I like Latin languages to be honest; Espanol de Espana is very romantic and has a special flare and Espanol de Mexico is a bit closer to my heart since it is what I heard a lot of from many Mexican friends. Anyway, the class was being taught in English, however the professor kept mentioning “gorila”. So I finally asked what “gorila” meant and if it translated to “gorilla”. To which the answer was yes, “gorila” translated to English is “gorilla”, cool and at this moment the classroom absolutely POPPED!!! The six of us from the Crim Justice major were sitting nearest the wall with some spacing between us and the rest of the class sitting closest the exit. Quickly a barrage of statements came our way “racist, racist, racist”, “ignorant”, “insensitive” Like a pack of wild hyenas, the other 10 or 15 students were near snarling, white-knuckle gripping their desks as they screamed and flailed. They were genuinely pissed and we were genuinely scared! An onslaught of more verbal attacks came “you are all white racist pigs”, “whreee, whreee” (they were making pig noises at us), “it’s all your fault!”, “racist, racist, racist!”. And eventually the professor corralled them back in with something to the effect of “it’s not their fault for being racist, they don’t know yet, it’s our job to help them realize their racism”. After what seemed like another decade, class finally ended and those of us from the Crim Justice major grouped up and started walking back to where we came from. We were all scratching our heads and soon Chuy said “damn what fuk jus happen you guys?” and Tyrone said “damn crackers y’all just got lit the fuck up”. Confused, we were all deeply confused.

Now doing a round robin to the lady that I was having relations with, another confusing thing happened one evening or over the course of a few evenings. Long story short, over the first month and a half or so that we knew each other we did a lot of fucking then a little less then maybe fucked again a few times. Everything was basically fine, however one evening whilst sitting at the gazebo I found I had become a misogynist, a sexist, a womanizer and I was simply ignorant to the wrongness within me due to my acquiescence to systemic and institutionalized sexism. Lemme explain; see, while at the gazebo with her I must have said something that made her feel like she needed to let me know about such failings. Maybe I said another thing and another which made her need to make it clear that I was all of these rather important bad things. Sorry for being rather vague, I simply don’t remember the particulars. Usually, any accusations toward me would make my insecurities absolutely tremble and these accusations were pretty severe, yet I didn’t feel bad at all. In fact what I felt was vast amounts of confusion! Again, just sort of scratching my head saying “hmmmmm”.

Now the above was mentioned not to bring drama and to excite other Karen’s but to plant a few seeds and that needs to happen once again before moving on. A big part of college is writing papers and an important part of writing collegiate papers is citing your sources. And not only did I get in trouble for not referencing my sources properly, but I also got in trouble for stating reality in both first-hand and second-hand cases. All of us students had it beaten into our heads to cite our sources, cite our sources, cite our sources. On a number of occasions, I cited my sources as something I had read or from a website I had visited as something I had witnessed first-hand. Of course this wasn’t allowed; in fact, our sources had to come from peer reviewed literature. Peer reviewed literature from peers who once were citing peer reviewed literature. EVERYONE knew this was the right thing to do because everyone did it. I of course scratched my head again. The reason I was scratching my head is pretty simple people, however at this point all that came to mind was “hmmmmm”. Leonardo De Vinci was correct in saying “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

Another month or so passed and I continued trying to make sense out of things that didn’t make sense, to no avail of course. My depression and overall poopyness was worsening. I was struggling with a Spanish class so I eventually decided to drop out of college.

Chapter 10 – The Minor Fall

It seems a rather important life concept to not only recognize but ACCEPT is that, one step in any direction from where we are now is not a big deal at all, however one step in any direction from where we began is almost always a very big deal. These directional steps could refer to world politics, or perhaps personal politics, one’s health and wellness journey, our finances and of course our relationship with substances. The reason for this is pretty simple; we are more aware of what has been happening recently and not 6 months or 6 years ago. While the reason for this may be quite simple the effects that this concept can have on our lives can be quite profound.

Having dropped out of college, I gave myself the greenlight to kinda chill a bit, ya know, refigure some stuff. That wasn’t my style, wasn’t – one small step though, right? Megan and I were doing okay however my drinking fairly quickly became something of concern. My ego needed infinite coddling and no matter how much Megan gave me, it wasn’t enough. I became clingy, very clingy, more insecure then ever and yeah turned into “that” boyfriend. Constant calls I would make to her, constant texts I would send and I was relentless with having her check in all of the time! Let me be clear here, weak men are very dangerous to women! While I was NEVER near weak enough to put hands on her I was weak enough to put her through psychological hell.

There isn’t too much to say about the next seven or eight months aside from the continuation of more Adderall, more alcohol, and more antidepressants. I added to the mix some non-stimulant ADHD medications, all prescribed by my psychiatrist, who I thought knew what she was doing.

Megan had wanted to go skydiving and encouraged me to buy tandem jump tickets. Usually, I would pay for stuff, but I didn’t really want to go skydiving, so I told her we could go if she bought the tickets. Thinking she wouldn’t buy such expensive tickets, I was in for quite the surprise the following week. She did end up buying tickets and I was terrified, absolutely terrified. Skydiving seemed so incredibly dangerous, infinitely scary and so ludicrous, I genuinely thought that it should even be illegal. Yup, at the time in total Karen mode, it seemed appropriate to believe that something so dangerous could and would be an impediment to society and therefore should be stopped!

Katie was rip roaring and ready to jump anytime, however, I put it off week after week and month after month. With the passing of months, she would soon be off to college and not only made it clear that we must go within the next week but also that I would be breaking a pinky promise if I didn’t actually do it.

Over the past 3 years I had abandoned one career path, and then not pursued another, dropped out of college, gained forty pounds, quit a job and got addicted to drugs and alcohol. Just a minor fall? How about we mention the song “Hallelujah” it goes “I heard there was secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord, it goes like this, the fourth the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift”. It is stated that this is the most studied song of all time and much extrapolation of its meaning has been pondered to the utmost. I believe the minor fall and the major lift generally refers to yin and yang, to getting your ass humbled and getting stronger from it. It is a genuine belief of mine that whatever shit we go through is just a minor one in comparison to the major lift coming our way.

Ch 11 – A Major Lift, The Way Down Is The Way Up

Dawn came on the day to jump and there are simply no words to express how terrified I was. Truth is, I believed doing something as wild and as crazy as skydiving would launch my creds as a badass and therefore people would like me. Had I not believed that I never would have jumped.

Fast forward a few hours and Megan and I were getting our harnesses put on by our instructors. Again, fast forward thirty minutes or so and the plane was now at 8,000 feet and the door was open. This is known as “jump run” and I believe we were long (past the normal jump position) because the tandem instructor waited and waited and waited to jump. Soon he shimmied his legs and my legs out of the airplane, we leaned forward, leaned back and with one big push forward we left the plane.

The only way to find the edge is to go past it, and after a few seconds that I simply blacked out, my instructor tapped my shoulders and I spread my arms. Joy, elation, bliss, nirvana, peace, wonderment, and awe. This was the first time I had ever felt truly happy and truly free. And what happened next is going to sound pretty gay! I opened my mouth and let the air fill it all the way to my throat, I may have even laughed about it being gay in the moment, but I didn’t care. I was in freefall. I didn’t look at the sky because I was in the sky, instead I looked at the ground where I never hadn’t been. The ground was big and truly beautiful and at that moment I decided to not only love the ground, and the sky, but also love people and life as well. And as soon as it began – poooooshhhhhh, our parachute was opening and that was an amazing thing too! A short canopy ride, a beautiful landing performed by Mol the tandem instructor, and soon I ran around literally screaming like a school kid, hugging and high fiving everyone around.

This day was a day of rebirth, a total reset, a complete 180 mindset change; what I experienced that day has long been in my prayers for others to experience too. Please hear this; skydiving is a beautiful sport, a sport full of truly amazing people, a sport in which the sky is not the limit and yes, skydiving is a relatively safe sport. With that said this book is here to portray brutal honesty about not only my failings but human nature as well. And guess what, skydivers are human too.

Of course, Megan loved it too, that was just her style. With such an epic day a few drinks were poured and some sex was had. The following days and weeks past and I felt like the coolest and hottest shit to ever walk the earth. Soon I jumped again, again and again, feeling even cooler and more badass every time! During one tandem jump my instructor and I even played “rock, paper, scissors”. He won, but I didn’t care.

The universe is an interesting thing and just as interesting is the question of who we really are, what is our soul, what came with us into this universe? Is it just our experiences that make us, us? Or did we bring something to the human experience with us? Whatever the answer, something within me changed after that first skydive, it was a big change, a good change. Before I was high strung and harsh and that jump completely changed that. The change was a very, very, very good thing, but we must remember yin and yang.

Before too long Megan left me, she said that something about skydiving changed me and it seemed like I no longer needed her and what she indirectly said was that I had become too big of a turd ball with too much drink, insecurities and no clear career path. A light had been instantly turned on, but the dimmer switch was all the way down and over the course of the next year or so that dimmer switch would be turned up and up and up, faster, faster and faster.

After four tandem jumps I now felt it imperative to do AFF which is basically the solo skydiving school. Yen was the lady to teach ground school. She was a total badass of the divine feminine and she was also a total badass of the skies with about 5,000 tandem instructor jumps under her belt. She became a true friend to someone who was confused about what it meant to have a friend. Over time I became her little Nugget. She was the one that gave me the name Nugget, and while I don’t know what Nugget meant to her, I know what it means to me.

Fast forward a week or so, and this time I was wearing my own parachute. The plane was at 15,000 feet and soon Miko, the drop zone owner and my AFF instructor, said “alright, are you ready to skydive??” to which I rubbed my nose (that was my telltale sign of lying) and said yes. We did the secret skydiver handshake and soon exited the plane. Now I would love to nerd out on all of the details of skydiving, however that would require another book so I’ll just keep it to the basics and the overall experience. Soon we were over the hill and in freefall, Miko was holding onto my leg strap and shoulder strap; this was now the real deal. Practice touch, practice touch, practice touch, altimeter check, left turn, altimeter check, right turn, altimeter check, 9,000 feet and Miko gave me the arch symbol, arching for more stability, and now 8,000 feet. Nervous and tense, but free, totally free, was I actually doing this? 7,000 feet and I locked my eyes on my altimeter, being a bitch, a big bitch. Enough was enough, and I initiated parachute deployment procedures.

Grabbing the hacky at the BOC, I pulled, and soon a beautiful parachute was over my head, cheers to the packer Ricky! You Sir can pack one hell of a parachute! Once under canopy, the sky-high nerves I had turned into extreme nausea and a dry mouth like none before. During AFF, student jumpers wear a radio to which the instructors on the ground can give commands. I waited and waited and waited for commands to come; none came.

In life, when should we listen to the group? When should we listen to authority figures? And when should we listen to ourselves? One of the Burning Man principles is “radical self-reliance” and reflecting on why that is a principal and what it actually means is something I strongly suggest! However, when you find yourself flying a parachute at 5,000 feet for your first time without any coms, it’s pretty clear what self-reliance means. Obviously, instructions were given on how to fly, flare and land of course, so in a state of both elation and total peace panic I did just that. With a late and hard flare, I landed with a perfect baseball like slide. I did it, I finally got there, I was for the second time in life in the moment and beyond this I had officially become a skydiver. What other peak, pinnacle, mountain, feat could top one becoming a skydiver? And the answer to that is – that was the wrong question to be asking.

One training jump led to another and another, and soon I was always at the DZ (drop zone). Again, like a curious puppy I watched, examined and studied the people. At the DZ there were office staff, aka manifest girls, parachute packers, tandem instructors, AFF instructors and in the case of this DZ, there were drivers. Drivers were needed because we landed some distance from where we took off. While again feeling completely inferior, I was absolutely enamored by what must have been the true pinnacle of people, skydivers; the ability to jump out of an airplane was like God powers in my book. Of the people that would pay to jump, there were the fun jumpers (aka solo jumpers) and the tandem students …. and seeing how bassakwards the tandem student’s ideas about skydiving were, enabled me to see just how wrong I was too.

From a sociological and psychological perspective, the study of the layman’s views of skydiving is truly fascinating. Okay, the act of skydiving does involve jumping out of an airplane and shit can go real wrong real fast! Just like driving if we are honest. And in lieu of a full-blown dissertation on such please let me introduce a thought regarding the difference between recognition and acceptance. $20 says that you fully recognize that while driving can be cray cray, you also truly accept that driving is very much doable and can be done safely. And with skydiving that $20 again says that you can recognize (based on recorded facts) that skydiving is actually fairly safe and totally doable, yet you simply do not accept it. – Ting ting! Lightbulb, lightbulb!! Let’s put an emphasis on remembering the importance of understanding the difference between recognition and acceptance.

When it came to studying people, I now had a lot of work to do! There were van driving hippies, people with dreadlocks, people with psychedelic tattoos, some truck driving rednecks, Silicon Valley CEO’s, cops, drug addicts, people from not only across the country but the world as well. Nugget became more and more enamored and curious, a consortium of completely different people, all doing something that didn’t directly benefit society. In fact, what these people were doing was living life, embracing life, loving each other, being incredibly awesome and in fact doing a really good job at indirectly benefiting society.

The running joke amongst skydivers is that we all know we have to tell others that we are skydivers. And the short answer to why we must do this is because our egos are so big, and our wieners are so tiny. The maze of the human ego is really never ending; just as a redneck learns that not everyone knows that diesel engines don’t have spark plugs and feels empowered by that special knowledge, the skydiver feels empowered and intellectual by his special craft. They will always take the opportunity when talking to others to just slip in the fact that they are skydivers, and when talking to their elite buddies will recount the fine details and multiple decisions made about how and when they slipped in the fact that they were a skydiver. It’s not just about knowing how; it’s about knowing the intricacies of what and why.

For AFF jumps six and seven, I jumped with a man we will call Ball. Ball was another person that showed me a completely different perspective compared to what I had known. Just like first time love making or being there for someone during a time of mourning, or birthing someone’s baby, skydiving is also a truly sacred thing to do with someone, especially when it is one of their first few jumps. Jumping out of planes can be quite simple, however there really is a lot to go through and figure out …. especially if you are rizzed on Adderall. Jump 6 with Ball was going well, that is until nearing pull altitude when I started to “chip” and rock back and forth. I started to become unstable, my legs started to flail a bit, and boom, Ball flew directly into me! In that very moment I genuinely couldn’t understand why he did that. Anyway, the earth was getting bigger so I quickly deployed my parachute. Another safe landing was made, and during a post jump briefing with Ball all I was capable of doing was to apologize for not being perfect while simply trying to pass that level. Hmmm, maybe just maybe I should have been willing to learn from that expert skydiver with 2,000 plus jumps instead of protecting my ego. I also mentioned him crashing into me …. which resulted in quite the stare from him. See, being in freefall is known as flying and this is because one can change their body shape to increase or decrease their fall rate, as well as move forward, backward, and side to side. In fact, one of the biggest dangers in skydiving is collisions between jumpers in the same group because so much horizontal speed can be achieved. Anyway, I was the one to fly into Ball, not the other way around. I recognized it but did not accept it.

Miko was so cool, he was a total sky god, he had a soul patch, he had infinite charisma and he completely had me won over. I was very particular about skydiving safety, VERY particular about safety, however since I believed Miko was so cool, I trusted his every word. That included buying an old and basically non-airworthy parachute system from him. He told me everything was fine with it ….. however, he had me agree to not to tell people how much I paid. A rigger (that’s basically a master parachute mechanic) named Eric did cringe when he found out I bought it from Miko. Eric knew it was safe enough that I wouldn’t fall out of the sky so he didn’t say much. RIP Eric, you were another one that left one hell of an impression. Anyway, I really do not want to defame people in this book so I’ll just leave it at this: the best part about the DZ was Miko and by far the worst part of the DZ was Miko. This paragraph could have simply been expressed by saying “stop loving someone after they rape you”.

By now I was working for the DZ as a driver to shuttle skydivers from the landing zone back to the airport. In fact, we used limos to transport the skydivers, and yeah that was pretty cool. However, with all of the Adderall my brain was starting to twinge and pop and things were starting to have special meaning. The grandeur and majesty of life was starting to be felt too much, everything was starting to become love and light and awesomeness. Skydiving had become what I thought the rest of my life was going to revolve around, and getting a minimum wage job as a driver probably shouldn’t have brought me such extremely high vibes. I hadn’t yet lost touch with reality, however I was getting fairly close.

After working, driving and jumping Friday through Sunday, I had free time during the weekdays. I vividly remember how much in my feels I would get while coming down (in a good way) from Adderall, coming up on alcohol and watching inspiring skydiving videos and amazing golden buzzer American Idol moments. You know that feeling when ya get a tear in your eye after a Jelly Roll speech or when a sad movie has a happy ending? That feeling, that emotion, yeah multiply that by 1,000. I liked what had come into me, I liked it a lot, and wanted more and more.

Of the 100 skydives I did through the years, there are only a few I feel the need to share. Now I know this may sound silly to the non-skydivers because it is so obvious, but parachute openings are a beautiful thing. Okay lemme answer a few of your questions here, what happens if your parachute doesn’t open? Then you use your other parachute. What happens if that one doesn’t open? Then skydiving is not for you. Darf! Sorry! So, in general terms parachutes are manipulated, folded, rolled and put into a deployment bag, there are numerous different “pack jobs” and parachute packing is a true art form. Even though packing can turn into a true art form, dumbos like myself can be taught the techniques and it’s not too tricky. Usually the way the parachute goes in the bag is the way it comes out of the bag ….. usually. Sometimes parachutes open kinda slowly and sometimes more quickly, sometimes one side opens faster than the other and causes it to turn while opening, sometimes the parachute can come out of the bag very quickly, pop ya a little then take a long time to finish opening. You may think you would want your parachute to open quickly, however when you are falling at 120 mph plus, you don’t want it to open too quickly because that’s like running into a brick wall.

To any skydivers reading this, yeah, I know you don’t want to hear any more hard opening stories, so I’ll make ya a deal, go fuck yourself over the next 5 minutes. Come back afterwards and I’ll even give ya a beer. The main parachute I was jumping in the system that Miko sold me was a Falcon 235. This chute was known for some violent openings. Ricky, who was an absolute legend of a parachute packer, told me with certainty that I MUST roll the fuck out of the nose, which is a technique that can help slow the opening time. However, this only being jump 17, I didn’t understand any of what is explained above and with the guidance of a more experienced jumper, I didn’t roll the nose or tuck the tail of the parachute at all. So, on top of having a parachute that is prone to hard openings, the chute was packed in a way that would open quickly. Further, the slider (used to slow openings) was sized for a jumper half my weight. As with every skydive I had performed to this point I was absolutely mortified, and I remained mortified until a nice fluffy parachute was over my head. However, this time getting a parachute over my head absolutely eviscerated me. In freefall 6,000 feet came, 5,000 feet came, pull altitude came, I reached back to grab the handle and my hand slipped off of it, my left shoulder tucked and I started in a slightly head low position, which increased my fall speed. Average-ish fall speed at deployment is 120 mph, but being thick and heavy meant I would typically fall at closer to 130 mph. With a lower head position, I was possibly going 140 mph at the point that I reached back again, grabbed the handle, and threw it into the wind. My parachute came out of the bag just a tiny bit and BANG!!!

It really isn’t a good idea to pass out during a jump, but the impact of the hard opening perhaps got me close to it. Hard openings have killed quite a few skydivers and while I obviously didn’t die, I felt like I was going to. As I “came to” consciousness, I knew something was wrong. I was off-heading by about 90 degrees (no biggie), so negating my training and doing what I knew was best I looked at the ground. Fortunately, it was still very far away. Now, realizing what had happened I performed a visual inspection of the canopy above me, unstowed my breaks, made sure it was flying properly and then exhaled an immense groan as the excruciating pain kicked in. From about 140 mph to about 20 mph in the blink of an eye, VIOLENT is the only word that comes to mind. Some who have been in gnarly car crashes say the same thing. Amazingly I didn’t break anything, however my groin and shoulders where the harness straps were, showed some bleeding and massive bruising. In summation, having my parachute open that way was by far in a way the scariest thing that ever happened to me while skydiving.

Now the best part of skydiving was the focus on having fun. The rules of skydiving are; have fun, don’t die and safety third. I guess if you’re going to do something silly as jump out of a plane why not add some silliness on top of it. If you’re going to jump out of a plane with your buddies, why wouldn’t you carry a suction cup dildo in your back pocket and stick it on your buddy’s helmet during free fall? If you are going to jump out of an airplane, why wouldn’t you do it in a bikini and bring pool noodles? And heck because safety really needs to be focused on with skydiving, why wouldn’t the penalty for safety violations be beer fines? Both the sport and community (for the most part) around skydiving is amazing, completely transformative. I really hope you try it and I really hope you get FUCKED! Go do AFF and go get FUCKED, come on now! See, when you graduate the AFF course and you are around all of the other amazing skydivers, your instructor will proclaim that you have graduated and in unison everyone will say “HIM HIM, or HER HER – FUCK HER!!”.

Even though skydiving had flipped a switch in me, Adderall was abundant and beer was limitless, the hole in my heart remained. It seemed a dog would be good for that. On the third trip to the pound, I walked through the door and quickly saw a little tiny white puppy with a black eye. It was meant to be; she wanted me and I wanted her. With tunnel vision I walked to the cage, put my finger through it and Magnet dog started giving me kisses. Magnet and I had become instant best friends. I wanted to hold and adopt her instantly, however there was a problem. The house she was rescued from was owned by a truly psycho lady and because of this they not only wouldn’t let me hold her, but said they probably weren’t going to adopt her out in the same city. Begging and pleading with this was of no use, but I did get the pound staff to promise me that they would call if anything at all had changed. 8:01 am the next morning found me calling the pound for an update and they had moved her to another local shelter. Instantly I got in the car to head to the other shelter. They let me walk her but they also said that many folks wanted to adopt her and they would be letting me know in a few days. So, I came back at lunch time, at dinner time and of course at breakfast time for a few days, getting to spend as much time with Magnet as possible. She was teeny tiny, incredibly cute and absolutely fierce. While on our walks she would lunge at squirrels, bite at lizards and bark at the cows. She owned the world; she owned me and she knew it. And thank God for it, the pound found that I was the best fit for Magnet dog. From day one she was my best friend, always has been and always will be. And technically speaking her middle name is Magnet, her first name is Chick, yeah, she is that cute.

Until this point, I had thought that Facebook and other social media platforms were fairly unhealthy and I had a pretty strong aversion to them. However, increasing feelings of loneliness and an even grander need for external validation lead me to get on Facebook. Posting a skydiving picture or story led to a number of likes and a few “Casey you are so cool” comments and I absolutely loved that. The Facebook hook was set. For however many years humans have been on this planet the idea of “social validation” has been, for lack of better words, thriving. Remember the last time the car in front of you swerved a bit as to miss a danger in the middle of the road? What did you do? That’s right, swerve a bit! Was there actually a danger in the middle of the road? Maybe yes or maybe no. Consider this; you are sitting in the bleachers at a baseball game, your eyes aren’t on the game but soon one, two and now ten people around you are ducking. What did you do? Probably ducked as well. Good, swerving and ducking were probably good ideas. However, we must remember that it was social influence (okay and probably a few other things) that had the Jews walking into the showers, it only took one lady to drink John’s Cool Aid to provide enough social proof for almost everyone else to do it. Now, Mr. Robert Cialdini please forgive me as I continue to rip you off, but here is a suggestion to everyone. Next time you are walking down a busy street stop for a minute at look upward at the sky and then look around. Is anyone else doing it? Probably not. However, repeat this again with a few friends all doing the same thing and look around again, everyone will be doing it. Why? That’s right, social influence. With enough social influence, validation and social coercion, one could quite easily be pushed to keep jumping out of planes, walk into a gas chamber or in modern America even ……. we will get to that later.

Before too long, Magnet Dog, a gentleman named Kota and I were off to a big skydiving boogie. A boogie is basically a skydiving party where skydivers from all around converge on one drop zone, do a lot of fun jumps (compared to drop zones usually doing a lot of tandem jumps for revenue), hang out, BBQ, and drink a bunch of alcohol after the jumping for the day is done. That is, unless you are going to do the night jump, and then you don’t drink in the evening …. that is unless you were me. Where do we draw the line? Where is the edge? If we have gone over the edge and haven’t killed ourselves or anyone else, have we actually gone over the edge? There are many things I am not proud of. I am absolutely ashamed to have put Magnet dog in danger not only at this boogie but also for having turned into a horrible parent. I am ashamed for listening to others say “you’re good, brother” when I knew I wasn’t. I am ashamed for endangering other skydivers and to save a whole lot of air I am simply ashamed of putting family and loved ones through hell as Nugget crossed the line, and almost found the edge.

Now remember the tear-jerker feelings of seeing a golden buzzer moment on American Idol, or how cool it seems when Tom Cruise does badass picture-perfect stuff in a cool airplane, or what about that perfect YouTube video where a flashmob absolutely crushed it? Yeah, let’s call that cinematic perfection. What did those in the spotlight of such cinematic perfection feel? Well, I thought I knew what they would feel, and I wanted that feeling. There were a number of cool skydiving videos where, after landing, the skydiver with a camera on his helmet would give point a peace sign towards the sun and exclaim “whoo-ho-yeah”. On camera this looked perfect, picture perfect. I was so focused on picture perfect events from where I wasn’t, I ended up missing a hell of a lot of great “shots” from where I was.

This boogie was a two- or three-day event, and one of the cool things about it is that they had arranged a Skyvan as one of the jump planes. A Skyvan is quite literally like a van for the skies. It has a big back door which makes for a really fun exit. You can run the length of the plane and then jump out of the back, or folks will even hang from the back rail and then let go in a fashion similar to letting go of a pair of monkey bars. Or in my case, and sorry for sounding like such a Debbie downer here, feel like such a piece of garbage human let others grab you like a bag of trash and throw you out of the back of the Skyvan. Turns out this bag of garbage was too heavy to be thrown out so I let others simply push me out. The psychological principals here are pretty similar to a girl letting dudes gang bang her in hopes that she will receive some love in return.

Later that day found me back in the Skyvan climbing to altitude when another jumper asked what I was doing, to which I replied “solo belly”. He responded with “ah man you can’t jump solo especially, at a boogie”. I tried working him over as to let me jump solo but that was to no avail. Overall, I was okay at skydiving but totally absolutely sucked at the freefall part, so I only jumped with professionals and made it abundantly clear to not let me kill them in freefall. The gentleman who insisted on jumping with me said “you’re good brother, I’ll follow you out and we’ll hang out in the sky for a minute”. With the green light and a good spot, I ran out of the Skyvan, flipped once or twice, stabilized out and waited, nervous AF. Being thick, heavy, dense and wearing street clothes meant my fall rate was pretty fast. Long story short, it took this gent a little while to catch me. And when he caught up, he had a smile on his face. He signaled to do a backflip to which I bitched out and shook my head no, so he did one, he then tried to encourage me to fly on my back again, to which I bitched out again. He eventually came in for a dock, grabbed my arms and had us do a few turns, a little this and a little of that. Before too long I waved off and he tracked away. Now the truth is that aside from YOU, aside from YOU YOURSELF, no one on this planet is God (yeah, yeah, interesting dynamic), however I didn’t understand that, and I would put certain people, skydivers especially, on Godlike pedestals. Consequently, when truly awesome people remained humble, I became completely baffled! Now finding words to remain humble, honest and respectful is a bit hard here; perhaps people are just people ….. however, while there are some goats out there, also there are some legends and it turns out the gentleman who jumped with me was none other than Mirby Wandless …. the acro pilot for that one energy drink company that has its own air force. Learning this had me honored of course but again completely baffled, why would a God jump with a backwater dude like me? Clearly, I was missing THE point. Anyway, cheers Mirby and blue sky’s brother!

3:00 pm came around, which meant it was beer thirty, my favorite time. Whatever hole in my heart there was, made it incredibly painful to be myself, especially when around others who were clearly more Godlike than me. My brain had gone past the rev limiter a few times by now, however, it hadn’t crossed the line into delusions, or perhaps we should say paranoid delusions. Delusions, generally speaking, are beliefs held with strong conviction despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. (The current political/scientific world is rife with what some call conspiracy theories partly because the public is enormously divided as to what the real facts are. So, a belief in some “conspiracy theory” is currently a poor indicator of delusional thinking.) Paranoid delusions are conditions where the individual believes they are specifically targeted by a hostile source. Creative minds like mine like to question, compile and then piece things together, sometimes physically and sometimes metaphysically. Soon my friend Ball, with an interesting look on his face, offered me an Altoid mint. Ball and Yen were into their psychedelics, and a common practice for LSD dosing was to drop it onto mints which without a doubt meant that Ball was offering me some Lucy. (Correlation doesn’t always equal causation folks!) I said, “oh no I'll be jumping tomorrow”. Ball instantly knew what I was thinking and assured me that they were just mints, yet I didn’t quite believe him. And to be clear, the mints were just mints, however I didn’t take one because I had beer to drink.

The next day had me do another jump or two, and having decided not to partake in the night jump I started drinking beer around 2 pm or so. After 6 or 8 beers with 120 mg Adderall in my system, I was starting to reconsider my decision. Ball (look guys everyone is innocent, they didn’t know what I was up to) again asked if I wanted to do the night jump to which I said “yeah, maybe, probably not though”. Drank another few beers and when asked again and told this was the last minute, I had to make the decision. Something came over me and I agreed to make the jump. Doing a little math meant I didn’t have 8 or 10 beers at this point I had only had 5 and the jump was two or three hours away and with that math by then I would be legal to drive and therefore it would be okay to jump, and heck the Adderall was medicine, not a drug. A “B” license was needed to perform night jumps and I didn’t have the card yet, however my paperwork was signed so that got me into the night jump briefing and hence onto the airplane. Leg strap, leg strap, chest strap, main, cutaway, reserve, 3 rings, altimeter, helmet, goggles and a strobe, and I was good to go. Hey, just because I wasn’t minding my P’s didn’t mean I wasn’t minding my Q’s. The jump run had us on a good spot, my head peered out of the plane door, I saw the runway and I saw the landing zone lit up. In this very moment I was drunk and high, the night sky was dark and the city lights were bright. At 13,500 feet, the door of the airplane was open and I was about to jump. It was the most at peace I had ever felt and truth is you are not supposed to jump out of airplanes, you are supposed to step out of them.

Just like stepping through your front door on the way to church, I stepped out of that plane and into the abyss. It was a perfect exit and even whilst still on the hill I performed my safety checks, everything was good and I could see the landing zone still. A really bad habit of mine was to look at the ground while skydiving, however this time I looked at the horizon as one should. It was beautiful, the farm fields below were mostly dark, the big city lights in the distance were bright, and while air is air, the dark air somehow felt different. It was pure joy, freedom and peace. Walking around on a rock ball flying through infinite space wasn’t enough, but freefalling towards that rock ball at night was, I got there … the cinematic perfection, it finally happened. Deployment altitude came and with a swift throw my parachute opened perfectly, I unstowed my breaks, turned my strobe on and started flying towards the landing zone. Perfect, it was absolutely perfect. However, soon I realized I couldn’t see any other skydivers’ strobes. I knew where the landing zone was, so there should have been other parachutes in that general area. With a 180 degree turn the runway was behind me, which meant the landing zone was where I thought it was, so I flew towards it. But losing altitude, I now realized the landing zone wasn’t where I thought it was. And at this moment it clicked, I was flying a parachute at night while drunk and high and I was completely lost. I knew I could land near the runway, however that would have given away that I wasn’t clearheaded, so I continued to try to find the landing zone. At this point I only had about 800 feet of altitude. Finally, I saw the landing zone, but vertigo set in, my bearings were flipped; I was not only across from the landing zone but far away from it too. So as to fly as far as possible with minimal altitude loss I got on my rears and headed towards the landing zone. However, there was a problem, there were powerlines in my way, I knew they were somewhere around where I was heading but wasn’t too sure, would I even be able to see them? I didn’t know. After a tense minute or two I had made it over the powerlines but I was low, it was dark and I was going downwind. 50 feet, 20 feet 10 feet I just started to flare but only a microscopic amount – WHACK!! I landed. Even though the field had soft tilled dirt, the landing didn’t feel good, my knees took the brunt of it, then I flipped once and then twice and finally the back of my head absorbed the final blow. After a quick physical check, it was clear that my body was physically fine, but I realized I could be completely fucked if people found out what really caused me to land so far off. I freaked and didn’t know what to do. Then the lightbulb turned on! Beer! Get a beer in my hand ASAP as to be able to state that any alcohol in me came from after the jump. Anyway, the moral of the story here is that if you are going to crash your parachute, don’t wear your new jump suit because it could get torn up on landing, and fortunately for my jumpsuit I wasn’t wearing it. Yen was the one to treat my knees and holy fuck that antibiotic spray hurt like hell!!! “Whoooo, that one scared me” I told Yen, our eyes locked and she said “sometimes it’s good to scare yourself a little bit” and while she is right, that statement only holds weight if we learn from it. In the spirit world I believe Yen is an owl, all seeing …. mostly seeing, she was wise, our eyes had locked a few times through the years, oftentimes she could see what was really going on with her little Nugget, however this time Nugget had the owl baffled.

Ch 12 – Getting A Bear Stoned

Having brushed off the night jump scare, I continued working at the drop zone in my home town and continued jumping a bit. Every two months I would see my psychiatrist and every time I went in, a tremendous amount of fear would surge as I wasn’t ever sure if she would continue prescribing the Adderall. Of course, she would in fact always refill my prescriptions and being very sneaky, sneaky I would start to say that the medicine wasn’t working as well as it used to, of course not leading on that it really wasn’t working and that a change was in order. Fortunately, she knew of a study that showed some manufacturers of generic Adderall had a formula that was 20% weaker than the rest, and so she concluded maybe that was what I was getting (no fucking joke people) and of course again upped my dose.

A crazed love for skydiving and deep interpersonal change meant that most of my friends were no longer around. Piling on top of this I had two one-month prescriptions for Adderall, an amazing new best friend Magnet dog, a truck with camper and money in the bank, so Mag dog and I set off for what we thought would be an epic road trip to Colorado. After a week or two we finally got on the road, but instead of enjoying the journey basically plowed straight through to my mom’s place near Boulder. The plan was to do this epic thing and that epic thing, skydive here and skydive there but no matter what, I was restless, irritable and discontent. So destination fixation had me fixated on ….. I don’t know, maybe one day having unlimited Adderall and worldwide praise.

While standing in the kitchen at my mother’s house, I mentioned having had gained some weight. She replied I actually looked good, and how well I seemed to be doing. Hmmmph, whelp! Three weeks had passed since I had filled my prescription and it had run out early, so Magnet dog and I spent the next week being woefully depressed on mommy’s couch. At this point the withdrawal from Adderall meant atrocious depression. Later on, the Adderall withdrawals became egregious and beyond that they became nearly morbid. Of course I sluffed this off as just being a bit depressed, or sick, not in full blown withdrawals from the world’s best speed.

As soon as the first of the month came, another bottle of Adderall was in my hand and Magnet dog and I took off to head into the Rocky Mountains to stay with my oldest brother Rick for a while. Rick and I fought a lot while growing up but eventually got a bit closer. While Rick had his struggles and could be quite mean, he was always a protector of his youngest brother. He would go to war for me when needed. It would be nice to say I was a protector of Rick too, however that just isn’t the case anymore, RIP Rick, this book is dedicated to you and the following sure were great memories.

Withing a day or two Rick, my middle brother Paul, Magnet dog and I were off climbing a 13,000 foot Colorado mountain, and yes, little 9 pound Magnet made it. We also collected a bunch of once fired bullets from the outdoor gun range and melted them down into ingots using a campfire. On a number of occasions, we played tennis and of course Rick had some pretty incredibly big marijuana plants. Rick’s skill sets were unique; god he could grow some fucking weed, his cooking and origami were first class, but by far in a way his silver tongue was the most impressive! The fucker could not only argue that water wasn’t wet but also have you convinced of it. Rick was living in a shanty ass old converted trailer on one of the most beautiful properties in the city, it was near downtown yet completely secluded and on a river! Mag dog and I had the camper parked just by the river. The coolest part of this was that paragliders would do tandem flights from the mountain across the river and their final approach to land went just over the camper. Because of this I would often wake up to screams of airgasms. (Airgasm – basically a spiritual orgasm when first experiencing human flight).

With all of these activities my back was hurting more than ever. For years I struggled with horrible back pain and continued struggling for years, however spoiler alert it’s 99.9% better these days. There is a secret that the Matrix doesn’t want you to know, but don’t worry I’ll share that later. So, with 100% legitimate intentions your boy Nugget went to get a massage. Bear in mind this was a rather upscale town and the massage place was quite nice too. The cost was $20 for half an hour, that sounded reasonable, however I only had a $100 bill. The cashier then asked if she could give me the change after the massage, “sure, yeah no problem” I said. Long story short 10 minutes later I was butt ass naked, the back massage wasn’t much of a back massage and in fact the masseuse ….. let’s just say had my interest. At this point she asked me to roll over and I was in fact resembling a miniature stallion. Holding the $100 bill, the Asian lady said “this, this for me?”. Now at a certain point I do in fact quit being clueless and this was that point. Now in genuine fear that a 500 lb. dude would kick my ass if I didn’t follow through, I in fact did decide to follow through. Yes, a happy ending happened. While this is kind of a funny story it’s also a truly disturbing one. The cop professor from back home had made it plain that 99% of the massage places aren’t just giving back massages and the workers aren’t exactly there on their own free will. Perhaps we all recognize this, but that day I accepted it. Truth is there is horrendous stuff all around us, sometimes we recognize it and intentionally decide to stay ignorant and frankly sometimes that is okay as we must protect our sanity. However, the real evil are the heinous things in front of our faces that we think of as normal and okay.

One evening, like many others if we are honest, found me at the bar. I rode my bike and was planning to ride it home. Rick was aware of this and when a bear climbed into the tree next the driveway near his trailer, he called me to warn of the bear and told me to call him when I got close and he would pick me up. He was a protector and it showed here. After getting back, I quickly checked on Magnet dog and then got my .357 to be safe whilst near the bear. Rick too had his shotgun and soon we were standing at the base of the tree looking at the bear. It was pretty dark out so we couldn’t see too much of what the bear was doing, probably bear things. And oh about 30 seconds later Rick said “hey should we get the bear stoned?”, “no, that’s probably a bad idea” I replied, only to quickly follow up with “yeah, you are probably right we should get the bear stoned”. Rick did in fact have a fuck ton of weed, however, it was in flower form, which won’t get you stoned just from eating it. My job was to now watch the bear for the next 30 minutes while Rick turned about half a pound of weed into concoctions that would in fact get one stoned simply from eating it. Rick soon emerged from the trailer, however there was another problem, how would we feed it to the bear? With quick thought on both ends I secured a long tree branch while Rick grabbed a loaf of bread, jam and peanut butter from my camper. So, on the long tree branch went PB and J sandwiches laced with copious amounts of THC. Rick lifted the pole and sandwich near the bear as my .357 was drawn in case of emergency. Thankfully no emergency occurred, and it turns out bears love it when you feed them sandwiches on sticks. One sandwich, two sandwiches and now three sandwiches, this bear had now consumed a truly God like amount of THC. Did we just fuck up? After waiting another 30 or 40 minutes I had to go to bed. Rick however stayed up ….. and the result, the bear eventually climbed down from the tree, leaned up against it and ever so slowly swatted at moths around his face. Hand on heart, I bear witness to his grainy old cell phone video confirming such. Rick, I sure miss you and will forever cherish getting a bear stoned with you.

It was nearing the time I planned to head back to California and had yet to do even one skydive, and truth is I didn’t really even want to. However, skydiving had become an identity of mine and if I didn’t jump not only wouldn’t I be cool and worthy of the world’s love but I would also be letting down a false identity that made me feel so grand. Amazingly, there not only happened to be an airport nearby but an airport that had a little drop zone. The airport was at about 7,000 feet AGL which meant thin air, fast landings and only a short freefall as the old rag tag Cessna 182 jump plane could only get to about 8,500 feet AGL. I decided to do a high pull, which means deploying your parachute soon after exiting the aircraft. To be honest, it was pretty cool to be flying a parachute in a huge Colorado mountain valley and to make it even cooler there was a small forest fire across the valley. Obviously, I didn’t plan to fly over it due to thermals but hey with all of the altitude I had why not fly towards it? I did fly towards it, and I really shouldn’t have!!! Soon I heard a helicopter that was in route to fight the fire, FUCK! I fucked up again! Not only do skyblenders (helicopters) completely mangle the air that parachutes so desperately need to not collapse, but I was now interfering with firefighting operations AND putting others’ lives at risk! Instantly I turned around, got eyes on the chopper and thank God it was still a way off. Doesn’t really matter though, a fuck up is a fuck up!

Again, where is the line drawn? Getting a bear stoned? Maybe, but I mean boys will be boys? Right. Jumping out of a plane at night while drunk and high? Mehhh, let’s call that a whoops, I mean skydivers kinds do crazy shit after all. Interfering with firefighting operations by flying a parachute near it? Hey again, mehhh it wasn’t actually that close. While my brain had gone passed the rev limiter a few times and did cross into a paranoid delusion once I will actually say that at this point I was actually still pretty sane. Yes, I was doing some absolutely crazy shit, however being rather wild is FAR different than being in full blown amphetamine induced psychosis. Full-blown psychosis is what came next.

Ch 13 – Just Be Nicer, Here Comes The Crazy

We can all agree that life is rather confusing, or at least can be. We are all unique in our own ways and all have different desires, needs, traumas, beliefs, and simply put, ways of thinking. Clearly, I am no angel, however I do want to save a little face here and say that while many of my actions were misguided, their intentions were pure.

During the last week in Colorado a lady named Bee and I started “talking” via Facebook, chit chatting was all, the particulars are not important, however noting the time frame of when we started talking is important.

I had forever wanted unity, I wanted the hicks to get along with the Mexicans, for the skiers to like the snowboarders, for mom and dad to get along with each other, for parties to go off without a hitch, etc. The world had confused me, the experience at college baffled me and with a head having been full of stimulants for far too long something needed, something was about to give.

One day whilst hanging out at the drop zone a gentleman named Yester (remember we aren’t naming names here, but you know the guy in Grand Theft Auto that jumped off of a bridge when the cop was telling him not to? That was Yester in real life) Yester simply said that we all “just need to be nicer to each other”. And who knows why, but that statement instantly cranked my light bulb dimmer switch up to 11! That was clearly THE answer to all of the world’s problems. It became imperative that I tell the entirety of the universe that the answer to all of our problems is to be nicer to each other.

Beyond this I absolutely loved watching Roman Atwood’s vlogs on YouTube. For those unaware of Roman Atwood, he has long been a HUGE YouTube hit for both his prank style videos and vlogs aka a day-to-day docu-series of his life and his brand “Smile More”. Mr. Atwood’s vlog style was happy, positive and upbeat, and best of all his brand encouraged others to “Smile More”. How perfect! And to top it off, like many vloggers do, he talked to the camera just as he was talking to a friend. Soon he started talking directly to me! Or so I thought.

I had built a few picnic tables for the drop zone and in the week after returning home I built a really unique table out of scrap walnut branches and random board off cuts laying around my dad’s place. Everyone on social media absolutely loved this table, they ranted and raved, they said it could be worth thousands of dollars.

DING!! The idea of Project Possible was born! Project Possible was going to be my wood working business (seems reasonable) AND a social movement that encouraged everyone to “be nicer to each other, work together more, share more, care more, love more, inspire more and of course smile more” (interesting to say the least).

Instantly I started using social media to project and portray this clearly genius idea! It’s like the divine was in me, for a while I would stop at NOTHING to bring to life the idea of being nicer to each other and smiling more. I was filled to the brim with love, peace, happiness, motivation, drive and clarity. Others needed to experience what I was experiencing; it was too good to not share. However, what I was experiencing was what would be dubbed as a “manic” episode, with obvious delusions (very good delusions, but delusions none the less) and ya can’t just so easily share that with others.

I had now been talking to Bee for about 2 weeks and had been back home in California for about a week. Bee loved the idea of saving the world. A lot of people did. Who wouldn’t? Anyway, Bee knew a gentleman named Rodd, and Rodd did some charitable work with the homeless in a nearby city. Apparently, Rodd had some charitable “good stuff” endeavors that would require a van. It just so happened my father had an old van and over the course of a few days my dad became willing to donate his van for such charitable causes.

Now lemme veer off course just a little bit and say that over the years I have had a few “manic” episodes, and clearly mania makes one’s mind go in many different ways, however there was one thing that stayed the same in said episodes. It’s that my mind became extremely childish, not in that I liked to play with fire trucks, but in the ways that it enabled me to simplify things. When a man truly breaks, he becomes a child again. On top of this we need to recognize that a metaphor is a tweakers Achillies heal, gawd a good metaphor while razzled on Adderall is the best! With this in mind, other words, phrases and sayings started to carry immense and even secretive meaning.

Over the course of the next week, I manically built all sorts of random tables from scrap wood. The table seemed to have some sort of special meaning and importance to humans, probably because having something to put things on is nice, but somehow that idea was not near grandiose enough. I tried selling a few to raise money for charity. I also started offering to build custom tables for others. Every table I built was posted on Facebook with a description of not only of the table itself but a poetic and important secret lesson behind the meaning of life. Bee and I were also hanging out a lot and while Rodd was interested in the van, he had yet to contact me about it. Why? He must have been up to something “sneaky, sneaky” I thought.

After a week or so of relentless table building, social media rants about how Project Possible was going to save the world and more, I was back to work at the drop zone. More so than ever, the beauty of everyone was abundant, people were amazing and had zero flaws. With such grandiose projections about the idea of Project Possible and making smiles everywhere, friends and coworkers started talking to me about it. Clearly, they were beyond impressed at such a magnificent and genius plan. Clearly, they too were now on board with the relentless pursuit of “good stuff”, “being nicer to each other” and Project Possible. When seeing others talking to one another, I was now convinced they were talking about me and the plan. During this weekend Rodd did call me and we talked about my father’s willingness to donate his van. Rodd was appreciative and interested but again wouldn’t immediately accept, again why? More proof that something was up.

Pretty much every night since I had started skydiving consisted of consuming as much alcohol as possible and watching YouTube videos of skydiving, people doing awesome shit and of course lots of Roman Atwood. With a head full of Adderall and alcohol I was becoming more and more mesmerized with the God like authority figure that Roman Atwood was. In all actuality Roman Atwood did have a big red truck that was happily named “Clifford”. He also had a Nissan GTR. Also, Mr. Atwood and Nissan did do some sort of deal where he was “given” said Nissan GTR. My mind soon became enamored with what I now know is the idea of reciprocity. Roman was “gifted” a GTR for doing “good stuff” which clearly meant that the same may happen to me if I keep doing “good stuff”. And that night the full-blown psychosis hook was set. That night while watching Roman’s vlogs, he told me that there was a plan in place and that he and the Rodd guy were going to gift me a Nissan GTR. He also told me that this was going to be a bit of a game and more so a big prank. Roman was known for his world class pranks, after all.

I did manage to get some sleep that night but only a little and the next day was filled with sending secretive messages to said Rodd gentleman and watching and rewatching Roman’s vlogs. I knew they had a plan; I knew they had others in on the plan, I knew they had everyone in on the plan, however I also knew that not everyone knew I knew what was going on so I had to be “sneaky, sneaky”.

It’s kinda sad; I had just wanted to be friends with people, for people to like me and to receive something in return. And the truth is I had friends, people did like me, and the world had given me many wonderful gifts, yet somehow I had remained blind to that for 22 years. However, it felt really nice to finally be recognized by the world, loved and about to receive a little something in return for discovering that the solution to the world’s problems was simply to be nicer to each other.

My dad was, is and will forever be my rock. He had seen skydiving change me so much over the course of a year, so perhaps he was primed and therefore perhaps wasn’t too surprised when I really turned on the after burners with trying to save the world. We would talk and talk and talk; he mentioned there were some really big changes going on with me and I was coming to conclusions he never would have thought of. I can’t imagine how concerned he was, but in the moment I thought he was proud. Sorry for so much shit dad, wouldn’t be here without you.

The weekend came and again I was back at work at the drop zone. The plan, the prank and the surprise must have been planned for that weekend I thought. I knew it was coming, my blood was boiling, I was watching everyone talk to one another and they were all talking about the prank, plan, surprise and me. The weather was getting warmer and in passing one skydiver said to me “things sure are warming up”. More proof that it was about to happen. However, it didn’t, so back home I went for more beer drinking and a FULL night of sending secretive texts and decoding Roman’s vlogs. And it was now clear that not only was Roman going to surprise me with his Nissan GTR, but he was also going to give me the big red truck named “Clifford”. However, there was a hitch, everyone who was conspiring against me knew that Megan really liked my truck, so before Roman Atwood gave me his truck, I would have to give Megan my truck. So, at 3:30 am, I drove to Megan’s house to gift her my truck.

When I arrived at Megan’s house around 4:00 am, her grandma happened to be up so I told her all about what was going on and that I was giving my truck to Megan. Megan’s grandma had to be fairly confused but was still excited and woke Megan to receive her gift. I don’t know how you would feel about being woken up at 4:00 am because your ex-boyfriend had decided to give you his truck, and I don’t know what Megan felt, but she was a go with the flow type of gal so she kinda said “okay”, gave me a ride home and then drove my / her new truck back home.

Now 6:00 am and my dad arouse to find his son completely out of his mind; razzled, baffled, psychotic, had just given his ex-girlfriend his truck, and now he was concerned to say the least. Over the next few hours he tried to talk to me, to calm me, and to reason with me. Soon I called my best buddy James and politely asked him to have everyone just stop and finish up with the plan. James too was clueless as to what the fuck was going on with me. James called my father, my father called Megan and soon they were in fact conspiring against me ….. to take me to the freaking hospital that was.

I genuinely hope that this book (later on that is) serves as a hell of a lot of inspiration to enable those in the pits of fucking hell to not only escape but thrive as well! More than that I hope this book acts in an educational manner to prevent you and others from experiencing the fiery pits of hell, the fiery pits of hell that are so easily reached when we follow the crowd, consume and regurgitate, listen to our doctors and get sucked in by the Matrix. With James, Megan and my father all being fairly white-collar folks, they had no clue what was going on with me …. they saw Casey disappear and become something different. Death is difficult to deal with, but I imagine just as difficult is watching someone’s soul leave their still living body.

Friends and family were deeply concerned and going through hell watching this unfold, however I was still having the time of my fucking life.

James, Megan and my father convinced me to take a car ride with them. They said there was somewhere we needed to go. At this point I still believed in this big secret plan of a prank so as to thank me for bringing such a wonderful idea to the world, and with that I remained silly, light hearted and completely delusional! I believe there is a song with the lyrics “big ole jet air liner don’t carry me too far away” and I forget what my exact thoughts on this were but I spent some time in the car professing the deeply spiritual and secretive meaning of these lyrics. On top of this, believing everyone was so perfect and good I talked about Megan cheating on me and how it was okay because I did it too and love and let live and blah blah blah! They were all clearly telling me that I was fucking crazy! But I didn’t hear a word of it! I knew, knew in my heart that I was fully onto this prank plan gift thing, and further I was also reaching frequencies that were so good and so secretive that people would be afraid and want to take me to the hospital.

It seemed they were playing a game where they wanted me to act crazy, so “act” crazy I did! Once at the hospital I became absolutely mortified, that’s where crazy people go, so to not be crazy, I had to follow the game they wanted, their game, which was for me to act crazy. There were two cops waiting for me and apparently there were another three or four cops on standby, but I was only aware of the two. When they encouraged me to sign papers, I signed it with “Smile More” Roman Atwood’s brand, I had to let them know I knew. The police stayed with, being loving, kind, silly and not combative. The police officers did one hell of a job preventing the scene from popping off. The joke of the fat cop was funny, so the cops and I played the “fat cop” game where they stepped on the hospital scale after me. Finally in the hospital room I really wanted the prank to come to fruition and I was getting agitated and upset. In one final attempt to play along with the game of them trying to get me to act crazy I did the most stereotypical crazy guy thing ever; put my hospital gown on backwards, blew up rubber gloves and tied them to the gown. I walked into the lobby where James, Megan and my father were and said “ahhh hey see isn’t this what a crazy person is supposed to do, hahahaha joke’s on you, hehehe game can end now!”. Soon more cops came and I began begging and pleading for the game to end, crying and screaming for daddy to take me home, I just wanted to go home. Time and time again hospital staff encouraged, begged and pleaded with me to take their medicine but I remained fully paranoid about what was in the medicine. More crying, begging and pleading to go home, to which they kept saying I could if I took the medicine. I was beginning to hallucinate both visually and auditorily, I could hear things that weren’t there. It seemed the doctors were now screaming at me about being concerned about my state and mentioned a possible head injury from my night jump crash. The doctors were all but screaming at me at this point but their voices sounded soft.

God fucking bless everyone involved, especially the cops, by God they did one hell of a job maintaining the situation enough as to not have to take me down ….. apparently they were a hair away from it and that would have been …. I don’t want to even go there. Finally, I swallowed their pills; 20 mg Zyprexa. I finally surrendered and after an hour or so finally slept a little. Upon awaking, the cops oddly thanked me, I shook their hands and thanked them. While I was far from out of the woods a first-time dose of 20 mg Zyprexa will for sure act as a thought stopper! I had tested positive for meth, and that was entirely because of the Adderall. (If that doesn’t prove that Adderall is for all intents and purposes Meth, then nothing will.) The only direct orders were to absolutely keep taking the antipsychotic Zyprexa and absolutely STOP taking Adderall instantly!

Ch 14 – Tables and More Adderall Was Prescribed

Over 100,000 words could have been written about the two- or three-week period I was entrenched in full blown psychosis, and perhaps more should have been included, however I believe the point was made.
Thanks to Chapter 7 we are now aware of what food is, what drugs are and what medicine is. Remember fuel, heal, feel. Clearly “medications” such as Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin, Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, Valium, etc., etc. are in fact full blown drugs! But what about the infinite number of other psychiatric “medications”? Well, remember that I am not a doctor and none of this is in any way medical advice, however I will still share my thoughts. Of the bazillion other psychiatric medications, in my book that is, there are basically two types; those that we feel the effect of immediately (meaning within an hour or so of taking) and those that must be taken for multiple weeks until their effect is felt. There are a fuck ton of different antidepressant medications that fall under the “SSRI” and “SNRI” categories as well as a number of mood stabilizers, ADHD medications, and everything in between that take weeks to over a month to take effect. An official summation as pertaining to the myriads of psychiatric medications that take a considerable allotment of time to take effect is “just freaking weird” and probably never needed if we simply understand the basics. On the other side of the coin are the psychiatric medications to which effects are felt basically immediately. For the most part these are mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics; Lithium, Seroquel, Zyprexa, etc. We have all heard of Lithium being given to the really crazy people, and what I have to say to that is, YUP! Zyprexa is another gooden for that. My doctor very correctly characterized Zyprexa as the original thought stopper. And truth be told, that is the best way to describe these atypical antipsychotics; a massive brick wall that not only stops your thoughts but also makes you tired, lethargic, hungry, brain dead and not good for much. Finally getting to the point, there is a key difference between a medication that pleasantly changes the way we feel, and a medication that does in fact change the way it makes us feel, but not in an enjoyable way, but a way that is nevertheless beneficial.

While my reservations about “the system” may be a bit extreme, I will concede that sometimes medications are indicated and, in my case, a whopping daily dose of Zyprexa sure was needed. The psychiatric emergency that had occurred over the previous few weeks was in fact an emergency, an emergency that would stick around for at least a few months. 20 mg Zyprexa was given to me in the hospital and another 10 mg or so was prescribed before bed. That night I did sleep quite a bit and waking was, well let me provide you with a simple example. Imagine you have been extremely stressed for some time and not sleeping well. Then one night your stress was extreme, so you finally decide to take a big old dose of melatonin, NyQuil and even a number of drinks. You then sleep well; you sleep so well that upon waking you are still fairly out of it. Your head is yet thick with all those sleep aids but in a foggy way you still feel stressed. However, with the Zyprexa, you are just too tired to do much about it. In my case the psychotic delusions were still there, however there wasn’t enough gas in my tank to fight them.

There is a song that goes “let me tell you a secret, about a father’s love, it’s a love without end, amen”. My father is the best man to ever walk this earth; he would do anything for his three children and over the next week … heck months, years even, he did everything within his power to help. Even though I was a full-grown man at the time I became a child again, a child who was tripping balls! That day was hot and found my father and I in a bedroom with a wall mount air conditioner. My father wanted to turn it down because the air was a bit loud, but I became mesmerized with the air sound. The sound filled the room, I could feel the sound, the vibrations were of spiritual importance and clearly there were universal secrets within that I told dad all about. After cooling off by the AC, I went outside to taste the sun, and to figure out what it was secretly implying. Soon I became mesmerized and enchanted with some of the walnut tree branches. With my creative mind again engaged, I grabbed a walnut branch, and while holding it for a few minutes, started to conceive of every possible thing that this walnut branch could become. Just like a kid, I took it into show daddy and tell him all about this magical branch and all it could become. And hey, some of those walnut branches did end up becoming beautiful bowls, vases, goblets, cutting boards and more …. but handmade wood products are rooted in too much reality, so for just a few minutes let’s say “booooo reality”!

We have talked a little bit, and will talk more about the importance of bridging the gap between recognition and acceptance. Perhaps this following bit will somehow invert said importance to later enable better understanding. In comparison to the above paragraph, we are now about ten years in the future, and my father is in fact along with his partner about to go to a Savanna Banana baseball game. “Banana Ball” is a playful take on baseball. Apparently, it’s pretty funny and I hope they have a good time. Bearing in mind the banana theme I decided to send my father a picture of some rotten bananas on our counter and said, “hopefully you guys have a better time”. Following this, the puppy dogs and I went outside. While the puppies were watering the lawn, I placed my hand on a tree, and then took a deep breath as the freaking tree showed me its crotch! I could even see inside the tree and see its crotch. Crotch wood is a sight to behold, especially when it’s big and black! Before too long a squirrel in the tree joined in and started talking to the dogs. The dogs talked back aggressively and I even said “hello Mr. Squirrel, how is your day going?”. And when a big loud airplane came near, I turned my attention to the numerous white butterflies who were all spelling out “hope” in the sky. Does this sound a little goofy? Maybe, but lemme explain; the banana picture was just a joke, the dogs peed, I did some of what is scientifically recognized as “earthing” or “grounding”, the crotch is a part of a tree that does in fact yield beautiful lumber especially in the darker woods, the squirrel just chirped, the dogs barked, the airplane was an airplane and in the spirit world white butterflies do signify hope. That’s all! However, during manic and psychotic times it was impossible to ACCEPT a “that’s all it is” take on base reality. (And P.S I did actually ask the squirrel how his day was going, but shhh, let’s keep that our secret).

The week or two following my major psychotic break went by in a bit of a blur. You can bet your ass I kept taking Adderall, I needed it more than life itself, and with such conviction in said beliefs others around me believed so as well. Speaking of Adderall, I was running low. During my next appointment with my psychiatrist, I told her about what happened and she instantly dumped me as a patient. Oh, sorry, apparently, she was a neurologist who wasn’t fit to deal with a now psychiatric patient, so she gave me some references for other doctors in the area. Gave me references after giving me two more months’ worth of Adderall, that is.

Anyway, tables! I soon manically started building all sorts of custom wood creations; benches, chairs, shelves, and TABLES! Lots and lots of them! After scrounging up scrap wood from around the house, the sides of roads, backyard trash piles and everywhere in between I would go ham, building all sorts of shit. Some of these creations were clearly made by a tweaker, however some of them were pretty good! We all have one thing that we are ungodly talented with, yes this includes YOU! Everyone does, yet so few of us know it because we don’t understand how some things that come so easily to us are very challenging to others. Consequently, we can be completely blind to our gifts. As for my eventual building of literally hundreds of creations, I always thought they were okay at best. And while some shit I built was shit, a lot of it wasn’t! Through the years my woodworking received an abnormal amount of accolades. One lady even cried when meeting me because she thought some of my creations were so beautiful. I had complete imposter syndrome when it came to wood working and it took becoming both sane and completely giving up the craft to see that some of my wood shit was alright after all. The years following had me doing custom wood working as my job, my father always said “this business wouldn’t work if you weren’t so good at it”. Seems that statement wasn’t so much to praise my work but to express that overall, I was doing poorly. (Pics available at www.truthnugget.co)

Still believing that Project Possible, the idea to be nicer to each other, smiling more, etc., was in fact the way to save the world, I started a vlog just like Roman Atwood. Completely on my own, I started making daily vlogs about my life and this worldwide Project Possible save the world idea. I had reached so deep into not only my mind but the human mind as well that I began to see and accept some pretty obvious human dynamics, obvious, yet often overlooked. My intentions were in no way ill; however, I did start to play God a bit, or try to that is. My vlogs consisted of a crazy person not only documenting his day, but also professing life meanings and importances, as well as running challenges and campaigns to encourage and entice others to act in accordance with Project Possibles credo of “being nicer to each other, caring more, sharing more, loving more, helping more, giving more, inspiring more and of course smiling more”. I saw how sheepish humans could be and I wanted to herd them to greener pastures; however, it’s hard to be a good shepherd when you are not just a sheep, but a delusional one too!

It had now been two or three months since my main psychotic break. I was now seeing a psychiatrist who was prescribing both Adderall and Zyprexa (Adderall = UP, Zyprexa = DOWN). Dr. Q, we will call her, knew all about my psychotic episode and had been in communication with my father to try to keep the situation under control. There is one person and one thing I blame for all of this insanity. The person I blame is ME and the thing I blame is the Matrix. For all intents and purposes people are good, yes including doctors, yet all too often we miss the mark. Dr. Q diagnosed me as bipolar which was fucking perfect!!!! The system had a new patient and I had an even bigger moral greenlight to act out! I believed this bipolar thing too! To me it explained all of my quirks. It was also a perfect excuse for being super up and down, and most of all, it made me SPECIAL!!!

While I was no longer working for the drop zone I was still jumping, and in fact had returned for a jump only two weeks after the main episode. Miko said “hey man, heard you had some troubles, just wanted to see if you were good?”. I said “oh yeah, all good”, yup I lied! Even though I was still in a totally blissed out manic state I felt an overwhelming and immense sense shame for what had happened and concluded that now more than ever people must really not like me! It wasn’t all that true though. Look people just want to see their peers and friends do well. Falling off a cliff doesn’t make people hate you, but swallowing that pill is hard, so I didn’t even try.

If you push something hard enough, something is bound to move at least a little and I was pushing Project Possible very hard, not only with daily YouTube wood working vlogs, but also with community activism and engagement! My mindset, while bouncing all over the place, was dedicated to the idea of “good”. And since good = happy, let’s do good. Soon I was at community meetings to raise awareness for this or that, to propose mural ideas for city streets, and building tables for this charity raffle and that charity raffle! My gung-ho do NOW gusto was back! Clearly doing good was the thing everyone should be focused on, and we should be doing it now! So right quickly I whipped up a batch of cutting boards, sold them all over the place and raised $500 to donate to the homeless or something like that. And yes, I made videos of all of it, all about how great and virtuous my actions were! A number of people were catching onto this Project Possible idea and wanted in, and by people, I mean communists, literally! I started running with some interesting people there; my communist friends further indoctrinated me into the idea that systems of racist inequality predominate, and we need to do all of this hoopla happy good shit. Anyway, the best idea we came up with was for me to build a picnic table, a picnic table with built in flower pots that is, a picnic table that we would then place on private property. Thinking as communists, we believed we had the right to do this, or something like that. Anyway, we then used this table to sit on and fight evil capitalists, raise awareness for …. yeah, I don’t know either. The point here is that I was so focused on things that seemed directly “good”, I started to see sane people who weren’t always directly “nice” as needing, let’s say, help.

Some sort of routine had formed and it looked something like this. Wake up anywhere between 2:30 am - 8:00 am, immediately take 60 mg Adderall, feel extremely hung over and turn the coffee pot on. Coffee took about 20 minutes to make and drink and within another 10 minutes the Adderall would kick in. Ahhhh, warmth, calming energy, butterflies for the day and a happy outlook. Smoke a cigarette or two, grab the vlog camera and start acting like a little world saving angel. Talk to the camera about how amazing all of my viewers were, and not only talk about what Project Possible was up to that day but show it to the world too. Go to Home Depot to buy something needed for a wood project, and film all of it of course. Take another 30 mg Adderall and go to fucking town vacuuming sawdust, of course, while getting a timelapse shot of it. At 1:00 pm another 30 mg Adderall, and I would finally do a little wood working. By 2:30 pm a problem would start, and by 3:00 pm the problem would be a big one! All of that Adderall now had me amped and nervous, but then added to this the alcohol withdrawals kicking in, so by mid-afternoon I would feel INCREDIBLY tense, harsh, sick, and in dire need of reprieve. 3:15 pm open a beer and edit the daily vlog, make sure I seemed to be awesome and click upload. 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm keep drinking as much beer as possible and when that wasn’t enough drink liquor as well. While drinking I would be glued to the computer screen, watching and still completely enchanted with cool skydiving videos, greatest American Idol moments and Roman Atwood vlogs. It felt sooooo good when the booze took the edge off of the Adderall, while simultaneously starting to give me a buzz. While enamured with the videos, I would be dreaming, absolutely dreaming of one day being a cool skydiver, or maybe vlogger or perhaps even a marathoner. I had basically done that stuff, but not enough apparently, so I chased after those dreams with drugs and alcohol, which one can never get enough of. 8:10 pm 20 mg Zyprexa, 20 mg Melatonin, 100 mg Benadryl, all to help me go to sleep of course. Finally, I would be asleep, but then would come the sleep paralysis and associated demons! I would go to fucking war in my dreams, fighting all kinds of insidious monsters, bad people, and would often try to kill myself but never could! At 2:30 am I would wake up dying of thirst, drink a massive amount of water and go back to sleep if at all possible, which didn’t always happen with that much Adderall still in my brain. Of course, all of this was completely reasonable because Adderall is a medicine, a few drinks is fine and I was a victim for having such sleep issues. And as for that last sentence, perhaps it is just that easy to see what we want and deny the rest.

Directly good, directly good, directly good. I was so up and focused on anything with “good” attached to it I became blinded by the deceitful Devil!

Chapter 15 -Especially Flawed

Without reservation a few statements can be made. Identity is the center of the human condition. Our monkey brain explains everything except consciousness itself, the human condition is a good one and within our DNA is a desire to feel special. Further to this, research suggests that humans are 98%-158% more responsive to perceived or anecdotal injustices than we are to experienced firsthand injustices.

As I had recently been diagnosed as bipolar, my one true human identity was now solidified. Being a good human meant I wanted to bring awareness to such mental illness, and while what now made me “special” wasn’t necessarily a good thing, I could make up for that with swift activism and by being a victim warrior. On top of being a big fan of YouTube star Roman Atwood, I was also a big fan of Yousef Erakat, who was just as popular on the platform and created roughly similar content. Unfortunately, Mr. Erakat was bipolar as well, and he would often over-promise and under-deliver to his viewers. Being one of his fans, it was a bummer to not see certain things happen, and it was also a bummer to see him fall back into a major depressive episode after a few very happy weeks. On the flip side, it was super cool seeing Mr. Erakat making videos of helping homeless people get hotel rooms in return for staying sober for the night and being a really positive and inspirational speaker while in front of the camera.

Seeing Mr. Erakat be so honest, positive, inspiring and upfront about his bipolar struggles encouraged me to do the same. Over the next few weeks I scripted, shot, edited, clipped, refined and produced a full-blown mini-doc all about my bipolar disorder. It included what “bipolar” is, how it affects people differently, all of the psychological and physiological aspects connected to it, and what a day in my life would look like compared to others. It talked about the manic highs and depressive lows associated with the condition, and of course this mini-doc included a super epic motivational speech and a glorious synopsis of what a victim could really be. Later on, when I asked my friend Yen if she had seen the video, she kinda just said “hmmm yeah, good job, glad you’re fighting”. This was another time our eyes locked and looking back on it she knew; she knew it was BS. She knew I was faking and she also knew that I myself didn’t even know I was faking, so there wasn’t much else that could be said. As for most other people who saw the video, they gobbled it up!! Absolutely loved it!! Folks found it to be highly educational, inspirational, and of grand importance to modern society. Many people said very nice things about the video, and many people said very nice things about me. However, I remained hungry for more external validation. (And P.S. it turns out Mr. Erakat was blasted on Adderall as well. While I blinded and baffled a few thousand, Mr. Erakat blinded and baffled a few million).

Ball, the gentleman who did a few AFF training skydives with me, had become a really good friend. Ball really was an interesting guy; an expert skydiver, SCUBA diver, world traveler, and psychedelic medicine enthusiast. Ball even played a major roll with one of the big Burning Man camps. Ball really was one of those that put his arm ‘round my shoulder and showed me a world I never could have never imagined. The coolest part of Ball was that he genuinely liked people and was deeply curious about all different types of people. It seems Ball liked me because I was definitely doing some interesting things and I really liked Ball because he seemed so fucking cool!

The days, weeks and months of taking a boat load of Adderall, drinking as much as possible and manically building custom wood creations quickly came and went. I still believed that that Rodd guy and Roman Atwood were planning on giving me a Nissan GTR and that there were very influential figures conspiring against me. Even so, no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find evidence of that. I knew what I knew and I knew what had happened and I knew there was no way I was wrong, yet a total lack of evidence had me fairly confused. Kind of like swearing to yourself that you left your keys on the counter and only being able to say “hmmmmm” to the fact that your keys are not on the counter.

Along with manically building all sorts of custom wood creations came me gifting all sorts of custom wood creations; cutting boards, bowls, vases, side tables, wall art and more! Giving away, giving away and more giving away; a big part of this was a marketing ploy to entice people into placing custom orders, but also it was nice to give people special things that they would truly cherish. However, what led me to gift so many things was simply trying to get people to like me. Oftentimes when Ball and I would talk, we would use a lot of metaphor which again to a tweaker is just the bees’ knees. Now I don’t know how to explain it, however in whatever mind frame I was in at the time there was an aura of “gifting” that seemed to be present around Ball and his crowd and this led to me always having gifts at the ready. Burning Man was only a few months away at this point and Ball told me that there was a lady named Playa I should meet, and that one of her tenants was gifting.

For those who don’t know, Burning Man is technically an experiment in temporary community. During one week in summer in the middle of bumm fuck nowhere in the Nevada desert about 70,000 people converge to create an entire city where truly amazing things happen. An entire city with a post office, hospital, police station, roadways, camps, an airport and absolutely amazing art creations everywhere. There’s a bunch of booze, drugs, dancing, loving, hot days and dark nights illuminated by millions of LED’s, lasers, air that is literally moving due to such huge sound systems and to top it off quite a bit of nudity. Even though these days I have some reservations about what I did and experienced while at Burning Man, I must make it clear that Burning Man is a true pinnacle of the human imagination and capabilities, and beyond this Burning Man is simply a wonderful, magical and amazing world.

One of the main ideas of Burning Man is gifting. Most camps at Burning man are “theme” camps and their theme is their gift to fellow burners. Some theme camps are restaurants, some are bars, some bring art installations, some bring sound systems and the camp I was honored enough to be a part of brought aerial arts as our gift to Burning Man. Let’s go ahead and call the camp I was with “Air Sky” and not only did Air Sky skydivers bring beautiful performing aerial arts to the Playa (the main part of Burning Man) but as well give out free airplane rides to a few lucky Burners. On top of this, individuals were encouraged to bring gifts of their own to help others have the best burn possible. Some seasoned burners would bring extra water and condoms as their gifts, and virgin burners like me would often go overboard with gifts galore!

Soon I was headed to Burning Man with 15 custom made cutting boards, 5 or 10 hand turned bowls and vases, and even a few side tables - all to be gifts for random burners. On top of this, with coffee being only one of two things that could be purchased at Burning Man, I decided to poke the Burning Man bear and make coffee free by custom building an all-in-one coffee table / bench / bar / sign with everything needed to make a cup of coffee. It included everything from coffee, filters, creamers, cups, trash receptacle, to a 120V power inverter. On top of this I had agreed to not only pick up a new friend named Starshine on the way to Burning Man but also bring a trailer with me that could carry his belongings. And beyond all of this, I had also brought my camera equipment with plans to make a documentary titled “What is Burning Man?”.

While the main event was only 7 days long, theme camps and their main crew could arrive three or four days early to do setup. Seeing Burning Man in full swing is one thing, however seeing the mostly bare desert floor go from just that to a full-blown city in just a few days is absolutely mind blowing. Being Mr. Stern and punctual, I mandated that Starshine and I get there as early as possible. In fact, we were the first of our camp to make it there. The entire land allotment for Burning Man is about 7 square miles. When we arrived the roads and walkways had been laid out and there were a few structures going up. And on the playa there were a few really big art installations that had been in the process of setup for a while, but upon our arrival that was it. Soon enough though, more cars, trucks, trailers and vans started showing up to different camps around us, and before we knew it more people and stuff for our camp had arrived. Soon different herds of cats were in charge of setting up these tents and those structures, other cat herds were making sure people parked in the correct areas and others were setting up our camps signs and living areas. After three or four hours of head down work, I finally looked up and could no longer see the entire horizon. In fact, I could only see snippets of it. The rest of the horizon was completely full of shade structures, tents, gazebos, art installations and more. “Whooow holy crap, how did that happen?” I asked more seasoned burners. In response, they just laughed and told me to look again in the morning. Surprisingly, that night had me turning in early, and the next morning was one heck of a sight to behold. In less than 24 hours, a massive seven square mile plot of desert went from having almost nothing on it to being covered with thousands of humanoids all relentlessly working and erecting a city at light speed.

Over the next few days our camp and the rest of Burning Man continued to be set up. When we weren’t working, I was off riding my e-bike all around this magical land. From one art installation to another, from one camp to another I would love the Adderall buzz, enjoy beer and talk to as many people as possible. Never being able to just “be” meant there was a need to stay mission oriented on making my Burning Man documentary and also having the “big” discussions with as many strangers as possible about racism, sexism, systems of inequality and how we can overcome evil with positivity. One group of campers fed me beer and chips, another group of campers used my muscle for a bit to put up some of their camp and another group of campers had a lady and I having one heck of a conversation.

The dusty roadway was lined on both sides with shaggy tents, art installations and behind a wall of cars was a makeshift sitting area and kitchen for a group of campers. I’m not exactly sure how I ended up there or how the conversation started but soon I was sitting down going toe to toe with the top boss of feminism. This lady must have weighed 300 lb. She had armpit hair, half of her head was shaved with the other half falling into a pink pony tail. Her shoes were black leather boots and her nipples were covered with pasties. She absolutely hated men and was not afraid to tell me the million reasons why. So, I politely sat and listened, questioned and expressed my feelings. As I glanced to the left was her girlfriend, who had her jaw on the floor. The conversation continued with discussions about toxic masculinity, the extreme dangers of sexism, and the immediate need for revolution! My politics at the time were rather “woke” and even with quite woke political views this king of feminism pushed my belief set quite a bit. Again, over to my left I saw this lady’s girlfriend, who wore a completely blank look on her face. My return my stare at her was clearly asking “what’s the look on your face for?”, to which she eventually replied with “wow, this is amazing! My girlfriend here never even speaks to men”. And after another ten or fifteen minutes of a fairly fair (if you will) discussion, the discussion ended and I headed on my way.

I headed on my way and then was quickly stopped by king feminist’s girlfriend who once again said something to the effect of “OMG I can’t believe she was willing to talk to you. While we both don’t like men because men are clearly bad, I want to thank you for sitting down and showing us that while masculinity is still clearly bad I now / we now see that at least you aren’t truly evil”. Okay, those may have not been her exact words, however that was her general statement. It’s probably clear by now that my current politics are of someone who is sane, someone who is conservative (sorry cheap shot, I know) and are of someone who believes in God. With all of that said I will again say that the human condition is good and at a base level people are good; it is way too easy to become so isolated and therefore fearful that as a result we become 100% prejudiced towards others. Yup it’s all too easy to become so fearful and prejudiced towards others that we come to truly believe that others are actually evil. While there is abundant evil within this world, the evil isn’t me and the evil isn’t you. This can easily be recognized when we simply lay our weapons down and show our human side to one another. Through the years it has been a true honor to have others trust me enough to sit down, feel safe and feel free to express their beliefs. While these days I no longer stray away from expressing truth I hope that you feel safe while reading this book and if we ever get to meet, I of course hope you feel safe at that point as well.

As Friday turned to Saturday, the main gates opened which meant the party began! Burning Man is such an interesting thing; It’s love, light, family, peace and unity, it’s also real, raucous, dangerous and harsh! In a way it is very much like life, just that the good is multiplied by ten, and perhaps so is the bad if we are honest. At Burning Man, the outside world is known as the default world and this default world is just tamped down a bit. In the default world strangers usually don’t hand feed you grapes, but they usually do as part of the wild party at Burning Man. The first evening at Burning Man had a number of us walking around together. Soon we crossed a group of people on six-foot stilts, who were all throwing fireballs back and forth to each other. After walking a little way past them, I was mightily surprised when an 8-inch diameter literal fireball bounced off of my shoulder. A bit chuffed, I made some statement to the group, but which was reverbed with “Burning Man is a dangerous place, suck it up fucker”. And having rounded just one corner from the fireball incident we found beautiful women in togas getting on their knees to pour random people wine that was being carried between their tits. In the default world when one finishes using the restroom facilities, someone entering may ask if you turned the fan on, or some such plain blather. However, at Burning Man when someone goes to the shitter, sometimes a group will quietly roll out a red carpet in front of the toilet, gather literally hundreds of bystanders and have everyone cheer for your post crap red carpet walk. In the default world when the safety lady at work finishes a briefing and asks if there are any other questions, people remain silent and hope to go home soon. At Burning Man, when the safety lady finishes a safety briefing and asks for further questions or concerns she will in fact show her boobs when a crowd member shouts out “show us your boobs”. In the default world you may see an all-chrome car at the county fair, however at Burning Man that all chrome car is in fact El Popo, a 25ft tall 4 wheeled metal contraption with eight independently moving arms that spews and lights twenty gallons of propane over the course of just ten seconds. And in my case, I just so happened to be underneath El Popo with two beautiful women who were both high on Molly when El Popo lit off its propane! In the default world you can go to a WWE wrestling match and see folks beat each other up in a steel cage. At Burning Man that steel cage is known as the Thunder Dome, which is forty feet tall. Burners are not sitting around it; people are climbing on top of it. In the default world the biggest concert sound systems are limited by city noise ordinances, at Burning Man the sound systems are limited only by the power capabilities of two semi-truck sized generator systems. In the default world there is community yoga, however at Burning Man that community yoga is integrated with hands on teachings of different vagina massages. Clearly Burning Man is fucking wild!! However, it wasn’t wild enough; remember that “one step in any direction” analogy? Yeah! I kept taking more and more steps, wilder and crazier steps, hoping more and more that being and having done such cool shit would not only bring me that cinematic perfection but the praise from the group and reverence as a badass. However, with one step leading to the next, leading to the next, leading to the next, we don’t realize how far we have gone and may in fact even find ourselves in the Orgy Dome with a wiener on our butt.

Through the years, my ego also needed to have sex with as many women as possible as well. To me it felt like if a lady wasn’t willing to do procreation acts with me it was a sign of my inferiority. And as much as I would like to sound virtuous and express statements representative of moral high ground, I won’t because it would be a lie. The birds and the bees are natures longest lived back and forth. Women want strong and capable men and men want good looking women capable of bearing strong offspring. Through the years to this point and many years beyond had me neglecting the obvious reasons as to why soft fat guys often times fuck fat ugly girls and why strong good-looking men have the opportunity to hook up with the tens. We very quickly get into the idea of hurtful truths and infectious lies and the reason I no longer stray from simple truths is because while a simple truth may hurt, at least it doesn’t ravenously infect like many lies do. We will talk about this more later, however for now I will just say that at this point I was still a good looking, strong and capable guy who could have easily attracted equal mates. Unfortunately, I felt very weak, and due to this I inevitably played many games with the ladies, gained their trust and then broke their freaking hearts. It’s what I am least proud of in life and the following story …. well, it sickens me to be honest …. clearly everything was consensual and seemingly on the up and up …. yet wrong is wrong …. a moral infection is a moral infection and said moral infections or the equivalent are thriving in modern day America.

Rather quickly I had befriended a lady named Infinity. We did a number of Burning Man this’s and that’s. Drank too much alcohol, got our asses tattooed, checked out art and of course I did my thing of getting to know her on a deep and personal level. My style was to hint, hint and then back off, hint again and guide again. Hint, hint and guide toward sexual promiscuity that is. On top of this, at this point in life I genuinely believed that COMPLETE sexual liberation was not only a good thing but morally just as well. With that said, we soon found a community event where 100 plus dudes and 100 plus ladies all met in a big tent and were led by a man on stage as to how to give a special type of vaginal massage. The way I sat with Infinity’s legs on me hurt my back like hell, however my ego was too big to let that get in the way of learning such seemingly pure things as well as giving Infinity a good time. She liked it and I thought the experience was interesting …… interesting, that’s the right word, the experience was interesting.

The next night found my buddy Starshine, Infinity, Infinity’s lady friend and 2 other dudes all set and ready to go out into the wild world of Burning Man. Starshine was in recovery and therefore didn’t do any substances, Infinity and her girlfriend ate mushrooms, the other two dudes were probably on something, and I had taken not only a shit ton of Adderall, but also a decent amount of mushrooms and had drunk a fuck ton of beer. The night was warm, we were all wearing interesting outfits, our bikes were covered in LED lights and the stage was set for an interesting evening. Soon we were riding through the city streets which were also lit with millions of LED’s. Off in the distance we could hear the massive sound stages playing techno-music, so toward the music we went. As the city opened up into the vast playa all we could see was thousands of people all walking around lit up by more LED’s, the sky filled with different colored lasers and an abundance of art cars driving here and there. We parked our bikes, walked from one art installation to another and soon found ourselves on a number of different art cars, and by art cars I mean art busses. Art busses packed with people who were not only high on life but high on drugs as well; lights, drugs, music, a vast desert lit up like a Christmas tree and more! The experience was freaking wild!! However, it didn’t feel wild at all; just another step. Just another step and the mushrooms had kicked in and just another step and most of us were headed to the Orgy Dome.

Infinity’s girlfriend decided to not partake in the Orgy Dome experience. She even questioned Infinity as to whether she really wanted to do it, to which Infinity reassured her that she wanted to, and so with reluctance Infinity’s girlfriend rode off while Infinity with four random dudes went to the Orgy Dome. Unfortunately, the line to get into the Orgy Dome was insanely long. However, fortunately Starshine was let’s just say, a Burning Man VIP and got us in instantly. There were two rooms, the front room was for mingling and talking, the back room was for business. Straight through the front room we went and through some curtain doors we arrived in the back where there were twenty or thirty beds laid next to each other across the floor. With the mushrooms in full effect colors were brighter, touches felt deeper and my senses were overall heightened. As we found a place to do the deeds, we again all asked for consent with each other and everyone gave the greenlight. Soon a lady approached and asked if it was our first time, if we had any questions and asked if we needed any condoms. This lady mentioned how our group looked fun and stated that she would love to hang out and suck some dicks, which all of us dudes thought was a great idea, but she seemed to have to get back to work changing bed sheets and handing out condoms. A couple was in the middle of having intercourse and encouraged our group to take the bed next to theirs. Infinity laid down and asked for my magical tongue (her words) to warm her up. While I performed oral sex on Infinity, the other guys undressed and Starshine sat behind her, massaging her head and making sure she was having a good time. As my head lifted from between Infinity’s legs, I looked directly towards my right where the other couple were both having orgasms. Turning around I saw an absolutely beautiful blue eyed blond on her hands and knees receiving doggy style from an equally impressive male specimen. Her breasts did not sag at all but were just big enough to sway back and forth as the stroke from the man behind her was at least nine inches. As Infinity had intercourse with one man and then another, she turned to the lady next her and started talking about how this was an interesting experience. Four dudes and only two ladies, that was gay and my ego didn’t like it. Fortunately, there was a group of four Asian ladies who were all watching and seemed interested. Bare ass naked I approached, struck a short conversation and invited them to join. While they were interested, they weren’t quite willing, so I didn’t push and went back to our group where Infinity was now asking for me to be inside of her. Soon after entering Infinity, Starshine asked if he could reach across me to finger the lady next us, to which I said sure. And by reach across me Starshine actually laid across me and his wiener did touch my butt. After Infinity had an orgasm, Starshine removed himself from my back, I had relations with the lady next to us, and before too long our clothes were back on and back to the nighttime playa we went.

There were two options for opening lines for this book. As you have already read, I chose the one about jumping out of an airplane at night while drunk and high, however, I almost chose to start with “while his wiener did not go inside of my butt, it definitely touched my butt”. While the skydiving line is less gay, it wasn’t any less crazy and speaking of crazy the orgy dome experience in the moment felt no more intense than walking down the street, just another step, right. Today I have many regrets as pertaining to the orgy dome experience. Obviously everything was consensual, but that doesn’t change the fact that such actions were immoral. Thinking of that experience sickens me if we’re honest. We guys are pigs and while that doesn’t bug me, what does bug me is what seemed to be a sick lack of reverence for the sacredness that women possess within them. Everything we did was stated by everyone to be done in the name of love, light and freedom, but that just isn’t the case. Those actions were done in the name of the Devil, the Devil who is absolutely the great deceiver. It seems there is a right way to do wrong and a wrong way to do wrong. The right way to do wrong is to do it with honesty and the wrong way to do wrong is to do it with ignorance. This ignorance of right and wrong is where the lies start to infect us, to infect our minds and the thing about infected minds is that they don’t know they have been infected.

As the days of Burning Man went on, I continued with what I am best at; studying people. With my head cocked sideways I would constantly question; who, what, where, why and how are these people acting these ways? Are they happy? Is what they are doing a good thing or a bad thing? In my eyes these Burning Man people seemed to be the ones who had it figured out; they seemed to be having fun, they seemed to be happy and they seemed to be nice. So this time I put Burning Man people on the pedestal of Godlike figures. One thing that these Burning Man people aka burners seemed to have around them was drugs. These burners would talk about having drugs and doing drugs. It was odd, in my eyes, drugs were bad, yet these people seemed to be good, happy and healthy so I began to think that maybe “drugs” weren’t bad and instead were good. Clearly, I was confused about a few things; I held alcohol, drugs and medicine as completely different things when in reality they are all basically the same. To make an analogy here, when it came to drugs it was like I had never heard of the concept of …. let’s say, math and all of the sudden I was introduced to the idea of basic arithmetic, algebra, calculus, geometry, statistics and more! Hmmmm, there was a lot to take in, understandably so! Imagine if you were just introduced to all of these different sorts of math aka / drugs. How would one be expected to know that calculus is to uppers as geometry is to psychedelics as algebra is to downers? And if in life one had in fact been introduced to “math” without knowing it and all of the sudden learned about the multiple forms of “math”, one like myself would feel the need to figure out all of these forms of “math”. Fortunately, my burner friends were very good “math” teachers, however what these “math” teachers didn’t realize that Nugget was already ingesting PhD levels of calculus.

As stated a few paragraphs above, there is a right way to do wrong and there is a wrong way to do wrong, and further to this some things are good and some things are bad, just as some things are okay and some things are not okay. So how is this best said? In general drugs are bad, however that doesn’t necessarily make them not okay. It’s not okay to use drugs with blindness and ignorance, and in general while it’s not good to use drugs, it may be okay to use drugs with intent and knowledge. Furthering this, it is NOT okay that as a society we vilify some medicines as drugs. With that in mind, I would like to share the ONE drug experience that has actually had benefit to my life, check that an experience with MEDICINE that had benefit to my life.

The final night of Burning Man was the one when the man itself was burned and when many of us in our camp took MDMA aka Molly aka Ecstasy (again be careful with street level shit because you just don’t know what’s actually in it). My “math” teachers explained that they would be doing “math” that night, they explained what type of “math” they would be doing and offered to give me a “math” lesson if I felt the need for an education. A “math” worksheet was put in my hand. I was told what it was, I was told what to expect and I was offered a pencil if I wanted to start. And if it isn’t obvious by “math worksheet” I mean a tablet of MDMA and by pencil, I mean a cup of water. So, I quickly signed my “name” at the top of said “math” worksheet.

As stated a million times, to this point in life I had always felt hated, not equal, insecure, not good enough and always felt like the third wheel. However, this night changed that. A group of twenty of us all wearing interesting outfits covered in LED lights headed out into the abyss that is the playa at night. Beautiful women, lights, lasers, music, dancing, warm desert air and more, the stage was set. Soon we found ourselves moving from one art installation to a church (yes, like I said Burning Man is interesting) and because the pews were empty, we decided to sit there as one of our group members gave some sermon about the vast complexities of the universe. From there we went near a massive forty-foot-tall swing, and the group member who just gave said sermon then asked how I was feeling. I replied with “fine, but I don’t feel anything yet”. He looked into my eyes which in fact showed massive pupils and said, “oh yeah ya do, you are rolling, you are with us brother”. “Mhhhhahhhhh” and suddenly I was with people, I was finally part of the group for the first time, I didn’t feel alone, I didn’t feel better or worse than, I finally felt equal. That night as we walked from place to place, dancing here and dancing there, as we talked, laughed and cried together I finally, for the first time actually, felt human. It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, amazingly transformative and incredibly healing. Obviously, the experience didn’t make my life all better but it did enable my brain to connect a few dots that otherwise wouldn’t have been connected. And for that I am extremely grateful for the MEDICINE that MDMA can sometimes be. And P.S. do you remember what class of “drugs” MDMA is in? That’s right, psychedelics! And aren’t the psychedelics more often than not the ones that are medicine? And aren’t psychedelics the ones that have been vilified most by society through the years? ….. makes ya think, doesn’t it?

As with many of these stories, an entire book could be written about Burning Man, however we are in the process of writing this book, so said Burning Man book must wait. All we get in this life is what we get to experience and I am incredibly grateful for the wild, amazing, beautiful, raucous, raw, dangerous, loving and devilish things I got to experience at Burning Man. The idea of doing things with intention is of pivotal importance in life. Doing good things with intent is clearly good. Doing bad things with intent, well, is a heck of a lot more pure than being blinded by the Devil and doing his work in the name of what’s good. My friend Yen was right in saying that “sometimes it’s good to scare yourself a bit”. To the young men and women out there, those of you who are over 18 that is, go be a little naughty! If you are a dude, go consensually motorboat some titties, and if you’re a lady sure go show your tits to a crowd of 500, have the extra beer and be a little rebel. However, when doing these things please be aware of the forces you are dealing with and do these things with intent. No matter what we will pay for our sins, however the pain of paying for our sins is a heck of a lot less tumultuous when we understand why we are being reprimanded.

Having come to Burning Man early to help set up camp I also stayed a few extra days to help take down camp. While I really didn’t want to leave, I was really missing Magnet dog and was running out of Adderall and trust me, you do not want to have to make a 12-hour long drive while coming down from speed.

Chapter 16 – Hurtful Truths and Infectious Lies

Now 23 or maybe 24 years old, I had been taking an insane amount of Adderall for close to six years and had been drinking to excess for about three years. I had also been taking a whopping dose of the antipsychotic Zyprexa for a year or two, as well as had a number of other anti-depressants, benzodiazepines with sleep aids like Ambien mixed in. Oh yeah and I also took a massive amount of melatonin and Benadryl every night. From 200-ish lbs. to now 240 or even 250 lbs., I had ballooned quite a bit. That’s what antipsychotics do to ya folks! Our bodies can take a hell of a lot of punishment, but when is too much too much? When do we get to the point of being too sick, fat and rag dolled? Well again, one step! At this point I was actually still fairly physically capable and emotionally, well, I was sure as shit still crazy, however the real hell of depression wasn’t around much. My gusto and drive for saving the world was still around but beginning to diminish, and the delusions I had about powerful people conspiring against me were still there but starting to diminish as well. Both of my brothers were in a different state, some distance from skydiving and Burning Man friends was happening, and dad worked a lot so Magnet dog, Ferrous squeak (Magnet’s little brother) and I would continue to make a lot of sawdust and even a few YouTube vlogs.

My now late brother Rick was diagnosed as autistic, and while I believe an Aspergers diagnosis would have been more appropriate, it’s safe to say that he was definitely on the spectrum. My middle brother Paul is a soft, sweet and very kind man; however, he is a bit socially unique as well, and by that he may -rism with the -tism a bit too. Again, on a societal level we really need to be careful with all of these labels of autistic, Aspergers, bipolar, depressed, INFIJT, ABCK, anti-social cognitive disorder, etc. etc. etc. Again, I feel, check that, I know that we have a strong desire to feel special and when some random mental condition gives us that “unique” label we will take it and run with it in ways that just isn’t us. We are all truly especially special, but we are NOT all especially flawed. With all of that said, my brain is a little tism – burgery too, just a little. While I have a strong aversion to all of these labels, just a little tism – burger brain is enough to …. to see and approach things just a little differently. Groups of people were one of the things I would infinitely study. Whether it be fire fighters, skydivers, college students, Harley riders or hicks, the need for acceptance in, and validation by the group would have individuals acting, dressing, and behaving in certain particular ways. In my eyes, all of these things were simply playing pretend, and I thought everyone else knew and accepted that. Now, I just don’t know. The bipolar identity had latched onto me and soon so did the wood worker identity. I saw Carhart beanies as both cool and tough. I also saw a number of sort of tough yet yuppie wood workers with beanies with a bit of a flat bill, so in colder weather I chose to wear a Carhart beanie with a flat bill. To me this “look” would signify to others that while I may be in a different tribe at least I was in a tribe and that would give me safe ground to stand on in this society. And sorry to be way to direct here, but YOU do this exact sort of thing as well! But, how aware of it are you?

At this point my diet (and let’s just point out here that the definition of diet is “the kinds of food a person, animal or community habitually eats” which is much different than “going on a diet”) was fairly standard American. Half or more of my diet consisted of mostly “unhealthy” foods and the balance consisted of “healthy” foods. Now at this point it’s not that I didn’t care about health and wellness, in fact I was extremely interested and extremely determined to figure out the human condition and how to truly thrive. However, number one I just didn’t care about my diet too much and also number one I (like everyone reading this if we are honest) had been programmed by the food matrix and didn’t know the difference between WHY some things are healthy and WHY other things are unhealthy. For example, eggs for breakfast weren’t too uncommon and at that point I thought that eggs were kind of fifty-fifty. Clearly the cholesterol was absolutely horrible, however the protein in the egg whites was very good. Lunch would be a fast-food cheeseburger, fries and an energy drink, which I thought was absolutely horrible …. and in fact, that is an absolutely horrible lunch, but again I didn’t know WHY and WHAT made that lunch horrible. And dinner would usually be super unhealthy boxed pasta with super healthy chicken breast. On occasions when I was focused on eating right, dinner may have been something super healthy chicken breast and salad with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. On very rare occasions if I was super feeling my oats (pun intended) I may have had the best, most “healthy” possible vegan dinner. This consisted of a bean, a green and a grain. Of course, I absolutely hated having a bowl of brown rice, kale and lima beans, especially when they weren’t doused with butter and laden with salt.

Part of the title of this book is “seeing the matrix” and I don’t know if you have ever written an autobiography, however it can be a little tricky deciding how much to tease and how much to explain. Tease now and explain later or tease now and explain now? Well maybe I’ll continue to tease you with saying that our bodies, our evolution and our genetic code knows what we really want to eat, our subconscious knows what we SHOULD be eating. We all know 100% that we absolutely crave as much sugar, salt and fat as we can possibly get our hands on, right? YES, ABSOLUTELY!!! And because of this we all know that because we are “modern” humans we should stay away from sugar, salt and fat, right? We all know that a huge 64oz soda is super bad, right? Yes! But what about a drink with the same macros being made with carbonated spring water, lemon, mint, and a whopping dose of honey? And I’ll bet right off the bat you are thinking “yes, very healthy …. well maybe that’s a bit too much honey, but yeah overall super healthy”. And yes! Good! You are right! But let’s pause here; so, sugar is very bad? But sugar is also very good? Wait, what? Also, don’t we all know, haven’t we all been told our entire lives to stay away from carbs because carbs are bad but that 7 to 11 servings a day of whole grains is good? Wait, what? Oh, yeah!!!! ….. wait, hold on wait a minute ….

That’s cognitive dissonance for ya! Again, cognitive dissonance is the turmoil induced by simultaneously holding two opposing ideas. And what do we do when we are confused? That’s right! Revert to what we know …. or revert to what we think we know based on our programming. This cognitive dissonance idea is an EXTREMELY powerful psychological conundrum that we must be hyper vigilant of. As for food I (like you most likely) had been told that vegetables are very good for us and that red meat is very bad for us. And don’t worry I am not going to say that vegetables are very bad, but I am going to say that red meat, and obviously more on this later, is actually very healthy. But setting aside hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, our genetic code and massive instinctual drive for red meat, how would one be expected to actually believe such when all we have ever been told was the opposite? So just using red meat is an example, if everything within us knows that red meat is good how could one be led to believe the opposite? Well, that’s because it is infinitely easier to create bullshit than it is to undo bullshit. And with that, boys are boys and girls are girls, right? Yup! That’s just a simple fact, a simple fact that was very easily undone ….

One morning I opened my phone and was surprised to have Tinder matched with a person named Hayden. The truth is that every Tinder match for us guys is a surprise because we simply right swipe on everything. Hayden’s bio said something completely normal like “22, living in XYZ town, love my small animals, work as a waitress” and Hayden’s bio also mentioned that she was “androgenous”. Hayden’s picture showed her as a fairly healthy-looking lady with short hair who wore more tomboy like clothes. Curious, Nugget was of course curious and quickly Googled “androgenous” – having physical characteristics of both sexes. “Hmmmmm” I thought, and quickly sent her a message. We chit chatted and agreed to meet. A few days later I was headed to the next town over, rung her doorbell, she invited me in and ……. Hayden was a sweet kind lady, she was into her small animals that she had as pets, she talked about work and seemed to have a good work ethic. She was a normal ass good freaking human! Now sort of side note here #1, this is circa 2015 or 2016. #2, sometimes we change completely independently of the world and sometimes we sort of change with the world, with the world’s norms, ideas, knowledge, etc. Also of note is that while some roleplay and gender intermingling ideas, and cross-dressing had occurred in America for a long time, those things have been happening throughout human history. If we are honest, the idea of being transgender, doing role play, etc. was not at all mainstream in America at that time. In fact, many of us had never heard the word transgender before. Heck even I, who just went to an extremely liberal college, really had no understanding of said concept. In any case I was about to get an education from Hayden.

After dinner and back at her apartment I politely asked “what does androgenous mean? Is that like intersex? Do you have a male and female gene? (Side note: A hermaphrodite or intersex does in fact happen, while rare it is a REAL biological condition where male and female genes, if you will, are part of the biological human and in FACT there are some people with both male and female bits). Hayden replied with “oh no I am a girl, just like to have short hair and wear clothes that boys or girls could wear, kinda like a tomboy”. “Oh cool! Yeah, makes perfect sense to do what fits ya! So why the label of androgenous instead of just calling yourself a tomboy?” I said. To which she so sweetly replied “good question, maybe you don’t really know, but some girls are a little beyond just a tomboy, some of us girls and boys even just don’t like dealing with having to act like a boy or a girl and therefore just roll in the middle”. Perhaps because I had never heard of such ideas, I was a little confused, but hey such bravery to be yourself seemed not only brave but special as well. I liked that she was special, heck it was cool, and because I was bipolar, I was special too. My response was “yeah cool, I think people really need liberation! I guess I am a bit confused but a big-time tomboy or a man being a bit more feminine is a really good thing if that’s what’s best for you”. She said “yeah I am glad you are so kind and not mean, some people don’t really like us, with this I’ll share that some boys really feel like girls and some girls really feel like boys; I am mostly in the middle but sometimes feel a little more girly and might even wear a dress and sometimes feel more boy(y) and will wear a packer”. “What is a packer”, I asked. “It’s a fake dick I wear under my pants to make me present like a man”. “Oh, like a strap-on? But aren’t those hard? Wouldn’t that make it look like you have a boner? When I get a boner I gotta stuff it between my legs because it’s not appropriate to walk around the mall with a pitched tent”. “Hehe you’re silly! No, it’s like a regular dick when it’s soft, I just wear it under my pants and it makes me feel like something is there”. While I was fairly confused at this point, I maintained my belief set that anything that could be perceived as mean is bad and anything perceived as liberating was good, so I said “I am really proud of you for doing what’s best for you ……… oh and sorry, ummm I am straight, and just to confirm you are a girl right?”. “Hehe you’re cute, I am glad you know your sexual preferences, yes I am a girl, my dick is fake but my kitty is real” and she gave me the wink.

Again, as roughly stated in the intro to this book, some sentences have been formatted in a way that is representative of a clean, crisp, highly educated and intelligent professional and then sometimes the complete opposite is true. I genuinely hope you find farts a little funny and heck if hearing or reading the words “wiener fart” makes you smirk a little, we can be friends. And just as there is a time and place for poop wiener jokes, there is a time and place to use the words needed to tell the story, to use them bluntly, but to use them in as respectful of a manner as possible. The purpose of this book it to help and to educate. It is to help the sane people understand how the modern-day mind virus spawned, and is to show you just how manipulatable and programmable our minds are. I do not mean to berate or shame others, I really don’t, however I will not back down from the need to tell the truth over spreading infectious lies.

Hayden and I ended up hanging out with each other a few times, had relations and fairly quickly went our separate ways. I hope Hayden is doing well. She was a sweet lady, hardworking, kind and I believe genuine in her ways. I believe, check that I know, there are many external forces that intermingle with our internal selves and so often this leads people like me to play cowboy, or firefighter, or skydiver or in more extreme cases but for the exact same reasons cause us to feel the need to change our gender. However, I don’t think Hayden was being fake or had an infected mind. I think Hayden was one of the OG trans people, I think Hayden wanted to just be herself, I think Hayden loved the fact that she was a female, a female who sometimes preferred board shorts and a tee shirt over a bikini. And frankly I believe that all of that is just fine. Beyond this I believe that the OG Hayden type are now the ones both fighting the current insanity of this world but also feeling more ostracism than ever because of what is transpiring, and frankly that, for lack of better words, just sucks.

Hayden opened my eyes, and there is absolutely zero fault in her for being herself, however with my mind being jacked on Adderall, believing that fake victims were warriors, and pursuing infectious lies over hurtful truths, I was primed to fully accept some bullshit.

My drinking was getting worse and worse. I could no longer fulfill my needs with just beer alone. So, I would start the evening with six or eight beers, then take a big swig of B and J Brandy, wash that down with two beers, more Brandy, more beers etc. And of course, to combat the hangover I would now often take 60 mg Adderall just to get out of bed, then 30 mg more, then 30 mg more and on occasion 30 mg more. I was prescribed 90 mg daily for the month. My doctor was writing, and I was filling the scripts every three weeks. Do the math, I was now continuously running out of Adderall before I could get more. On a number of occasions my doctor said I seemed to be doing well and said that instead of a visit every three weeks we could meet once a month, but this was a problem! Number one, this was a moral greenlight, “doc says I am doing great, I am fine, this is fine, I am good, nope not a drug addict”. And number two if we only met every month instead of every three weeks, I would be out of Adderall for not just three days but a whopping ten days. Being out of Adderall for ten days was simply not an option, so what did I do? Yup! Lie through my teeth, cheat, deceit and manipulate the situation. “Yeah doc, I feel like I am doing kinda better, but I don’t know, meeting every three weeks is kinda a habit now, didn’t you say habits are good? Meeting every three weeks is almost like a security blanket”. In lieu of using a million more words I’ll just say that, that’s drug addiction for ya. It brings about our super powers; super powers we can use for obvious evil and super powers that can absolutely be used for good.

Now, it would be very understandable if you think that being a wildly manipulative drug addict is horrible and in no way a super power, however I promise ya, later we will see the light enabled by the darkness. And speaking of darkness, this is where the real darkness began. Running out of Adderall was beyond horrible! While I have never experienced withdrawal from opioids, heroin addicts refer to withdrawals as being sick …. and frankly that’s kind of what Adderall withdrawal is. Obviously, I knew that if I took the Adderall as prescribed, I could make it last, however doing so just was NOT an option. It’s impossible to explain to the layperson but to the addict it is very rare that it is an option to change before the pain of staying the same overrides the pain of change. An incredibly enlightening and empowering feeling would spike once the pharmacist handed me a bottle and I saw that it was full of pills. I was now safe and secure. I had what I needed for life … for the next three weeks or so that is. A week would pass in an instant and now I would become beyond fearful and nervous of the hell coming in a week or two. I would do my best to cherish every pill, however they always ran out too quickly. The last pill on the final day of the cycle was the final hoorah and I would milk it for everything I could before going to bed knowing, knowing that absolute hell awaited me in the morning.

It seems we can all express to each other when we are feeling joy, anger, sadness or depression, however that’s about it, so how should I express only what needs to be explained? Well, sometimes we may be stuck with a really bad flu for a week or two and then become overall a bit blue, makes sense right? Sometimes we are depressed because we have been really fucking up. We can be depressed about what’s not going right or losing a loved one. On top of this we can be extremely anxious while being depressed. Well, in my case, add on to the Adderall withdrawal the effects of a poor diet, tons of poison from medications, plus additional drugs and alcohol. It was an absolute hell. An absolute hell that was dealt with only because I knew the heaven in a bottle was a week or so away. When off of the Adderall I wasn’t good for much, wouldn’t do anything productive at all, wouldn’t talk much to anyone. Magnet dog and Ferrous squeak may have liked it though, because we got to snuggle up in bed a lot. Sometimes I was only out for two or three days and I would do my best to play it off as if everything was normal, however when I was out for a week or more, I would just tell my dad and other family members that I was suffering with general depression, and a month or two later when it happened again, I would be “sick” with some sort of flu. And believe it or not, I still didn’t think I had much of a problem.

During times when I was “depressed” or “sick” I would have big ole pity parties on Facebook and at first, I would receive a lot of praise for being “strong” and general encouragement to keep fighting like the warrior I was. My mind was clearly infected and I just kept on going with it. Well, keep going with it until I had more Adderall, then I would be extremely happy and positive and of course post all that on Facebook as well. The happy positive shit received more likes and comments and I really liked that. I had become more alone than ever but a black handheld box with an app made me feel valued when ten or twenty “thumbs ups” were given. Cringy but true.

Now if depression during the day could be hell, what happened at night was indescribably bad. I have no words to describe it. Well, no words other than “sleep paralysis” – the temporary inability to move or speak. In essence my mind was awake, but my body couldn’t move, and this leads quickly to total insanity. Frankly, I don’t want to relive the sleep paralysis, the demons, and the weird and spooky shit beyond it. It’s that bad. I’ll just say that I believe there is a lot more to the theoretical nature of reality than we could ever imagine. While studies of such is absolutely fascinating, for the purposes of this book, I think it’s best we stick to understanding the human mind as it pertains to objective reality instead of the quantum and spiritual realm.

A year or so before this, I built a custom wooden sandbox for a lady named Mindy. But before talking about my friend Mindy, let’s talk about that sandbox. It was constructed of construction grade Fir, it was about 8 feet long and 6 feet wide, and it had a hinged cover as well. Not only did the hinged cover allow for the box to be covered but when open the hinged cover would fold into a bench where an adult could sit as a child played. Pretty neat for sure, but that’s all. However, to a mind blasted on Adderall and in the clouds, that sandbox WITH bench integration was one of the coolest things ever! Perhaps not much more needs to be said than I guess us tweakers can find ungodly attributes in just about anything.

Building said sandbox for Mindy enabled us to be Facebook buddies and eventually decide to hang out. Mindy was kind, sweet and really fit the bill of what progressive ideations were appropriate and needed for the world. Ever since childhood I had wanted green hair, so Mindy and I hung out and she died my hair. Mindy was a big girl, had a husband and child as well. During said hair dying process Mindy and I talked a lot about generational trauma, the need for expression of self, all of the ways we’re impacted by inequalities and of course how we could thrive as individuals if only others would change their ways. The hair die had to sit for half an hour or so and during this time we took a few silly selfies as well as talked about the dating world. Soon I mentioned Hayden, her general ways and even her packer. “Oh wow! I knew you were cool, but I didn’t know you were that cool”. So, we talked about gender freedom ideas, polyamory, lupin (which basically means being nude at nudist communities), and even how she was in an open relationship and how we would be a good match to “date” a little bit. Before too long my hair was dyed and looked great, all thanks to Mindy for doing such a good job. Mindy and I kept talking over the following days and hooking up was on the table. I was new to this world and asked if her husband knew and was really okay with it. As well as wanting to be respectful I even asked for her husband’s number to personally ask him if it was okay if I banged his wife! He was cool with it; in fact, he was so cool with it he wanted to watch while I drilled his wife. I believe that’s a cuckold and apparently, it’s a thing.

By this point I had accepted that maybe my drinking was a bit of a problem, so what did I do? That’s right! Go to AA! I happened to have the number of an old high school teacher who was not only in the program of AA, but also open about his involvement. One night found me ten or twelve beers deep, I was sick and sad and finally ready to ask for some help. He responded to my text with a phone call; “where are you? Have you been drinking? Are you alone?”. “I am at home, alone and yes I am drinking”. And fifteen minutes later that mother fucker (and by God, by “mother fucker” I mean really good human) was at my door step and there to drive me to an AA meeting.

Now the truth is, the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous (and many other 12 step facilitated recovery groups) is in fact a cult! It is very dangerous to society! The cult does brainwash people! And the cult’s construct of what an “alcoholic” is, is not representative of objective reality in any way. Opposite this is that the members of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous are often times really fucking great people, amazing people who at the drop of a hat do anything within their power to help another alcoholic, great people who genuinely try to help others find sobriety. I used to shit all over Christianity and I used to shit all over AA as well, and while a world of religious metaphoric fairytale is created within the minds of many AA members …. it’s okay, it’s quite okay because truth lies in between objective reality and illusion.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this and needed help, so I jumped into the car with Mr. Soup. One of Mr. Soup’s first questions was to ask if I knew what AA was, which I did because my mother had gone to AA when I was a child and even brought me to a few AA meetings with her (which, truth be told, is fairly common and completely reasonable). I further explained in a laypersons way that I knew AA was where people went to talk about their drinking problems and to receive peer support. Mr. Soup replied with “yup, that’s basically it, just one alcoholic helping another” and then Mr. Soup not only drove my drunk ass to a meeting but also listened to me explain why all of my problems weren’t my fault. I probably also told him all about how I was completely reasonable in every single way and even though I asked for serious help I probably didn’t need that much help.

Going into the meeting I knew, knew for certain that alcoholics MUST hit a rock bottom before getting sober (and spoiler alert that isn’t true). I also knew for CERTAIN that alcoholics were 100% all or nothing and that if an “alcoholic” had one drink they would have twenty drinks (and spoiler alert that’s not true either). Beyond this, I also knew as fact that the ONLY way an alcoholic could actually get sober was with lifelong AA support (again, not true). Obviously, I knew these things were all fact because everyone in society knew them as fact, and if everyone knows something, that thing could in no way be wrong. (P.S. and again spoiler alert, such a train of thought thrives within the realm of both mass formation psychosis and hypnosis).

Walking through the doors of that meeting had me feeling ashamed and inferior, but hey nothing new there, and soon a number of very nice people extended their hand and welcomed me. A bell was rung and a person at the head of the table started in with “Hi my name is XYZ and I am an alcoholic, welcome to tonight’s meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this is a speaker discussion meeting, blah, blah, blah and could I get XYZ member to read the preamble?”. To which a volunteer would start in with “Hi, my name is XYZ and I am an alcoholic and here is the AA Preamble”. In short, the AA preamble basically says, we are a group of people who are trying to solve our drinking problems, we are not aligned with any outside issues, and attempt to focus only on recovery from alcoholism. Next someone would be asked to read the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, which you have probably heard of, but if not, we will talk more about them later. Next, the chairperson would ask another volunteer to read a part from Chapter three of the Big Book (the AA bible), which started with another person introducing themselves as an “alcoholic” and read the bit that basically says if you don’t do this program you are destined to “jails, institutions and death”. These readings took about fifteen minutes and being a bit drunk I didn’t pay too much attention to them. Soon the speaker of the meeting was introduced and they shared their story; of course, not without starting with “Hi my name is XYZ and I am an alcoholic”, and of course the obligatory “hi XYZ” from everyone in the room. The speaker’s story was raucous, real, inspirational and he very much on multiple occasions praised the program for “saving his life”. The meeting was then opened up for others to talk about whatever they needed to talk about and before too long the meeting was adjourned with a reading of the AA Promises, the serenity prayer and then everyone got in a circle, held hands, said a prayer and did a “keep coming back, it works, it works, it works” chant.

Mr. Soup was kind enough to give me a ride home as well and during the car ride he asked me what I thought of it. My statement was something to the effect of “yeah, it was cool, I like that everyone helps each other, but I don’t really understand what it means to be powerless”. Some conversation was had and when we arrived back at my house, I of course thanked Mr. Soup and he of course said that I didn’t have to drink anymore, and to call him anytime for any reason.

Over the course of the next few weeks or maybe even months I would manage to stay sober from alcohol for a day or two here and a day or two there and attended a number of AA meetings. With the repetition of going to meetings, I continued to hear that we “alcoholics” were sick people, that we would die without the program. I heard people reference many of the aspects of their lives being that way because they were an “alcoholic”. And people in the meetings, with gleaming eyes, would point to the poster with the 12 steps written on it or point at the Big Book and say, “yeah brother, everything you will ever need is in here”. Everyone in “the rooms” would say the same sorts of things and everyone in the rooms swore by “the program”. They seemed to all have something, and I wanted it. They actually referred to “it” as it. It took me another three years to understand “it” and five years beyond that to actually get “it”. The people of AA seemed to be good and “the program” seemed to be even better, however alcohol was still the best so I quickly picked up my full-time drinking career again.

Burning Man was on the horizon again and as my brother Paul was struggling with life stuff in general it seemed it would be good for him to come along. So hey, do you guys want to come along to Burning Man again?

Chapter 17 – Cocaine Is Weak Sauce

Going back to Burning Man was quite exciting, and it was equally exciting to be bringing my brother Paul. As Paul had his fair share of difficulties, and is the opposite of a type A person, I thought it would be good for Paul to get way outside of his comfort zone and really push the limits. While Burning Man may have not been an absolutely perfect experience, he did get way outside of his comfort zone and I believe that was a genuinely good thing for him. It was very courageous of him to do what he did, and I am very proud of him for it. And it would be great if Paul wanted to share more of his experience in becoming a burner, but that is obviously up to him.

A very small part of my reason to share the above was to hopefully plant a seed that not only CAN everyone find the courage to step outside of their comfort zone, but also that everyone SHOULD. However, the main reason for sharing the above was to set up the following. I had enough Adderall for two or three days of Burning Man, but definitely not the ten days we planned on being there. I was unable to find anyone to sell me any under the table, and I knew this was a big problem. A big problem which could be fixed by buying some Cocaine. To me at the time, cocaine was a full-blown drug, way different than alcohol and far more powerful than Adderall. I continued to allow myself to believe that I wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict and even though cocaine was actually a drug, that using it at Burning Man was a completely reasonable and acceptable thing to do.

It’s hard to say that we drug addicts are reasonable people, however we do deploy some interesting strategies and thoughtful tactics to our plans. See, with eight or ten Adderall pills left, I decided that cutting down to one or two pills daily plus cocaine would keep me plenty up. On the first day of Burning Man, I quickly took two 30 mg Adderall tablets and was ready to really step it up. Carefully I chopped up some coke, made the best line I could, and into my nose it went. Gnarly stuff for sure, I almost threw up actually, however a few swigs of beer enabled me to keep my stomach. Thirty seconds went by. I was like a kid waiting for a quadruple scoop of ice cream. I was excited to say the least. Sixty seconds and maybe ninety seconds went by and now I was feeling the effects. I felt the energy rush, I felt the butterflies and I felt happy and couldn’t wait for how I would be feeling in another minute. However, another minute passed and I didn’t feel any more effects. Another line and another, the effects were great, don’t get me wrong, however it was nowhere near as powerful as Adderall.

I had an eight ball of cocaine for myself and actually brought an eight ball for a camp mate, and soon he came knocking. We did a few lines together and he said it was actually verry good quality …… Now if ya know ya know and what I am saying here is that ninety percent of the time when a fellow druggie says, “this shits fire bro”, they are just happy to have drugs or just trying to sell you drugs. However, my buddy was a cocaine connoisseur, had no reason to lie, and even swore that he was telling the truth. A few other people smelled it too and the reviews were all good to quite good. The point here is that, what I thought of as an EXTREMELY powerful and POTENT full blown street drug in fact pales in comparison to a medicine prescribed by your family doctor.

In my mind everything I was doing was within reason, especially because I wasn’t a drug addict. While my buddy and I were doing a few lines my brother walked near the back door. My buddy opened it and said “hey come on in”. I freaked! “NO, NO, NO! Not now! Hold on Paul give us a minute!”. My buddy turned around and gave a questioning stare. I was drunk, high on not only Adderall, but cocaine as well and said, “no, no, we gotta keep this quiet, he is a drug addict and alcoholic, he can’t use anything at all or he will go insane, unlike us normies who can stay reasonable”. The look on my buddy’s face said it all, but I didn’t get it, the plate of cocaine went in the cabinet and the door was opened for Paul.

Generally speaking, the rest of my burn sucked. I didn’t have enough drugs, wasn’t the nicest person to be around and wasn’t much help to the Air Sky camp. However, there is a really pretty neat story I would like to share. See, Air Sky’s gift to Burning Man was to gift airplane rides to random burners. I had one ticket to gift out and on the last night I that could give it away I walked up to the first person I saw and offered it to her. Instantly her eyes lit up in a way I had never seen before, “omg, really?”. “Yes, enjoy it”, I said. “You must be joking! I wanted a ride in your plane more than anything else while here”. She was a pretty Norwegian lady with a beautiful accent, and she pulled a bag out and asked if I would like some MDMA. Finger to tongue to bag to mouth, it was time to roll with my new lady friend. It was a pretty amazing night …. aside from being depressed from not having enough Adderall, that is. However, our night needs no story but what does need mentioning is that Rena had dreams of flying and even becoming a commercial pilot. I believe they were sort of pipe dreams to her, however when she took the airplane ride at Burning Man she didn’t ride in the back, and instead sat in the copilot seat and even took the stick for a minute. And that’s all it took, the rest is history, she is now a commercial airline pilot. To do injustice to poetry we can say, that’s pretty fucking cool! Pretty fucking cool! Sometimes all we need is one random spark.

Soon I was back home and in more emotional pain than ever before. Doing extreme things in life is important, but only for the right reasons. My inverted sense of self had me going to extremes to get enough external validation and recognition of the group to fill an infinite void within me. And this is a battle that is never won. I continued wood working, making both custom creations as well as one-off art pieces all in a hope that one day a light would magically turn on and I would instantly be a famous wood artist, but I was losing that fight too. The Adderall wasn’t working as well anymore either, and by the time the hangovers would wear off the comedown from Adderall started and alcohol withdrawals would begin as well. The stories depicted within show a man who seemed to be out and about a lot, but most of the time I was alone, sad, lacking purpose and didn’t know which direction to turn. One option that had been on the table for a while now was suicide, however I was too big of a bitch to pull a trigger, didn’t know where to get a lethal dose of opioids and, insane as this sounds knew that not dying from all of the crazy shit that happened meant that I was in fact, immortal. And being immortal really sucks when you want nothing more than to die.

A number of months had passed and there happened to be a two-week period in which I had no Adderall. During that period I had an opportunity to buy and dismantle a barn for its reclaimed wood. The gentleman who was selling it was pressuring me to make the three-hour drive to the barn ASAP because it was in high demand, a typical salesman move, a move I believed of course. Of course, being out of Adderall meant I was in no shape to drive, let alone do business, and this presented a problem. How would I secure the deal and still sound like a sane business person? That’s right! Lie through my teeth! I told the salesperson that my workload was crazy and that I was guaranteed to make an offer, just that we had to wait ten days for me to finish other work …… “other work”, in said lie of course meant getting another prescription for Adderall.

You, like many other people, probably find reclaimed wood to be pretty cool sometimes, because it is pretty cool, but not much more than that. However, to my tweaky twabbled mind reclaimed wood still held some magical and divine power. Even though my bank account was never big, I had never gone into debt; that always sounded astonishingly insane to me. Yet in this case I decided it was worth it to take the risk. Ball agreed to loan me $1500, and so convinced I would make tens of thousands of dollars selling the barn wood I promised to give him 100% on his dollar. That’s insanity for ya!

With a fresh bottle of Adderall in hand I would drive three hours each way to dismantle a fallen barn for its reclaimed wood, manically working all day, driving into the night and up early again. Adderall, Adderall and more Adderall. TING! I was now having another “manic” episode, awake for one night and awake for another and my mind started to go again. The wood wasn’t going to be worth tens of thousands, it was going to be worth hundreds of thousands! On top of this, this one opportunity was going to be my true salvation and from here on out everything would be perfect. Once back home I would manically unload wood, stack it here and stack it there. Some old floor boards happened to be vertical grain wood and to me this semi-special cut of lumber was the most magical thing ever. My oldest brother Rick was wise in interesting ways and knew exactly what was going on. Before long Rick was SCREAMING, absolutely SCREAMING at me and my father saying that I was high on Adderall. I did everything I could to play it off as another “manic” episode. I was very scared of my brother Rick, both physically and emotionally. I would never challenge him or try to win against him in any way, ever. Except when it came to protecting my Adderall so I could keep taking it. And I did, I “won” so to speak. Rick didn’t buy it, but Paul and my dad did …. Heck, even I bought into my own shit enough to protect my perceived innocence.

Manic and crazed, I found an old coat hanger on the job site and was so convinced it was worth an exorbitant amount of money, I spent all night sending secretive texts again. On one of the barn teardown days, I hired a buddy to come help on site, which was sketchy. The next day my father came along. He was protecting his son; that’s what he was doing. With only one or two days left before the deadline of the job I was in trouble and needed more help. All night I spent manically fretting about who I could get to help. S, my friend named S! I messaged her at three am and amazingly she agreed to help me and Paul in fact on that same day.

S was the sweetest, kindest, most angelic lady I had ever met. She was stunningly beautiful, she had a kind soul and she had also been mistreated by men before. The last thing she needed was for another guy to be a dick to her, and be a dick is exactly what I did. Such manic or tweaked out states were of pure bliss and nirvana for me, but that didn’t change the fact that I said some pretty horrible things that day. It seemed Paul, S and I were all buddies, so some jovial locker room talk seemed appropriate, and perhaps a small amount would have been. I truly believed S was the most amazing woman in the world and I thought she knew it too, so I flipped on that and made jokes about not her beautiful hair, but instead her horribly ugly hair. Her perfect body? Nope, horrible jokes about quite the opposite. I honestly don’t remember much of what I said that day while in the truck and at the job site but apparently it was pretty bad! So bad that S told me to never speak to her again and so bad that Paul, outraged, screamed at me …… If ya knew Paul, you would know that for him to scream means things must have been pretty gnarly. P.S there is a pretty wild S / God story which will be told later.

There are a million other wild tweaker things I did during that week-long episode but again that would consume too many words, so go ahead and use your imagination. Throughout the whole “episode” my father believed it was my “bipolar” condition. In the heat of things Paul came to his senses and knew I was high as a kite, but when I managed to stay up for multiple days straight even Paul reverted to believing it was a bipolar episode. Back to the ER I went, extra emergency Zyprexa was prescribed, I had a three-day hiatus, and within three weeks was out of said psychosis and back to just being delusional like every drug addict is.

Oh, and hey, not only did that barn wood turn into some beautiful furniture but it also made Ball 100% on his dollar. It put some money in my pocket too.

Obviously, I felt absolutely horrible for putting both brothers and my father through absolute hell and for not being a good dog dad to Magnet and Ferrous. Things were getting pretty bad; at every corner I was looking for ways to kill myself. Bitching on Facebook no longer had anyone saying nice and actually had my real friends finally abandoning me. On multiple occasions I would cry and cry in front of daddy’s face saying I needed help, and while he helped as much as he could, I was the one who needed to help myself.

Soon I found a rehab, my father drove me the very ugly and trying three hours there, made sure I was checked in okay and gave me a look I have yet to forget as he walked away.

Chapter 18 – Rehab

Being broken hurts, and going to rehab oftentimes means you are pretty broken. Like a dog who not only couldn’t do anything right, but was now at the mercy of strangers, it was uncomfortable to say the least. The lady who checked me in had meth mouth, but aside from that was very healthy looking, kind and sweet. She asked a myriad of questions including if I had STD’s, what drugs I used, how often I used drugs, if I popped, snorted or mainlined them, etc. The questions were legitimate of course and she was in no way rude about it, however she was being so nonchalant it did strike me a bit. Soon, I was taken upstairs where everyone was about to eat. There were many kind gestures and hellos and in a beautiful and kind way I was shown to the front of the line just as a meal was on. House rules were that the newest person in the house was always first in line for food. Speaking of a house, the rehabilitation facility was a seven-bedroom house on forty acers in a rural part of the California foothills. The house would hold between fifteen to thirty patients as well as had offices for staff. After lunch, my assigned “house brother” showed me to a bed and gave me a rundown of the rules. The rules were pretty simple; don’t be a dick, do the assigned chores, have no phones or computers, and attend all group meetings, which happened all day every day.

Soon a group meeting was happening, and it was some sort of free for all check-in and talk about feelings sort of thing. Usually “meetings” or perhaps “classes” would be drawing something, or learning about addictive behavior, or making metaphysical emotional tool boxes, or learning about our triggers AND of course about the 12 Steps and the program of both Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. On top of many group classes there were also three or four NA or AA meetings held at the house every week. These were public meetings where any other alcoholics or addicts could participate. During this first group meeting the question was, “What is something you have learned today?”. And I freaking nailed this one!! Clearing my throat and deepening my voice I proclaimed, “Today I learned that I am as strong as I am weak”. Twas a doozy for sure, everyone “oohed” and “ahhed”. And BAMM it hit me, I was at a rehab in a room full of alcoholics and drug addicts, and they were all completely normal, reasonably dressed people. (Except, that is, for one gent, who while kind, courteous and well-spoken, was extremely washed up.) Many of these folks had day jobs (that they were talking a hiatus from), had husbands and wives, had children, were troubled a bit but otherwise productive members of society. For the entirety of my life, I had thought that real alcoholics and drug addicts were face down in the gutter, all abnormal, and utter failures. The simple truth that these folks were mostly completely normal people was quite a shock!

Having only been off of the amphetamines for a few days meant I was physically and emotionally depressed, which was partially combatted with copious amounts of caffeine but also huge amounts of adrenaline from being in such a new environment. And on a quick note, most people at this facility including myself were in for a thirty-day stint. Also to note is that while we drug addicts and alcoholics are usually fairly normal people, that isn’t always the case, so use your discretion if you ever find yourself in a rehab surrounded by twenty other addicts and alcoholics.

Again, I already had it in my head and held it as fact that the only way to get sober was with AA or NA and aside from being a little rebel and being able to disregard pizza box instructions, I wasn’t of a free enough mind to disregard a script, a script written by humans, a script known as the twelve steps. Said twelve step scripts for both AA and NA were on the wall of the main room where classes would happen, as well as on the front of our assigned binders. The 12 steps were also located in numerous places throughout the house. The first step is “we admitted we are powerless over alcohol or / drugs and that our lives have become unmanageable”. Since AA was clearly the only way to get sober and the first part of the first step was acceptance of powerlessness, that meant I needed to work very hard to both understand and accept said powerlessness. This created quite the hiccup for me, though. In fact understanding and accepting powerlessness is understandably quite the conundrum for many people. On top of this what did an “unmanageable life” mean? Confused and a bit baffled I, like many others, hyper-focused on step one and that hyperfocus ended up being a bit blinding.

Through the days and throughout the classes, the official AA meetings and additionally from many peers I started to hear a number of things repeated. Folks would say “the program, the program, the program”, and “the steps, everything you need in life is written right there on that wall”. They would say these things repeatedly and they would say these things with an odd almost magical glisten in their eyes. Beyond this, the narrative of “alcoholics” and “addicts” being innately different from other humans was around in abundance. Now more than ever I believed that the only way to get the gift of recovery was through the twelve steps and that alcoholism or drug addiction was only within those with a spiritual malady and a disease of the mind. The term “normie” was thrown around at infinitum as well; “my friend is a normie and can have just one beer”, “I saw a normie leave half a glass of wine on the table”, normies, normies, normies, “normies aren’t sick like us”. Furthermore, everyone would make the statement of “just listen you will hear everyone saying these same things, if everyone knows it there’s something to it”.

More than ever, I was feeling completely inferior to those not just around me but more so those in positions of leadership at the rehab. Now it was counselors I was putting on Godlike pedestals. I mean they seemed to have lots knowledge about sobriety. Said counselors and others would always talk about this old timer or that old timer with some “real good sobriety” and how cool their story was. Days turned into weeks and I was missing Magnet dog more than ever … talk about feeling like a shit parent, with destination fixation on that thirty-day mark, I figured if I could make it there, that “there” would have finally been “it”.

There was an older gentleman at the rehab as well. He was very fat and was a lifelong meth user, yes, we tweakers can be fat too. Obesity and stimulants are very hard on one’s body and this guy showed it, in fact the poor guy was very near death, we all knew it. Often times he would struggle to get his shoes on in the morning and one morning he was really struggling. His exclamations of pain were clear, and one morning he even started saying “please, please, please, I need help”. The room was full of people, including me, but I lacked the goddamn decency to help this poor guy put his shoes on. Clearly not doing such isn’t pure evil, however this one still bugs me. I should have helped, but didn’t. Now the real reason for mentioning this gentleman was not to talk about his physical stature or his shoes, but to express what he was trying to express to everyone. Between his labored breathing and raspy voice, he would sit alone and cry out to anyone nearby, “THIS IS BRAINWASHING!! THEY ARE BRAINWASHING YOU!! PLEASE LISTEN. THIS IS ALL A BRAINWASHING”. I liked this gentleman, a troubled man, but a kind soul. During conversations with him I tried to understand what he meant by “brainwashing”. I believe he saw “it”. He saw “truth” and when someone who gets “it” tries to explain “it” to others they just sound plain crazy! He would say, “Don’t you see!! They took your phone! You have no outside knowledge! They are playing with forces that disregard objective reality!! PLEASE, PLEASE see this!!!”. At the time, I thought he was crazy and I expressed to him that these are not only nice people but good people who are trying to help us. He made it clear that he knew these people were nice and good and trying to help, but he also made it clear that these people had simply been brainwashed too. One day while this gentleman was sleeping, a group meeting was called. The counselor expressed that we all knew he was near death, and made it clear that he was loved by all and recommended that we prayed that he would find the power to simply surrender. Just surrender; surrender, surrender, surrender. We were told to be kind to this man, and just pray that he could get with the program. There was no hate towards this man, instead there was love. Love, love that was blind to …. blind to the fact that our minds are more programmable and hypnotizable than we could have ever imagined. This gentleman ended up leaving the rehab early, he left in not only severe physical pain, but also in a state of complete psychological demoralization. To you Sir, there is no way in hell you are still alive, but there is no way in hell that you are in hell either, and that is because you were a good man, a good man who stood for truth, even while nearing death.

Many thousands of words could be written about this rehab experience, but there’s no need for that, because you basically already know the drill. Go to rehab for thirty days, do lots of classes and inner work. Pretty simple, however inner work is dang near impossible for a soul that trembles anytime its physical embodiment does anything remotely imperfect. Above we mentioned a number of things that were repeatedly repeated, however there was one repetitious saying that took the cake, “GET A SPONSOR!!!”. Time and time again it was made abundantly clear that the entirety of the rehab would go to waste if one didn’t immediately get a sponsor. Drilled into our heads was; “get a sponsor, get a sponsor, get a sponsor!!”. And being such a good boy, I managed to line up a sponsor before even leaving the facility.

There was one family day where loved ones of the patients in the rehab would come and even do a therapy session in front of the rest of the patients and their families. During said therapy session between my father and I, he said something that hurt real god damn bad! What he said isn’t going to be shared here, however it enabled me to see how tired he was. Not wanting to be an encumbrance to him, I paid one of the counselors to drive me back home. Having been sober for thirty days my head was a bit clearer and while seeing Magnet dog was great, returning to the path of destruction including a father worn down by his son did in fact suck. I was determined more than ever to now do right by Magnet dog and my father.

Determined, but broken. Didn’t have much money, was now 295 lb. and for fucks sake nearing that 300 lb. mark is soul taking. On top of this I didn’t have any friends around at all, saving the world with Project Possible had failed. I had failed. Spurred on to stop failing I went to AA meeting after meeting and as prescribed, worked with a sponsor. Things were very superficial at this point. The AA meetings weren’t bad and the people were nice, but I just didn’t get any of it. My sponsor and I would read the Big Book together and again I didn’t feel any depth to what was going on. The members of AA promoted the program’s magic to infinite degrees. I believed it, but just couldn’t get it. AA was the only way to get sober and I failed to get “what they had”.

I drank again and quickly went back to AA, drank a few times more and then didn’t stop. Life was hell, sleep was demons beyond the imagination, and I was now a burden to family and society. A family member was coming to town and not wanting to deal with them had me load up my .357 Magnum, grab my truck and camper and head to a local campground. I spent four days and four nights alone in that camper, only going out once to talk to the tweaker looking guy about scoring some meth. I needed speed to drink as much as I wanted; without it I just drank enough to get an upset stomach. I would grab my pistol, cock the hammer, put it to my head, flinch and try to pull the trigger, but time after time I pussied out. I took the pistol to bed with me again putting it against my head and trying again and again, but I kept being a little bitch. It’s quite odd and we may go into this more later on, but it’s fairly common for people trying to commit suicide to try to do it in a way that won’t hurt others. I knew that doing it in my trailer would have me found by authorities of some sort and I knew what was behind the bullets path so as not hurt anyone else. Having realized I was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger I slept with my hand on the pistol grip hoping that somehow during some sort of waking dream I would somehow squeeze that trigger.

Before this camper ordeal, I had been contemplating the myriads of other ways to die; carbon monoxide, driving into a huge tree, driving into a parked semi-truck, pills, so on and so forth. While I had put a LOT of time and effort into figuring this all out, I just sort of gave up and decided that by ingesting enough of the “diphenhydramine” over-the-counter sleeping pills, that I would just pass out forever. I wrote a note that said the usual stuff about loving family members, and to not be sad, and to please take care of Magnet dog, I said some stuff that I won’t say here, drew a picture of Magnet and even drew a picture of my skydiving, with an arrow saying “see I am free and at peace”. I drove to the liquor store to get a twelve pack, to another store to buy four big bottles of the highest dose of said sleeping medicine and then to another store to buy another four bottles. I only bought four bottles per store because I didn’t want them to know what was up. Back home I tried to let Magnet know that I loved her and then proceeded with the plan. Eight or ten beers was about all I could hold, and that was just enough to get me loosened up. Being loosened up but not sick I used Gatorade to wash down some 400-600 pills. The note I left read in big bold letters “DO NOT ENTER!! CALL THE AUTHORITIES TO DEAL WITH MY BODY!!!”. There are some reasons behind certain things of how and why things were done this way, but without going into details, I’ll just say that I wanted to show respect to loved ones. Soon I laid down and felt peace, that’s kind of it. Not only did I not have to suffer anymore, but also loved ones would no longer need to feel my burden.

My father was of course the one to find the note and obviously disregarded its instructions. It’s impossible to imagine what he was going through. I have zero memory of the two or three days after laying down but apparently my father found me violently convulsing, 911 was called and I was rushed to the hospital. The hospital did everything they could do, but apparently I resumed violently convulsing, pissing and shitting myself for a few days. Evidently I almost succeeded; apparently it was really close. My father who is not a religious man actually prayed. After a few days I lurched up and was slammed by the restraint of the hospital bed, “GOD DAMN IT!!!” I proclaimed. In that instant my father knew his prayer was answered and I knew mine wasn’t. I stayed in the hospital for a few more days and only remember hallucinating, being in a diaper and playing with my flaccid penis. Over the course of a week or two I made a full recovery, a full physical recovery that is, not a spiritual recovery.

Failing to kill yourself is a bit odd if I am being completely honest, that’s all, just odd. My thoughts during this time were pretty doggon simple; “whelp that didn’t work, hopefully something else will, but that probably made the family sad, guess I’ll keep on living for now”.

Back to AA I went and soon found another sponsor. The dude was a little weird if we are honest. He told me to do ninety meetings in ninety days and to give him a list of all of the vile things I had done. Four days and four meetings later I had said list and handed it over. Having read this story thus far you know some of the details, though perhaps I forgot a few, including trying to “plug” 2m2b I think it was. I don’t want to give you too much information on all the ways to get high, but hey, the willingness of us drug addicts and alcoholics to stop at nothing is actually quite impressive if ya think hard enough about it. Anyway, I missed a meeting, and the gentleman made it clear that I was a “sick fuck” and that he could no longer sponsor me. Soon another member of the program offered to sponsor me and I was happy to accept. This sponsor who we will name Rio was about my age and we even attended high school together. Rio seemed not only to be super cool because his past and his story was in ways crazier than mine, but also because he had more sober time and seemed to be doing such righteous stuff. Rio was a good dude, a good dude who was putting a lot of work into not only his sobriety, but the sobriety of others as well. Rio gave me a lot of his time and attention and for that I must be grateful, yet the story needs telling.

I was attending more and more meetings. Sometimes Rio was there and sometimes he wasn’t. Through many repetitions of meetings, I started to hear narratives repeated. As earlier stated, there are readings done at the beginning and end of every meeting; one statement from one of the readings said “…. Jails, institutions and death… blah”. Also stated was, “remember we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful, without help there is no help”. Beyond this, in every meeting people would ask if I was an “alcoholic”, “well, yeah, ummm duhhh” was all I could think. Time and time again people would reference not just drinking too much being caused by their alcoholism, but also blame (that can be good or bad) all other unique qualities of themselves being due to the fact that they were an “alcoholic”. One day Jane said to John “hey John, good to see ya again, cough cough, sorry I am a little sick, otherwise I would give you a hug”. Jane did in fact have a head cold, and I remember this like it was yesterday, John bowed his head, sighed a bit and said “oh aren’t we all sick”. Time and time again members would say, “you are in the right place, in here we are good, but just out in that parking lot your disease is doing pushups”. Still being fairly new in the program people would kindly say hello, say that I was in the right place and again point towards the twelve steps with that look in their eye and say “everything you will ever need is right there in those steps”. One day my first sponsor saw me struggling to fully surrender and even said “it’s fine man, just drink the Cool Aid”. On top of this, every meeting had a reading that read “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves”. All of this was repeated time and time again by everyone in the rooms, so it had to be true. Beyond this, dozens and dozens of people professed time and time again that “this program” saved their life, without “the program” of AA they would be dead, the program is great, the program is amazing, the program is the way, the program is divine.

Jails, institutions and death sounded pretty poopy and if all that was needed to avoid such was to “just give myself to a simple program” and NOT be “constitutionally incapable of being honest” then I figured it was worth another go. Rio and I would text and call daily as well as meet once or twice a week. He promised that “service helps keep him sober”. He also promised that he would sponsor me just how his sponsor sponsored him, as his sponsor was sponsored, by his sponsor’s sponsor’s sponsor. Rio and I would meet to check in, he would read the big book out loud for us, Rio would have me highlight all of what the many sponsors x10 had their sponsors highlight, Rio was kind and caring, Rio answered all of my questions with honesty, kindness and integrity and Rio was soothing in making it clear that my imperfections didn’t make me BAD! (Hey please, if there is one thing to grab onto right now, it’s that your imperfections do NOT make you bad.) Within the program and with Rio of course there was much talk about how selfish the “alcoholic” is. It was made clear that this isn’t a “bad” thing but that it’s just “how we are”. Humility was another bullet point within the program, and the notion of humility was still baffling beyond all hell. I just couldn’t imagine how a badass skydiver, fire fighter, BASE jumper or SCUBA diver and / or now someone who has recovered from such a horrible condition could not think that their shit doesn’t stink. My ego was again blinded and baffled.

Rio and I had now been working together for a month or two and it had been maybe four or five months since I had “graduated” from rehab. (Oh lord, why here and now as I write this am I wishing for a “student of the month” sticker from rehab? Sorry for jumping to the future here, perhaps healing is a process and not a destination.) Anyway, Rio and I had been working together for a small bit of time and during one meeting with him he said “okay, today is going to be a big day. Today we will see if you are actually an alcoholic”. He continued to read the book aloud and had me highlight the bits that said the alcoholic is by nature “restless, irritable and discontent”, “a disease of the mind and an allergy of the brain”, “spiritual malady”, and “selfish, self-serving and self-seeking”. Within all parts of the program there was much talk of alcoholics being selfish and I had done some homework listing all of the selfish things I had done; so yup, check one. Similar methods were used in regards to being “restless, irritable and discontent”, so yeah check two. And again, similar methods were used in making it clear that I / alcoholics had a “spiritual malady”, so yeah check three. Rio continued with showing, pointing and reading the bit of the book that was written by a doctor in the early 1900’s stating that this condition appears to resemble an allergy to alcohol. “See look it says, written by a doctor who has to be smarter than us, says that this is an allergy”. Next, he said, “see look, here is the final test and ultimatum, my sponsor did this with me, and he used $50, but I am down to my last $20. So right now, if I take you to the bar and buy you every drink I can with this $20 and you can stop drinking there, then you are not an alcoholic”. At this point I simply didn’t want to drink anymore, so I expressed that to Rio. Obviously, Rio didn’t want to encourage me to drink, so he asked in said situation if I could stop drinking. I simply answered, “no, no in that case I wouldn’t be able to stop”. However, this was a conundrum because I could, with extreme displeasure I could stop drinking at five drinks if the stakes were high enough, let’s say a gun to my head or with one million dollars on the table. Rio continued with “so look my grandpa has drunk fifteen drinks a day for as long as I can remember and the doctor just told him that if he doesn’t stop, he will die, and he just stopped. See if he couldn’t have just stopped drinking, he would be an alcoholic. Drinking an insane amount doesn’t make one an alcoholic, all of these other maladies is what makes us alcoholics”. While confused, I knew in my heart that I was an alcoholic, so accepting such wasn’t too hard, and with that step one was complete.

Step two is “we came to believe that a power greater than us could restore us to sanity”, and this was tricky. Tricky, but simple., I didn’t believe in God so I didn’t believe in God. I genuinely tried, but still couldn’t believe. Reality was reality and in said reality I attached a “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden of proof to all matters. Just couldn’t get there with God, and this was completely acceptable to Rio and the program, a willingness to try to believe was a good enough starting point. I continued going to meetings and kept seeing and hearing everyone talk about “how sick we are” and how this program was our medicine. Time and time again people would say “we have to remember that we are sick people”. Beyond this it seemed that being an “alcoholic” made people feel special. While special doesn’t necessarily mean anything good, it seemed like this special or unique status was held in unison by the group consensus. There was also this notion of being a “dry drunk” where even if someone was chemically sober, they weren’t actually “sober”. That is, if the person wasn’t working the program so to speak, they weren’t considered to be actually sober. One instance had me talking to another member about an up-and-coming musician. I told them about one of their songs and even the person’s lifestyle which included HEAVY drinking. This member said, “hmmm, I wonder if they are an alcoholic? Kinda sounds like they are”. Another story went something like this, a daughter and father went to a restaurant, some random dude in the restaurant was being a dick and had some poor attitudes. Apparently to said daughter’s father the random dick head was clearly an “alcoholic” simply due to his poor attitude and beliefs, and this is rather telling because said dickhead wasn’t even drinking.

Some time past with more AA meetings and work with Rio, but I still couldn’t come to believe in God. Rio pushed me a bit on just making the decision to believe and still failing to believe I thanked Rio and removed myself from AA.

Setting aside that members of AA oftentimes have tattered pasts, I can attest to the fact that many of them are genuinely good people, good people who have helped themselves and are subsequently putting themselves out there to help others, as clearly seen with Rio above.

Seems I may have egged you on quite a bit earlier in this book about getting to the real crazy stuff, and while we got there it may have taken longer than expected. Fairly soon we will dive relatively deep into how not only is AA a full-blown cult, but also dive into just how easily a mind can be “getted got”. The stories within are leading to one thing, one particular thing, and if we can cross the bridge from recognizing that thing to fully accepting that thing we can truly thrive.

Chapter 19 – More Drugs, More Hypnotized, And Getting Naked With Annie

What was not mentioned in the last chapter was that after my suicide attempt, I started seeing a psychiatrist again. This doctor, for all intents and purposes, instantly put me on Abilify to treat my “bipolar” as well as treat depression and act as a mood stabilizer. Later in the book we will work together to cross the bridge of recognizing this as insanity to fully accepting this as insanity. The stories depicted within may resemble one who still has a victim mentality, and while that would be understandable, I promise that isn’t the case. There are reasons for portraying these stories in such ways. However, in the coming case I do feel rather victimized. Right off the bat I told this doctor that I had misused and had gotten addicted to Adderall and needed to stay away from the like. He didn’t prescribe exercise, he didn’t prescribe a healthy diet, he didn’t prescribe sunlight. Instead, he prescribed Vyvanse. When I set aside massive amounts of personal responsibility and just look back at myself as a patient, this was full-blown malpractice, that resembled in no way a doctor fulfilling their Hippocratic oath.

Vyvanse is made of lisdexamfetamine, which is the prodrug to dextroamphetamine and you may remember that dextroamphetamine is a large constituent of Adderall. For lack of better words, Vyvanse is like Adderall minus ten percent. Ha! Yeah, I took it! Quickly I was at or near the maximum dose of Vyvanse, however this go around my doctor and insurance would only fill the prescriptions every month and on top of this the maximum prescribable dose of Vyvanse was only 70 mg and generally speaking per milligram, Vyvanse is about half as potent as Adderall. While it was a big step down, I was in fact back on the speed. Oh, and drinking of course.

At this point life was dull, I hated myself more than I hated everything else, my friends were all gone, so I would take Vyvanse in the day, drink in the evening and bitch n moan on Facebook as much as humanly possible. When folks on Facebook would call me on my shit, my insecurities would produce a visceral reaction. Still building custom furniture meant I had some income and rent was free, so I didn’t need much but a little hope. And that little bit of hope was in pill form. Of course I wanted more Vyvanse, more Adderall, more speed, etc., however there wasn’t much left in my soul, so a little Vyvanse was just enough hope for me to keep going.

Right around this time is when I RAPIDLY deprogrammed from one of the Matrixes and subsequently, completed the programming from another Matrix. The book “This Naked Mind” written by Annie Grace is one that has forever changed me. In fact, it has done the same for tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. Because the title of Annies book included the word “naked” I instantly thought of boobies and butt holes, and while Annies’s book has nothing to do with boobies and butt holes, it does have to do with the same reason you smirk every time you hear “boobies”, that’s right, our minds. Later in this book I will share a dissertation on my hypothesis that the phenomenon of hypnosis explains not only the insanity in the minds of the crazy ones but also explains the insanity within the minds of we sane ones as well. While that is coming later, for now let’s discuss a naked mind. What do you know? What have you been told? What sort of education do you have? What have you proved yourself right on? And what have you proven yourself wrong on? Before learning algebra, we learned multiplication and before that we learned addition and subtraction and before that we learned how to count and before that we would place some Lego’s in a large pile and some in a very small pile, and before that? Well, if we are honest, our minds were naked, we had our instincts but nothing else. Perhaps math was a bad example, but what if over time, a few months or years or decades, our minds could come to hold “facts” that were the complete opposite of what is within our instincts and our genetic code?

Well, if you had asked me that ten years ago, I would have called you fucking crazy, but now I realize that you / now current me wouldn’t be crazy at all. “This Naked Mind” is in the genre of “quit lit” and is a very powerful tool to help those completely reconstruct their relationship with alcohol. The genius of Annie’s book took an entire book, and we only have a few paragraphs to work with here, so I would suggest you go to truthnugget.co, hit that “DONATE NOW” button, send a few million dollars this way, THEN go read “This Naked Mind” and come right back here. However, you are a little rebel and are still here, so let’s go.

Now please forgive whatever debauchery may follow. In a very short summary Annie Grace’s book “This Naked Mind” disproves MANY of the generally held societal conceptions about alcohol. Annie explains why we think what we think about alcohol. Some of what Annie does is simply give us new information about alcohol, however the real genius in her ways is that she gets what we already know within our genetic code and our conscious minds into our subconscious minds. This is bridging the gap between recognition and acceptance, and this is known as deprogramming.

Through the book Annie uses her story to disprove the commonly held beliefs that alcohol is fun, sexy, needed for a good time, healthy in moderation and tastes good. And Annie goes deep into the incredibly VAST amount of, well PROGRAMMING that society has bestowed upon us about alcohol. She talks about not only the incredibly successful marketing behind alcohol but also talks about how since birth we have undergone a barrage of enticing cues about alcohol, coming from our parents, friends, movies, beautiful bars with alcohol shrines, magazines, coworkers, etc, etc. Beyond this Annie really dispels the idea of an “alcoholic” vs a heavy drinker vs a normal drinker. She didn’t berate AA, but she did prove to me that the idea of an “alcoholic” vs a “normie” was just malarky.

Go read “This Naked Mind” and trust the process. Sobriety is fun, and sobriety really isn’t always that hard. While I didn’t experience “spontaneous sobriety” right after finishing Annie’s book, it is a big reason I am sober now. Annie, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU! P.S – Hook a brother up with an affiliate link. Oh and P.S P.S I might talk some shit later, but don’t worry, it’s for a good reason.

Now oftentimes people have a visceral reaction to being wronged and when that person holds a HUGE victim mentality like I did, the reaction is very monkeylike. Okay, so sometimes I could think for myself a little bit, but frankly what Annie’s book did was get me fucking pissed off at society! For my whole life, and probably your whole life, you have been subconsciously filled with “alcohol good” or at least “alcohol okay”, and NO, just NO, “alcohol not okay”. I was pissed! I had gone way past consuming a reasonable amount of alcohol and because of this I wasn’t pissed on my behalf, I was fucking pissed on behalf of millions of other Americans who hadn’t yet had truth placed in their lap. And what really got me was that while some people fall victim to the pitcher plant quicker than others, there is no such thing as an “alcoholic” vs a “normie”.

While Annie’s book didn’t get me permanently sober, it did sober me up for a while. Beyond this, many people have realized long-term sobriety from Annies’s book, or similar books/methods as well. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people had healed themselves from not just drinking too much but also full-blown alcoholism as well. I knew that addiction was deadly, obviously, but a twelve-step program wasn’t REQUIRED for survival! Alcoholism is a spectrum. Two drinks a night makes you a baby alcoholic and twenty drinks a night makes you a full-blown alcoholic! There is no such thing as a “normie” vs an “alcoholic”, it’s all the same thing, a spectrum of course, but still the same. This was a big one, a big one that society had all wrong, and I had to FIGHT!

So, what did I do? That’s right! Get on Facebook to bitch, scream, wail and flail! A lot of this was directed about the way society had it all wrong about alcohol, however most of it was directed at how AA is a full-blown CULT! I was fucking pissed, and I was on one for sure! Again, at this point I knew alcohol was all bad for me, so claiming to be a victim in that realm was a bit of a stretch. However, when it came to all said “normies” they were in trouble, they were victims of systemic ignorance! Beyond this, it was now completely clear that the old man in rehab who was screaming and wailing about us being brainwashed was right, AND this was corroborated by many Facebook groups who saw “it” and backed up everything the old man said and everything I was now saying. We were the minority, and minorities often have it right, we were right. So how could 99% of society just accept such concepts as truth when none of these concepts resembled truth in any way? My mind was totally fucking blown!

Okay, now let’s take a bit of a step back here. Obviously, I don’t know where you are on your lifes journey, you may be “ahead” of me in some ways, and I may be “ahead” of you in some ways. However, being ahead or behind isn’t the point at all, the point is to share our experiences and grow together. So, what just happened in the last few paragraphs? Well, generally speaking, what happened is known as “waking up”. When we go from asleep to awake, do we go from unconscious to conscious? No, simply because when we are asleep, we are not fully unconscious. So, could I still be, could you still be walking around and living your life while still asleep? Well, that depends on how we intend to use the words we are using. However, it is beyond a doubt that there are MANY …. things, that’s the right word, things that 99% of the population is completely unconscious of, and all of these “things” have a MASSIVE impact on our overall wellness. Thriving is possible, we will get there, I promise, but why did I react so viscerally to waking up? That’s simple, because of our monkey brain. We are wired that way. If the tribe is about to eat poison berries and you are the only one to know them as poison you would react to the danger with much screaming, yelling and flailing. It’s a beautiful part of humanity, it really is! It is in our DNA to have each other’s backs, and it shows! Unfortunately, our beliefs LITERALLY construct the entirety of our reality, and if what we believe, if what we have been led to believe, is completely wrong not only can we inflict massive amounts of harm on ourselves, but our loved ones and fellow man as well.

Again, my reaction to said “waking up” or “awakening” was one hell of a reaction, and it almost drove me to insanity! Now that I see many of the “matrixes”, it’s an everyday thing for me to see someone “wake up” to just one of them and have even that drive them a bit mad. Well, that’s part of the process. But please, stay calm, there is a LOT more we are going to wake up to, and fighting the system, fighting the Matrix is an undertaking that must be done calmly, slowly, with peace and pace.

And finally let’s explain the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous. Is it a cult? Yes. Can it be extremely detrimental to society? Yes. Is it completely evil? No. Can it actually be very helpful to many people? Yes. Let’s dig in.

The cult of Alcoholics Anonymous is a cult due to the definition of “cult” – “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object”. Obviously, AA is a system, check. And while AA claims with certainty that they are not religious, “religion” can be broken down into “re” – again and “legion” – group or unite. Now we have a system of reunited “alcoholics” who do said program and then as seen in the last chapter completely venerate it and provide full devotion to it. So, we are clearly dealing with a cult here, but isn’t a cult bad? Well, by its definition, no. But society sees cults as generally bad and or dangerous, so is AA bad or dangerous? Well ….

Starting with the basics, “the program” of Alcoholics Anonymous consists of five things; the Big Book aka their bible, fellowship aka doing things with AA members, service aka serving others or the program, meetings and of course the twelve steps. The first part of the first step is admittance of “powerlessness”, so does this mean one has no free will? No, that’s not the point. In fact, admitting you are powerless in objective reality is pretty much impossible. However, in the spiritual or intentional realm simply surrendering or accepting powerlessness can and is a very freeing tool to use. But, and this is a big but, within the cult if / when someone challenges the cult, they will be kindly led back to their stated acceptance of powerlessness and hence squelched. The second part of the first step is “…. that our lives had become unmanageable”. As you probably remember, this is where one learns what an “alcoholic” is. The “alcoholic” is by nature; “restless, irritable and discontent”, “selfish, self-seeking and self-serving”, has a “spiritual malady”, and has a “disease of the mind and an allergy of the brain”.

Aren’t those things listed above just unfortunate aspects of the human condition that are within all of us? Yes! Sometimes more and sometimes less, but still yes. However, with enough fear, hope, ideations of “uniqueness”, social proof, love and repetition one is quickly led to remove whatever true essence is them and rebuild themselves with the identity of an “alcoholic”. Day after day and meeting after meeting one will be filled to the brim with fear. Now it’s pretty clear that drinking too much for too long will kill you, so if one keeps doing something that is killing them, they will die, obviously. The fear of “jails, institutions and death” is read aloud every meeting and talk of such will be mentioned multiple times per meeting. It’s important to note that Joseph Goebbels, who was the minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany said, “if you lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it”. The barrage of fear is relentless, and it comes from many angles from many different people. And as this fear is not just coming from a perceived authority (the program) but also many different people. Thus the generalized concept of social proof goes to work on one’s subconscious. This fear is then accompanied by the construction of the “alcoholic” (unique / special) as well as the idea that the program can save people (hope). Fear and hope are both extremely powerful forces that easily motivate one’s conscious awareness to be primed for an even more powerful subconsciously motivating force. This force comes in the feeling or belief of being special or unique. Generally speaking, we think of being special or unique as a good thing, and while it can be that isn’t necessarily always the case. The cult of AA does not in any way promote the characteristics of the “alcoholic” as a good thing, however with the group consciousness being one that the group is unique, a “we” culture is created and as Robert Cialdini suggests “we” cultures prioritize the group over the individual. While prioritizing a group isn’t necessarily bad, what is very unhealthy is that the group requires one to get on their level. To top it off, one is oftentimes loved bombed within the program, and while oftentimes this love is genuine, it still captures one with praise to stay and general excommunication if one doesn’t conform.

For some “it” happens quickly, for some “it” happens slowly and for others “it” never happens. For those that “it” never happens to, they often walk away saying, “AA just wasn’t my jam”, and they just never actually understood “it””. The “it” is a general capture of one’s mind. Once “it” happens and one is got, one will often work very hard to rid themselves of their true essence and emotionally morph into what AA defines as an “alcoholic”. And this is bigger than it sounds; once captured, one will most often refer to any original thought they may have as their “stinking thinking”, attach that to their “disease” and not only negate the negative within but also rid the unique within. As identity is the center of the human condition, one with a now held “alcoholic” identity will now attribute most of their actions and ways of being as due to their “disease”. This is where one, as John did, will literally believe their imagined disease is a sickness just like that of someone who is sick with the flu. Also, this is where one can in fact be sober, yet according to the cult of AA not actually be “sober”. It’s quite odd and hard to put into words, but once a soul is captured it seems one is no longer able to discern between reality and imagination. And folks, that last sentence is the very essence of hypnosis. So hypnotized, that when one within the cult is asked what do they know, they will respond with “I don’t know shit”. There are some pretty fucking stupid people out there, I have met a few, heck I am one of them, and we stupid people, we do in fact know some shit. Lying about “not knowing shit” is a pretty big lie, a big lie that is repeated enough, and what is it that Joseph Goebbels said? I rest my case.

Now is there anything we haven’t covered? Oh yeah, ANONYMOUS! Understandably many folks would prefer their drinking problems not be public knowledge, so is that why AA is kept anonymous? Yes, …. partially. While the program of AA is very much known to the public, the Twelve Traditions are all rooted in anonymity. I believe the system of AA was very intelligently designed in this regard. AA does not support or endorse other causes, politics, or take outside contributions. Further to this, AA stays far away from media in all regards. Also, AA’s “anonymity” principals enable them to keep very little to no data or statistics on the program as a whole. So, with no data, no media attachment and no attachment to outside governing forces, the program has a strong arm against any force that may want to challenge the program. And while this anonymity is very interesting on a legal and even sociological level, I believe its impact on the minds of the cult members is what’s important here. Perhaps it could just be said that when the mind holds something as secret, the merit, power and importance of said secret reinforces the mind to double down on its acceptance of delusions.

I believe in freedom and I believe in personal responsibility. While the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t hold guns to people’s heads physically, they do so psychologically. Since the early 1900’s, the cult has perpetuated the idea of the disease model of alcoholism which has directly led society to delude ourselves into believing that there is a difference between alcoholism and “alcoholism”. Personal responsibility is a two-way street, and to both the organization of AA and the individuals within the cult of AA, I feel your perpetuation of lies to one who is in the grasp of addiction, is not only not just, but is immoral as well. One can heal with AA, just as one can heal WITHOUT AA, and the ability for one to heal without the cult must not remain a secret.

To be clear, the idea that there is a difference between an alcoholic (one who drinks excessively and is consequently harmed) and an “alcoholic” (one who has accepted the definition, identity and limitations as characterized by AA) has had long-term and widespread negative effects on not just American society but the world as well. This idea is very much connected to the belief that one must hit “rock bottom” before deciding to change, and this mindset of ignorance sometime enables people to stay in the middle ground of addiction, which as we will see is the WORST place to be. However, AA isn’t all bad! For some, the restrictions in identity and expectations created by AA can be suitable and beneficial. AA provides people with religious ground to stand on, it provides people with a community, and most importantly, the spiritual education that is provided in steps two through twelve are priceless when properly applied to one’s life.

Anyway, back to the story. I had awakened to the alcohol and AA matrix and was pissed. I was a victim and I needed to be praised. Mindy had seen a few of my Facebook rants and invited me out to lunch. We were both able-bodied, financially secure people eating good food in a nice location. And we both felt victimized for our own reasons. I expressed all of the bad things about AA to Mindy and she of course said how sorry she was and that if only they would change then I could get better - aka victimhood 101. Lunch was delicious. Mindy was on her own path to wellness and had lost an enormous amount of weight. Unfortunately, Mindy still had her struggles; her struggles which would soon turn to his struggles.

Through the following weeks and months Mindy and I became a bit closer. I built a few custom wood pieces for her, and we would chit chat regularly and even hang out a bit. At this point I, like many others, had heard of drag queens in Vegas, and “lady boys” in Bangkok. Remember I also had gotten to know Hayden a bit. It seemed that Hayden was just an extreme tomboy and when it came to “lady boys” and drag queens, their presence in my life had been limited enough that I had zero clue as to what was coming next.

One day Mindy said that she was officially coming out as trans and now identified as a man, a man now named Miles. Miles said that this was a big step for “him” and that even though not everyone is nice about it that he knows it is best. I not only congratulated Miles, but also praised Miles for being so brave. Miles was happy that I was not only a friend but an ally as well. Miles talked about going to therapy for this change and that his therapist was supportive as well. Miles said that his therapist was trans as well. At the time I thought that this sounded like a good thing. Little did I know that Mile’s therapist wasn’t acting as a therapist. Miles’s therapist was in fact a gender affirming therapist and spoiler alert, therapists are NOT supposed to confirm or affirm a patient’s delusions!

Now forgive me here, while the paragraph above was probably read by you just a few seconds ago, I actually wrote it a number of days ago, and the paragraph or two above were written a few weeks ago. A serious case of writer’s block has infiltrated my mind and there is great question as to how to continue. Anyway, let’s try, as we have talked a little bit about it is much easier to create bullshit than it is to undo bullshit AND things can happen so fast that our momentum continues while our conscious state encounters a sort of paralysis.…. or something like that. Anyway, Miles was big into karate and even began teaching karate classes to children. Miles talked about how cool and welcoming they were to her now being he. Miles even talked about how nice it felt to have the children call her “sir”.

It’s hard to remember exactly, but I think it had only been a week or two since Mindy had come out as Miles and soon Miles mentioned that they had started on “T” aka testosterone. Speed, paralysis, momentum; “Oh really, that’s another big step Miles, isn’t that a forever change? ….. hey maybe you want to think ….” I was saying, when Miles interrupted. In the moment I knew that what he was about to do was a big deal, yet I was encountering too much confusion so I was also incapable of hitting him with a harsh truth. Miles stated that he (or “they” as might be proper during the transition) and his/their therapist knew it was the right thing to do and “he” decided to start a testosterone regimen.

Over the next month or so Miles and I continued chit chatting and remained supportive of one another. Miles and I had talked a lot about gender roles and how they were “such bullshit”. On top of this Miles and I talked a lot about what it meant to be a woman vs a man. I guess you will just have to watch the news or use your imagination on the details of our discussion. At this point even though I was drinking a ton and taking Vyvanse, I wasn’t detached from reality …. or was I? Miles now identified as a man …. so, it seemed appropriate for people to call her him. Perhaps if “medication” helped her be himself that was a good thing too, perhaps? I knew that a biological male was a male and a biological female was a female, but I was hungry to be on the leading edge of social justice. My unquenchable curiosity and the incredible amount of new information about the subject led all but led me to another full detachment from reality. One day Miles said, “Yes, I am a trans man, which makes me a real man. The idea that a trans man isn’t a real man is just such bullshit”. Later in this book I am going to make a few factual statements that are so unimaginably opposite to what is commonly known that you will be shocked, dazed and confused. With your subconscious believing that one in my position is an authority figure you will be ready to latch on. Anyway, that is for later, but at this point I was ready to “latch on” to the idea that a female was ACTUALLY a male. I tried to latch, but it didn’t stick. I instantly reverted to reality, but that didn’t fully take either, so I remained deep in the bowels of the turmoil induced by cognitive dissonance.

After another week or so Miles and I decided to have some sort of date night. And …. you will hopefully forgive some forthcoming strong language, but with this one I need the safety provided by gallows humor. I was fat, sick and dressed like a slob, and Miles showed up rather well dressed, so I missed the mark on that one. And the other surprising thing is that Mindy now Miles now had a beard and a deep voice. We went upstairs, turned the TV on, and continued to make small talk about gender roles, our favorite pizza toppings, and of course all of the “do’s” and “don’ts” for some potential extreme sexual activity. I guess we humans like our games and playing such woke games seemed to be the right thing to do. SHE and I may have kissed once or twice, but then she started telling me about how with the testosterone and possibly other drugs she was on that now, her clit grew like a dick. Curious, I was really fucking curious, but I am also not gay. I was okay with banging a vagina that was covered by board shorts, but just couldn’t fuck a clit dick that was covered by blue jeans.

Our night also included some discussion of surgeries he/she/they were planning on getting, mastectomy (removal of breast tissue), hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) and oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries and fallopian tube). While these did seem like extreme measures to “just feel more like a man” I was so dazed and confused, I thought maybe that perhaps they were a good thing if they made someone feel better in the moment.

Anyway, our night quickly ended, and we said a number of nice things to one another. Miles and I continued to be friends for a few months, that is until my political ideologies quickly changed and Miles canceled me.

It’s hard to know what to say or how to sum things up here. I believe Mindy was a troubled teen so to speak. I also believe Mindy lacked a lot of self-worth as her punk of a husband provided financially for her, all while letting other dudes bang her. It’s all too easy to feel that we have been wronged and it’s even easier to take the wrong steps in fighting what has wronged us. Mindy, I hope you are happy, I hope you are thriving and completely loving yourself. It is also with deep apologies that as your friend I was incapable of seeing what was actually going on, and as well was too cowardly to step up and redirect you. As I see it, extreme mutilation of one’s body, either chemical of physical is literally anti-human and I am now anti anti-human. Fortunately, we are all God’s children, we all deserve redemption and we all deserve love. Mindy, if you are still struggling, if you are still confused, please know that there are many de-transitioners out there. Also please know that I still care about you and will gladly assist in walking a path of pro-humanism with you anytime that suits your fancy.

One will quickly hear others say about their disease causing them to get angry / whatever / my stinkin’ thinking / your best thinking got you here

Chapter 20 – Even More Drugs???

Nitrous oxide, laughing gas, Whippets. We talked a little bit about nitrous in chapter seven and here we will talk about it a little more. Nitrous oxide is used in the dentist’s office and is commonly referred to as “laughing gas”. A small steady stream administered by your dentist will put one in a laughable daze of sequestered enlightenment and a big strong inhalation will send someone to a state so altered that all one will feel is a “wow” sensation. Oftentimes people will simply say “wow” whilst the drug is in full effect. As nitrous is an inhalant, its effects come on very quickly and dissipate very quickly as well.

Nitrous is one of those drugs that is only legal when used under the supervision of a medical doctor …. however, nitrous is used every day in restaurants and coffee shops across the globe. It is used as a propellent to make whip cream, hence its common name of “Whip-It’s”. Both brick and mortar and online restaurant supply stores legitimately sell the cream dispensers as well as the small metal cylinders that hold the nitrous gas. And because it is 100% legal to sell such supplies for food preparation processes every head shop sells the same supplies …. hmmm, I guess legal and legitimate have different definitions for a reason.

Anyway, the first time I did a whippet was around the age of 20. Its effect was absolutely profound and that was that, didn’t do another one until years later at Burning Man where I did a few more, the effects were still profound, yet they didn’t instantly grab me.

Fast forwarding three or four years to this point of the book I was now 28 years old or so, life sucked, it really sucked. I was getting fatter and fatter, was more alone than ever, and because killing myself was no longer on the table I was also getting more and more depressed. I had had very minimal experience with whippets and had no desire for that specific drug, yet one day I decided to grab a box or two. Nitrous cylinder, cream dispenser, crack, inhale and I was “there” again …. I caught the dragon! The ride was fun for five or ten seconds, soon I fell off, fell off and was gasping for air, another inhalation of nitrous and I took off after the dragon, I would get close, maybe even hop on the dragon a few times but instantly fall off again.

There are two problems with nitrous. One is that it is insanely expensive, and the second, aside from the possibility of instantly dying from it, is that it appears to be completely free of consequences. There is no hangover the next morning, because the gas is actually relatively clean it doesn’t seem to do much harm to your lungs and because its effects are relatively short acting, one can blast themselves with copious amounts of nitrous and be back to normal in rather quick order.

We have gone over the lies, cheating and deceiving that I, as a full-blown drug addict, had already done. The story of using nitrous on top of Alcohol and Vyvanse is pretty much the same. Run, hide, lie (to myself and others), waste a bunch of money and dig deeper into the pits of hell. With that said there is little reason to dig that horse’s grave just to give it another beating. However just as we are all unique and individual in our own ways, we are all unique in what drugs really grab us. It is an extremely strongly held opinion that there is one drug for every person (no matter how much of an addictive personality they have) that will absolutely grab them by the scruff of the neck. While alcohol and speed did most of the damage, it seemed I was still expressing free will with them, in regard to nitrous I time and time again felt compelled beyond my will to continue using it.

Heading home with 400 Whippets, 24 Budweisers and a whole bunch of fast food made me feel safe, happy and secure …. for that one evening that is. In the moment, drugs enabled me to be in the moment and that is a pretty common statement for certain folks who love drugs. However, the next morning, especially the mornings after using nitrous was hell, the turmoil of going from asleep to awake was bizarre, the decision to actually open my eyes was more and more trying every day, and the feelings of worthlessness were infinite. Yet, and yet through all of this I still genuinely believed that my “bipolar” was some sort of genetic issue instead of a lifestyle issue and beyond this I thought that the pain in my life was in no way caused due to poor choices. Instead, I continued to believe that the pain I was feeling was due to simply being a victim. Fat, sick, low testosterone, erectile disfunction, sleep apnea, depression, anxiety, bipolar, high blood pressure and everything else under the sun. So alone that I even offered to pay people to hang out with me ….

Sad, this is sad and depressing shit that you probably don’t want to keep hearing about, but it has needed to be said as there are many folks going through this shit as they read. Just because I was no longer allowed to kill myself directly didn’t mean that I didn’t try to kill myself indirectly …. yeah, I would oftentime order extra red meat and extra salt while getting fast food, ya know because red meat and salt are so bad for us, right? So, I thought too. And this is a stretch, but it is possible that trying to kill myself with red meat and salt is what ended up saving my life …. or preventing death.

On a number of occasions, I had pipe dreams of one day completing a marathon, or one day being under 300 lb. and able to skydive again, one day being able to manage life without drugs and alcohol, but these seemed only to be dreams. In no way did I believe in their real possibility at all. I continued to want love and acceptance, I continued to want to be valuable, I continued to search for any external validation I could get ahold of ……. but it was never enough. The truth is within, and even when being greatly deceived by the Devil a dismissal of truth has that truth slowly pulling your heart strings, time and time again pulling at your heart strings, pulling and breaking our heart, breaking and breaking again until. Well, as Roomi say’s “you must break your heart until it opens”.

And when one’s heart keeps breaking one becomes very hurt, so hurt that as they say, “hurt people hurt people”. This was circa 2019ish. Political tension was rising, and I started to see all of the completely loving and kind liberals be not so loving and kind. Social justice warriors who stood for love, peace, equality and inclusion were now actively calling for violence against those who were making “racist” statements. Those who wanted inclusion were now actively standing for separation, so much so that there were in fact “safe spaces” where the only persons who were not allowed in were straight white males. Time after time I saw visceral hate towards anyone who in anyway seemed to somehow act against what could possibly be seen as perfection. Xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, racism, sexism and bigotry were all highlighted points; and while sure some of those things did genuinely exist …. but did redneck Bob down the street who simply believed “people should just suck it up and work harder” really deserve death threats? While I completely missed the point on what was actually happening to the worlds political landscape, these events didn’t prevent me from becoming more hurt, so hurt that I now had visceral hate towards liberals. And I let ‘em all hear what I had to say …. on Facebook that is, toxic, toxic, toxic Facebook rambles all ripping on liberals. …… that sure seemed to help, NOT!

My father had for some time now been following alternative news platforms and was now mentioning this thing called Covid. Over just a few weeks he went from saying “there is a bug that may be spreading that could be pretty bad” to “Covid is possibly going to kill over a billion people”. He had stats facts and figures; he was freaked and I was freaked too. We started stockpiling necessities that would enable us to make it through the equivalent of WW3. He was saying that very soon we wouldn’t be able to leave the house at all, this all seemed serious! And frankly it was exciting, how could a worldwide calamity not be exciting? Over the course of a month my father and I went from “meh, might want to avoid this bug” to full blown freak and panic mode. And here is the fucking wild thing, this awareness took hold of my father and me a month before it happened to everyone else! We have all been trained to trust our box, phone, tv, tablet, newspaper, etc. We were ahead of the mainstream press regarding Covid simply because these “alternative” news sources were ahead of mainstream sources by about a month. I personally started to say “WARNING COVID IS GOING TO BE CRAZY!!!” on Facebook many times but at that time these warnings were met with complete and utter dismissal. A few others were saying the same thing, but these folk were also not just totally dismissed, but shit on as well! My father was trying to warn his partner at the time as well, but to no avail, she didn’t “want to live her life in fear”. But then, about a month later, Facebook, Instagram, CNN, Fox and all other mainstream news sources were propagating the same fear porn and ONLY at that time did everyone else completely freak. Well, there were folks like my buddy James who saw through it the whole time, but hey such sanity can’t be focused on in a book titled “Crazier Than I Thought” …. At least not yet that is.

As discussed, the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about the “alcoholic” being “selfish, self-serving and self-seeking”, and with that in mind, yeah, when it came to the plandemic and the lockdowns I was happy to have a reason to not go anywhere or do anything. While I had all of the excuses in the world to stay home, the continued degradation the drugs and alcohol were having on me was no longer sustainable. A dear friend of mine who had a tattered past managed to get sober and throw everything she had into a business venture. Some of her business needs led to her wanting a custom wine stand cart credenza thing. For custom furniture builds I would usually have a consultation with clients to discuss the project. On the evening she arrived to the shop to discuss said project I was drunk, wearing shit clothes and probably smelled of shit too. She knew where I was “at”; she had been their herself. Not only did she place an order for the cart, but she gave me all of the time needed to build it, and further to that she also said time and time again, “KEEP GOING!”. Somehow her words reached my subconscious as my heart remains beating. Moral of the story, when life tells you to stop, keep going, and when the Devil tells you to keep going, stop.

The wine cart build, while physically big, was a fairly simple project, yet it taxed me to the core. It took everything I had to finish, mostly because there wasn’t much left in me. The pain and hell of life had to change. I had to get sober. In my mind something HAD to change and even if sobriety / a different life was going to be worse, it would at least it would be different.

Chapter 21 – Done

Twelve years of heavy drinking, done. Twelve years of copious stimulant use, done. Nine years of being heavily “medicated”, done. Nine years of Project Possible Wood Works, done. It was fairly common to go two weeks without stimulants or alcohol, so the first two weeks weren’t too bad. However, beyond that I was scared. The safety net of getting to drink and do drugs again was gone. Three weeks passed and my brother and father said I had lost some weight and congratulated me for doing better. A month had soon passed. I hadn’t taken any antipsychotics, antidepressants or mood stabilizers, and something radical happened. Radical, but so subtle I still have no words to express the change, it was a metamorphosis of consciousness. I was aware, somehow able to interpret …. somehow consciousness went from 2D to 3D.

The song “Save Me” by Jelly Roll had become my anthem and this was now the second time in life I hadn’t felt alone. Five and now six weeks of sobriety, more change was needed so Paul and I grabbed a train (because I was too fat to fly) to travel halfway across the country to spend Christmas with family. Rick picked Paul and me up from the train station. I just about couldn’t keep up with their average walking pace when walking to Rick’s car. This literally almost had me in tears, but Miss T’s words “keep going” had infiltrated my mind. When arriving at my mother’s house even after losing some weight I officially weighed in at 373 lb.

My life was clearly a mess but that didn’t stop the divine from doing what it does best. On a whim I made a Facebook post in a local group asking if there were any personal trainers who were good with fat guys. A lady named Serin was mentioned time and time again, so I gave her a buzz. During our first phone chat she was kind and sweet. I was nervous as all heck but still gave her the lowdown on my situation and soon a personal training session was scheduled. She started the session with having me walk on the treadmill, and we talked a bit, quite a bit. Serin had recently lost her boyfriend in a tragic failed surgery. Her boyfriend as it turned out happened to have once been a morbidly obese drug addict who loved speed and alcohol about as much as I did, and was also in the furniture business. Serin’s late boyfriend who we will call DC was also an author, because he had happened to lose well over 100 lb. and become an elite ultra runner. Reading DC’s books was beyond bizarre, DC was me ….

One training session led to the next. Serin was great. Serin took a truly broken man and protected him spiritually. I was still very much attached to the idea that being able to do truly crazy shit made someone a God and the idea of ultra running seemed fucking wild! Serin herself had done fifty-mile ultra races, it seemed cool, it seemed really cool. Serin had taken Nugget from only being able to walk one block to now at 360 lb., being able to walk 5, 6, or even 7 miles. Crazy, I wanted more crazy. I had long held that a marathon was a true pinnacle of human athletic performance, so what if we did something crazy like that? Clearly, I had already done some crazy shit in life, but simply just asking that question seemed to be the craziest thing ever. “Hey, would it be possible for a 300 lb. person to complete a marathon?” I asked. “Oh yeah, totally doable, no problem”, she replied. The idea of setting the record for the fastest 300 lb. plus person to complete a marathon was set. Serin had me starting to believe ... and please hear something here, when someone who has done it, who has lived it, who has seen it, who has been there and done that, no matter how crazy it sounds, when that someone says “oh yeah, X,Y,Z is totally doable”, for the love of fucking Christ, BELIEVE THEM!! They believe in you. I believe in YOU!! Now, right now, you start believing in YOU!!!

Now a simple truth is that if you want to get really good at something you will likely first have to spend a lot of time sucking at it! And with that in mind, I had clearly sucked at thriving and being happy. Fortunately, that didn’t stop my curiosity from relentlessly pursuing learning about the multiple things that enable humans to thrive, like good nutrition. It was just common knowledge that fruits and vegetables were really good for us, that eggs were okay, and that red meat, especially in large quantities, was very bad for us. Obviously, this was established truth and was validated, for example by the fact that my healthy trainer Serin was a vegan ultra runner.

Or was this true? Right around this time I started watching Dr. Paul Saladino on TikTok and a few other platforms. He is a double board-certified medical doctor, a medical doctor who recommended an animal-based diet. Dr. Paul recommended that humans should mostly eat red meat, fruit, organs, honey and raw dairy. I was shocked to be honest! He talked a lot about how cholesterol isn’t actually bad, and that other factors caused heart disease. He talked about why organ meat is so incredibly healthy. He talked about the massive differences between pasteurized dairy and raw dairy. He talked a lot about a lot if we are honest, and if we continue to be honest, I thought he was a total quack! Yet he was saying a few things that seemed to make sense. I mean, humans have been eating a lot of meat for a long time, and when infant mortality isn’t accounted for, humans used to live a lot longer. And it was right around the time that vegetable oils were introduced to our diets that heart disease increased. Research, data and well, proof, he was healthy as fuck, he was thriving! Eating a shit ton of meat, butter and honey? And salt too? WHAT??? Serin was clearly an expert, so I posed a number of nutrition questions to her. Serin maintained that veganism was clearly the best, and if one didn’t stick to a vegan diet to absolutely limit animal fats, especially the evil cholesterol, compromised health would be the consequence. Serin mentioned that one of her clients had what she thought was a healthy snack of meat and cheese, but Serin had to again teach him why meat and cheese was bad. I said, “was she eating some snack pack of heavily processed meat and fake cheese, or like grass fed beef with organic cheese? Isn’t there a HUGE difference between the two?”. Serin said “No, just no! I really don’t want to argue about it”. To Serin and a number of other folks, I do apologize for many things in the past including not recognizing how sacred some things are to folks. My curiosity was never meant to be combative, okay usually wasn’t meant to be combative. Anyway, my eyes started to open, I started to say, “wait what?”, I started to say “hmmmmm”.

There was another aspect of working with Serin that really made me start to say, “hmmm” again. Through the years I had dealt with some fairly debilitating back pain, not just during the times of being fat, but through the times of being in amazing shape as well. Doctors had said to rest it and use Ibuprofen. But that didn’t really work. I would try stretching a little sometimes, and well as have folks “crack” it as well, but nothing ever seemed to work much at all. Fortunately, after just a few sessions with Serin my back was doing a million times better than before, however one day had me doing a lot of a specific movement and my back was really in pain once again. “Hey Casey, how are you doing today? Let’s start with some movement side to side”, Serin said. “Hey, my back is really flared up today …. could we just work on some of those stretches and movements you have had me do in the past? I forget all of the this’s and that’s, but it has seemed to help ….”, I said. Long story long, 45 minutes later I walked out of that training session in tears, not from being in pain, but because I wasn’t in pain. A few days or week later, “ummmm, Serin, do you realize what you just did??? You healed me …. ummm, how?”, I said. Serin replied, “oh yeah, movement heals”. “WAIT!! This isn’t a once off thing? How do people not know this?”. “Happens all the time, healing yourself is totally doable, no problem”. And do you remember what we are supposed to do when someone who has been there and done that says “oh yeah totally doable”, that’s right, BELIEVE THEM! These series of events had me once again saying, “wait what….” And “hmmmmm”.

Clearly there was a lot going on! From wild drug and alcohol addiction to complete sobriety is quite a trip (no pun intended). From 373 lb. and not being able to walk more than a city block to now 343 lb. and having just completed a half marathon, was, well it was something that didn’t seem real. On top of this it was now clear that I wasn’t bipolar and didn’t need all of these “medications”, HMMMMMMM!!! A few training sessions with a personal trainer completely healed my back, WHAT??? And God? This one needs telling. I had for a long time seen those who had faith in God live a much more peaceful life, a life of acceptance and a life of purpose. This to me had seemed completely ignorant and small minded of course! Pure stupidity, how could there be more than base reality? Obviously, this was impossible and anyone who believed in more was clearly delusional! And not just delusional but bad as well, I mean if God makes us pay for our sins, that is mean, right? And anything that in anyway appeared to be mean must be evil right? Oh Lord, I am sorry! Very sorry, and thank you for all of the blessings. Your blessings are no longer taken for granted - now please do for others what you have done for me, may your will be done, amen. Anyway, who remembers the lady named S? She was the kindest, sweetest and most amazing lady ever, the one who had dudes be total dicks to her in the past, the one lady who really didn’t need another dude being a dick to her, the one who I ended up being a total DICK to? Anyway, it had been about two or three months since getting sober, things were happening, too many things, mostly good … but there was too much to figure out, so one night before going to bed my eyes closed and this prayer was said. “Hey, ummm, God? Or bro, yeah, hey, maybe something is going on, idk man, sorry for so much hate in the past, anyway there is a lot I am going to handle, but as for S, please just watch over her or something. She told me to stay well clear, so yeah just please make sure she is okay, thanks, k bye”. My eyes opened and “ting” a text message came in, a text message from S. “Hey Casey, I was in the neighborhood and was wondering how you were doing?”. “Hey, wow, what a surprise hearing from you! Look there is no way to make up for acting completely out of character in the past, but I am truly sorry and hope you are doing well. I am now three months sober and am blab la blah”. S replied with, “That’s fantastic! It’s okay, hearing that you’re doing better is what really matters”. Our conversation continued a bit with respectful small talk and that night, I became a believer.

Covid had been in full swing now for about a year and some things weren’t adding up. Dad and I jumped on the Covid freakout train one month before everyone else did. We tried to tell others and others simply would NOT listen. That is, until Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, CNN and other mainstream news sources told them to be very afraid of Covid, at which point others did jump on the freakout train. For a short while there, dad and I were happy that they were on the freakout train, until more information came out that is. Mandatory masking was in full effect, and remained so even as there was some pretty conclusive evidence proving both the dangers of wearing a restrictive breathing apparatus all day, and also the simple the lack of efficacy of masks. And the mask mandates were enforced while the evidence to the contrary was sequestered and censored, especially by the mainstream media. An overwhelming amount of evidence also showed conclusively that those with adequate levels of vitamin D were many times less likely to get Covid in the first place and if they did get Covid experienced far fewer symptoms. But again, this information was squelched, and the FDA was not even recommending it. Ivermectin looked promising too, very promising! Medical doctors who had forever been allowed to prescribe medications for off label reasons were doing so with Ivermectin and having great success with treating their patients, but soon many of these doctors either had their license pulled or were threatened with losing their licenses for prescribing the medicine. Articles talking about the benefits of vitamin D, Ivermectin, healthy diet, exercise and sunlight as to help Covid were being labeled as “disinformation” and censored on many media platforms.

Remember Starshine from Burning Man? At the beginning of Covid he was for all intents and purposes screaming at people to “WAKE UP!!!!”., He would rant and rave about how the government was after people’s civil liberties. He was relentless in that while Covid is a bad bug it’s just a bug. He would write long and conclusive posts, Tweets and messages explaining that we were being played on a huge level! Starshine shared link after link about government ploys and plots, he shared time and time again that if / when vaccines came out, they would be extremely dangerous. While Starshine was doing his civil duty to try to help, sadly, I just had to really shit all over him, even praying that he “feels” better. I even stated that it seemed he was manic and delusional. Sorry man! Anyway, at this point I had made some honest progress. I started to say hmmmmm, and I started to question if maybe Starshine was right after all.

While I had just started to wake up, dad had woken up more than I had. Dad had been with a lady for a long time, he loved her, he loved her enough to do everything within his power to express to her that the now being rolled out Covid vaccines were very dangerous, not effective and that there were clearly malicious intentions behind the media, deep state, pharmaceutical companies and many three letter agencies. Yet his concerns fell on deaf ears, he was shunned, the lady he had loved for so long said “I choose to believe what they tell me”. She now demanded that if he wanted to see her, he would have to get the jab. He didn’t do it, he had backbone. He and she parted ways and soon dad found the true love of his life. Dad had considered selling his house, aka the thirty-year family home for some time, but this enabled him to make the decision to put it on the market.

And to put it on the market meant I was now heading back home to renovate a house. 5 acres and almost 5,000 sq ft, that had been lived in by one family for close to thirty years. Taking that house from where it was to market ready was one hell of an undertaking. It was it the right thing to do, but it also was good for me as I needed something else to focus on. I had interviewed a few real estate agents. Some seemed okay. One bitch who I happened to be extremely attracted to based on her comeback story turned out to be no different than a whore lying about why it wants to give you a dance (ouch, yeah sorry, sometimes the truth is a bit harsh). I had always believed realtors to be pretty douchy, however sometimes the truth is quite the opposite. One gentleman named Keith who was highly recommended by many in the community proved that belief wrong. It took about three months to get my father’s house market-ready. During that time Keith became a very good friend. Keith is another one that I owe a hell of a lot too. He led the way; he guided me spiritually and acted as a man of God. During one of our initial walkthroughs of the house he saw some of our goods stock piled from Covid, I said “Yeah, we really got duped, I mean not sure what your feelings on the like are ….”. Silence, his head cocked slightly up and then slightly back down again, and more silence. I started talking again, “So it’s weird, dad and I got duped before everyone else, others only got duped once the mainstream news was fear porning them …. and it seems, did you know all along?”. Keith said, “When I saw my neighbor’s arms overflowing with toilet paper I approached, put my hand on her shoulder and said everything is okay, the danger is far less than we believe, relax it’s okay”.

Through the days, weeks and months, Keith and I would spend time together not only doing our jobs but also just being buddies. They say around the 2^nd grade kids decide whether they are a “good” person or a “bad” person, but even at the age of 29 or so I still had not made that decision. Keith said that his thing was judging people’s energy, and he said that I had good energy, enough that he trusted me with a number of important things (physical and otherwise). This was a time of immense spiritual awakening. Apparently, Keith didn’t even realize it, but he did a fantastic job guiding me through some murky waters. This process finally resulted in a light bulb turning on, “Oh, I am just a guy, good guy, that’s it, no differently different than all of the other guys out there, wow, I guess people are just people”.

Soon I began to see some real darkness. As I continued to “wake up” I discovered a lot of darkness. I said, “So Keith, Ivermectin (and a whole bunch of other treatments) worked really well on Covid right? Like don’t we have the data?”. “Yes”, said Keith. “So, like why was all of that information about things that could seriously help completely vilified and sequestered by the mainstream?”. Kieth’s head moved up slightly and then back down to my level. “Oh fuck …. Keith, the whole trans thing … I uhhh believed in that too. There is this song that keeps playing on the radio and it talks about daddy going to the body shop, to do something unholy. The song talks about leaving his kids at home and going to a body shop …. Keith! I went to one of those body shops unknowingly. Keith, this one song and probably many others but this one song in particular is performed live with Hell symbology all around it while little girls cheer on a man dressed in a dress singing about a dad leaving his children to do horrible, horrible things …. KEITH …”. Keith once again did his thing; his head went slightly upward and then back down to my level. “Keith, I thought that banging a bunch of bitches was a genuinely good thing because it was liberation from the oppressive Christians …. but Keith! It’s mainstream songs with more Devil symbology with the lyrics “beat it up Nigga catch a charge” that is encouraging this behavior … “. Keith’s head once again went slightly up and back down to my level, our eyes locked and I asked, “And cholesterol isn’t bad either, is it? And you know this and others have known this and EVERYTHING else we have talked about over the past few months? Why is this information so hidden? And now that I see it, …. how …...?”. Keith’s head went up and down again and this time he actually used some words “I think it’s hitting you. When it first hit me, my stomach became sick and my knees became weak, which in a weird way was a good thing because I needed to pray”.

Fast forwarding to current day and it is the latter part of 2024, and a majority of the American population is fed up with the serious fuckery, a lot of people are starting to say “hmmmm”. With that said, what transpired in the paragraph above was above the tangible or physical realm and for that I apologize if it “read” in ways that weren’t perfectly clear. As I wrote, and as you now read this book, more is being uncovered and discovered. If this chapter has been a bit helter-skelter it’s because this part of my life was a little helter-skelter. From not just this part of this book but this part of human history as well you are definitely starting to question some things, as you should. The good news is that our foggy glasses will soon be clearing. Unfortunately, they will be clearing just as the light goes out. The following process is going to be painful, however clear lenses will help us navigate the darkness.

Chapter 22 – DON’T PULL YOUR PARACHUTE! Everything Is A Lie

Within six months I had quit all of the drugs, all of the alcohol, all of the mental health “medications”, lost 50 lb., found God, thrown away or sold almost all of my and the family belongings during a house renovation, found great personal strength and power, was really asking WHY are so many folks so heavily medicated when it isn’t needed annnnd, was again hanging out with my buddy Keith.

We are all aware of the Epstein scandal. I will directly quote and steal Joe Rogan’s words here for a conversation that I more or less had with Keith. “Hey Keith, when someone tells you that there is an island where they take influential people to have sex with underage kids, I would be like, what the fuck are you talking about? And then if you told me years later, that the guy Epstein who owned that island would first of all go to jail for having sex with underage kids but then be released. And upon release, Epstein would be able to court people like Bill Gates and many, many more, and to have them travel with them and go places with them and engage in even worse crimes. Then years later, Epstein would finally be incarcerated but then be suicided in some way where all of the cameras stopped working and no one ever was brought to justice for it in any significant way. Then, Epstein’s cohort and partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell would be arrested, tried, and convicted but the full list of the people that engaged in this illegal activity would never be released. Then, I would say that can’t happen in the United States of America. All that stuff above is banana republic bullshit sort of thing. That’s never going to happen in the United States of America. Criminals here are brought to justice no matter how powerful they are.” And back to no longer plagiarizing Joe Rogan, “Keith, it seems everyone agrees about the Epstein thing, but doesn’t it seem that someone who believes all that shit would be having a psychotic episode? ….”. Keith’s head once again bobbed slightly up and then back down, and he said “But this is real, everyone knows it, these aren’t psychotic delusions at all”. I replied, “And Keith if the DOA knows that cholesterol isn’t always horrible and was clearly prewarned that recommending 7-11 servings of whole grains per day would cause an epidemic of obesity and chronic disease, and still decided to do it, and the DOA knows that there are far better ways to treat almost all health issues but intentionally sequesters that information at the expense of human life for their profit, and this and that, AND lifesaving interventions for Covid were LITERALLY criminalized all so that the pharmaceutical companies could get an emergency use authorization for an experimental “medicine” … this, this would change everything Keith, this is so big and so powerful that even if ONE of these things were true it would borderline change the nature of reality, or at least have one start questioning it”.

Soon I talked to not only Keith, and my father, and my two best buddies and asked them to …. Ya know make sure I wasn’t having some sort of episode of delusions. I mean I had been detached from reality before, and it seemed that starting to believe that our own government would knowingly sequester lifesaving medications …. well, it seemed so crazy that I borderline thought I was having another episode. The four people closest to me at the time all basically said the same thing “yeah man, this shit is all real, it’s real evil, there are lots who see it, some like you are starting to see it and some will never see it”.

Life had changed DRASTICALLY over the course of six months; a lot had happened, I had grown a lot, done a lot, accomplished a lot, and learned a lot. I was finally on the right path again, however there was still one thing I needed to do.

It seems grand egos are accompanied by equally grand insecurities. Seems like that isn’t the case with the cocky fucks out there who lack self-reflection. Heck the cocky fucks out there may not even know about their insecurities. Yet, I strongly believe that, not just big egos but also large insecurities stem from a grandiose conceptualization of self. 30 years of pointing the finger outward, and over the course of a few days that changed. The good, the bad and the ugly, OHHH FUCK!! I could see what was on the inside now from an outside perspective; I wasn’t a victim! I was never a victim! Never! Even when I was molested, not a victim! Everything in life was suddenly my fault. However, there isn’t necessarily a negative connotation to the word “fault”, my wood working was absolutely exquisite. And oh, just because one may be worse, better or different at something doesn’t make me any greater or lesser. Shame and guilt were felt at 1,000%, but so were feelings of pride and self-love, yet the bad didn’t make me evil and the good didn’t make me good, they made me a human …. and for the first time in life that was okay.

So okay that in fact that for whatever reason, I genuinely don’t know, I decided to say cheers and have a few beers. A few beers led to a few more, which led to some benzos, which led to nitrous, and guess what? More psychosis! It was odd. I knew I was delusional, which usually isn’t the case for us delusional folks. Anyway, asking for help is often times extremely difficult and even bigger than that is going to the hospital. That is fucking scary, cuz they like take away your powers or some shit, or something like that, kinda forget, it’s been a while since being truly whack. Anyway calling 911 was the hardest thing I had ever done!! The cops came. They were great, they did their job, I did my job of being honest in making it clear that I was having some sort of mental health emergency. They took me to the hospital where I was given a whopping dose of Zyprexa and I was back home later that night. Don’t get me wrong, it was fucking scary, and troubling for the family, but hey perhaps writing this part of the story in a low-key tone shows that big time struggles don’t have to be big deals, we humans are resilient AF!

Resilient AF, however it does take at least a week or two to stabilize after drug induced psychosis, so I went back across the country to spend some time with family. At this point Rick was starting to struggle. He had started picking at his nose a lot, he said there was some fiberglass stuck in it from either a high school fight or a workplace accident. Starting to struggle a little …. or so I thought, seems he was struggling a lot. Hard to find words here, God Rick was smart! Capable too, but struggled with some basics. ….. perhaps the old cliché saying “we don’t know what others are going through” is appropriate here. It seems the autistic / Aspergers brain has large difficulties with the concept of “self”, Rick really wanted to feel special WHILE being part of the group. Hard to do when …. IDK guys, sorry. Ha! A planned future novella will be titled “You Are Stupid Because You Are Smart”, the main premise being that those with high levels of intellectual functioning quickly lose sight of objective reality as pondering technicalities can create unique sets of belief …. of reality, that is of course due to the ultimate truth that our reality is solely determined on our beliefs. Till we meet again Rick, at that point we can again debate whether or not water is wet.

Quickly my mental health made a full recovery and because there was some tension in the family, Paul and I hitched up the wagon and went RV’ing a bit. Because I had sold most of my personal belongings I had some money, and when it came to money, I had the mentality that money is the root of all evil, more on that later.

From one campground to another, Paul and I were …. well, we weren’t being the most productive members of society, but that didn’t stop my curiosity especially when it came to how to thrive as a human. I was very much into health and wellness. I was consuming a lot of information about what we put in our bodies and how it affects us. Consciously we are aware of the direct impact food, drinks, chemicals, etc. has on our overall wellbeing. However, subconsciously we are NOT aware of this and THEREIN lies the reason why so many Americans are literally fat, literally sick and literally unhealthy. This, folks, is basically EVERYTHING. Eat right, avoid chemicals and you will THRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! However, how can someone eat right when what we think of as healthy foods are NOT healthy foods? Remember Mr. Argon and how when I got in trouble it sucked, yet because I knew why I was in trouble the discomfort was understood, easily fixable and not tumultuous? Many folks are suffering now and the reason why so many are suffering is because they don’t know why they are suffering. … this may well include YOU!!!

Anyway, I had been listening to Dr. Paul Saladino a lot, Dr. Kiltz a lot, Dr. Shawn Baker a lot. I was listening to a lot of people who were absolutely thriving and they were all saying pretty similar things. Red meat is healthy, salt is good, butter is great, carbs are fantastic, chemicals are HORRIBLE and seed oils are ATROCIOUS. And what transpired next has had forever lasting internal effects. In my left hand was a tub of peanut butter, in my right hand was a carrot and it clicked, “Oh, I don’t want to eat this carrot because there aren’t many calories in it, that’s why! And oh, if I was in the woods and deer weren’t available to eat some peanuts would suffice, but they are not what my primal self wants, and oh there are seed oils and refined sugars in here, which are POISONS! Huh, no wonder why we all hate kale, no wonder why we all love steak and no wonder why those that know that absolutely thrive, hmmmmm”. And I remember this like it was yesterday, the RV smelled wonderful due to the scented trash bags. I grabbed one, gave it a big ole whiff. It smelled delicious, and to the audience that wasn’t in the room I said, “I really don’t know if this is okay, I don’t know if this is okay at all”. The subconscious mind is huge, the conscious mind is sizable, the synapse connection between the two is microscopic, yet near invincible. However, once it’s its broken it’s gone for good. I saw the food matrix; I saw the chemical matrix.

When others seem to be “ahead” of us it can be all too easy to latch onto them for guidance in all regards. While that’s important to note it still didn’t stop me from giving Keith a call. “Hey Keith, everything is a lie! Everything we (we meaning you, me, your parents, our friends, our doctors, teachers, friends, everyone) have been led to believe about drugs is a lie, everything about medicine is a lie, doctors are a total scam, everything about health is a lie, everything about chemicals is a lie, everything about food is a lie, everything about everything that matters in life has deeply rooted systemic ignorance and therefore has infiltrated the minds of the masses causing all but infinite pain and suffering, pain and suffering that can be easily avoided. FUCK, Keith! Even the idea that one should pull their parachute is a complete lie!!!!!”. And even though that mother fucker (again mother fucker often times means person of highest regard) mother fucker was miles away I could feel his head bobbing slightly upward and slowly back down to my level, and he said “yes, wait what’s that about not pulling your parachute?”. “Oh yeah, don’t pull your parachute, bad idea, see what you grab to deploy your parachute is called the hacky and that is directly connected to the pilot chute which grabs the air and is directly connected to a bridle which is directly connected to a pin and when that pin is pulled it allows the same bridle to further the parachute deployment process. See if you just pull your parachute and don’t let go you will be having a high-speed malfunction, either a bridal in toe or a horseshoe, both of which are about as scary as it gets, anyway, so DON’T PULL YOUR PARACHUTE, instead simply throw it. Oh, and we don’t jump out of airplanes either, we instead step out of them. And at least for me, by far in a way the scariest thing that ever happened while skydiving was the time my parachute opened”. Keith replied with, “See the lord does have a sense of humor”.

Chapter 23 – How To Solve All Of Your Problems

Eat real food, drink clean water and avoid chemicals. Chapter over. Not!!

Okay here we go, well hmmm, how should we start with this one? Well, the title to this chapter is NOT that much of an overstatement. What if cancer, auto immune diseases, depression, anxiety, eczema, diabetes, IBS, dementia, obesity, arthritis and all other health conditions don’t really exist? Or what if ALL of these conditions are SYMPTOMS of drug addiction and reactions to poisons? What if everything from bipolar to IBS could be easily fixed? Well, if these conditions could be EASILY fixed, big pharma would lose out on TRILLIONS of dollars per year. Now, it would be highly illegal for me to give you any medical advice here, so I won’t, I’ll just share what has worked for me and thousands of others, “Remember it’s not medical advice, it’s just science” (Gary Brekka). Anyway, there isn’t too much reason for concern on my end, the minds of the masses have been so deeply HYPNOTIZED that only a few will allow themselves to wake up. I mean, you could wake up if ya wanted. You could take tens of thousands of dollars out of the pockets of big pharma if ya wanted …. but only if ya wanted.

I like you guys! Still being here makes y’all little rebels! Touche!

And one quick thing before we get started. To be abundantly clear, western medicine does save some lives and in many ways is absolutely incredible!!! And the rest in my opinion, is horse shit!! Talk to your doctor ; ).

The number one reason that so many people are fat, sick and unhealthy is unbelievably simple. And the number one reason as to why so many people stay fat, sick and unhealthy is unbelievably simple as well. We are unhealthy because of the food we eat and chemicals we ingest and we stay this way because we don’t understand how important the food we eat and chemicals we don’t ingest actually are. ANNNNND (this is the big one) systemically we don’t know what healthy food is. Also, western medicine sees the body as many, many different parts and hence treats those parts individually, and spoiler alert our bodies are all just one part.

As stated, I have healed almost all of my health issues with diet and lifestyle changes. And my story is in no way unique! Everyday folks are waking up to the importance of proper diet and COMPLETELY healing or reversing whatever ails them.

Now you’re probably thinking “Oh god here comes the speech on how sugar is a drug and how we need to eat more kale”. Welp there is lots of good news here, kale is BULLSHIT!!! And sugar is actually great (usually, use a little common sense).

In this book we have explored the mind quite a bit and we will continue to do so. When it comes to diet (and morality, more on that in the next chapter) we must fully accept that we are NOT modern humans. Our bodies, and our genetic code is the same today as it was 1,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago even 10,000 years ago (mostly) but we are not eating like our ancestors did! Also, humans in current day America are NOT living longer than those from thousands of years ago. In fact, when infant mortality isn’t accounted for, we are dying way younger than our ancestors did. So, what did our ancestors eat? Kale, vegetables, fruit and sometimes meat when they had to right? NO!!!! WRONG!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!! Our ancestors were eating the fattiest meat they could get their hands on, red meat, ruminant meat, and lots of it! Our ancestors ate a lot of animal products. Our ancestors also ate fruit, a lot of it! Fruit was second to meat. Then when our ancestors were in periods of real hunger, they would eat the most caloric rooting vegetables they could get their hands on. And it was only in true starvation or fasting periods they would consume leafy greens like kale or …. fuck idk tree leaves. Ask yourself this. If you weren’t hypnotized or truly hungry why would you EVER eat kale?

Congratulations, you just thought for yourself. Eek sorry! The best meme ever read “My news year’s resolution is to be less condescending. Condescending means to talk down to others”. Honestly, I do apologize, however this is an important one. Thinking for yourself does NOT mean listening to both team A and team B to reach a conclusion based off of the summation of their data. Thinking for yourself means using your data. Do you remember the story of a buddy and I cooking a frozen pizza after school one day? Remember how he was insistent on preheating the oven? Remember how blown away I was in regards to his insistence of preheating the oven? It took me a few decades, until about now in this story to understand both the magnitude of his conviction and my perplexion. Since day one we have been trained to consume whatever information is put in front of us, conform to that information and regurgitate that information back into society, back into the matrix. Dill was a wild one, an extremely disobedient one, however his mind, our minds will negate all objective reason when instructions come from an authority figure, and in this case that authority figure was a pizza box.

We all know that we crave the saltiest, sweetest and fattiest foods, right? Yes, this common knowledge that is in your subconscious is spot on. And we all know that big food companies put all of the sugar, fat and salt into their foods that they can possibly fit, right? Yes. So, kale is bullshit and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups aren’t bullshit? NO! Kale and candies are both bullshit! But what isn’t bullshit are all of the organic single ingredient foods out there. Especially, and your DNA knows this, especially the fatty steaks, butter, honey, avocados, fruits, milk, cream, maple syrup, nuts, caloric vegetables, and SALT! – These things are amazing!

It's NOT the calories, it’s the chemicals that are harming us. And this is the caveat, there are chemicals in everything! Due to this we must be modern day primals and hunt through our grocery stores for what will fuel our bodies best. The following are some basic terms as I understand them.

Organic – the food product is less genetically modified and hasn’t had synthetic chemicals used to grow or otherwise produce the food.

Raw – not cooked.

Pasteurized – cooked.

Unfiltered – unfiltered.

Corn fed – the animal was fed corn.

Grass fed – the animal was fed a diet of only grass.

Pasture Raised – the animal; chicken, cow, pig, bison, etc. was living on and consuming its food from things growing directly out of the ground (mostly some supplemental feed is used).

Bleached – bleached.

Regenerative – fairly similar to pasture raised, with no or minimal supplemental feed and stricter / the best land management procedures.

Whole grain – grain with the bran still attached.

Now that we understand these basic terms lets very quickly begin to understand why they are important. Glyphosate aka Round Up, you have probably heard of it, it’s no bueno! And it’s on basically everything. The FDA even recognizes glyphosate as a “known probable human carcinogen”, the rabbit trail of the FDA choosing to use the word “probable” is quite the doozy. Anyway, at this point we both accept the fact that our government does not have our best interests in mind, and as Glyphosate is a synthetic chemical it cannot be used to grow or produce organic food. ORGANIC is GOOD!

Also, now that we understand that we should be living much more like our ancestors we need to understand why more raw or perhaps we should say less cooked food is usually better. Most cheese, butter, milk, honey, fruit juices and almost all packaged foods have been SUPER COOKED! And while we probably want some things cooked, generally speaking we don’t want our foods to be cooked or pasteurized. The cooking or pasteurization process is intended to kill bad things in the food; however, it also kills all of the good things. This is another rabbit trail of a conspiracy as well as a very complicated and in-depth topic as it pertains to biology in many facets. Simple truth is that there really aren’t bad things in our food when it is grown, raised or made in the ways it should be (organic and regenerative) and with that we don’t want the government to be super cooking / super deading all of our food before we eat it. We want raw honey, we want raw (or minimally pasteurized) dairy as they contain a diverse range of living microorganisms that we probably want and the very structure of the proteins and fats haven’t been altered or denatured due to being heavily cooked.

Here comes the kicker. Almost all of the chicken, pork, beef, eggs and dairy products in our grocery stores came from animals being fed a diet consisting of mostly corn. Unfortunately, from ecological standpoint, from an animal welfare standpoint and from a standpoint of how healthy the food is, this is all bad. Chickens, cows, pigs etc. are supposed to be eating grass, bugs and roots mostly, NOT corn, especially not corn that has been blasted with glyphosate and especially not corn that has been blasted with glyphosate that has been grown in soil that has been completely deprived of its nutrients. It’s pretty simple. When an animal eats glyphosate blasted corn not only is the animal living a fucking horrible life, but the animal has not been given the nutrients needed to grow meat or make milk that has a full gamut of the nutrients you and I need to thrive.

But what about animal welfare? Vegans get an A plus for effort and an A plus plus for sheer ignorance. If you want to kill the most animals possible eat corn-fed store-bought meats. If you want to kill an insidious amount of animals, simple, be a vegan and shop at grocery stores. This is a simple truth, a simple truth that is easily overlooked. Go to a farm field, what do you see? ONE crop, ONE crop, that’s it! No bugs, no rabbits, squirrels, deer pig, coyotes, etc. Why? Because all of these animals are horrifically poisoned, shot or have received a tractor fork through their sternum. Country boy here folks …. I have done all of those things, not pretty. Then if you look at some cows in a field, nature is thriving! All of the wildlife is thriving and living in harmony with a cow that is thriving, it’s a beautiful thing! One cow will feed a human for a year or two, and for a vegan to eat beans and kale, how many animals have to die in vain? IDK probably 100 at least. Pretty simple, if you want to do what’s best for the planet, the animal and your health eat beef from a cow that was regeneratively raised.

Are you now thinking “Oh lord Nugget, are you now going to tell us about your EV too?”. No, don’t worry! Soon we will talk about all of the French fries, ice cream, cookies and steak we get to eat! Buuuut there are a few other foods to discuss. GRAINS! We have all been fear porned with how horrible they are as well as programmed with propaganda about how good whole grains are. Oh Lord, with the mindset that we want to eat like our ancestors, we know that we want to eat red meat, we want to eat fruit, we LOVE the natural gold that honey is, that we will sometimes eat some vegetables and will only eat leafy greens during periods of starvation, we can think for ourselves a little bit about grain. My understanding is that grains are not very prominent in nature and therefore our ancestors (broad spectrum here folks) didn’t eat that many of them. It was only 6,000 – 12,000 years ago that humans began farming grains. Taking an evolutionists perspective, we will see that humans haven’t had quite enough time to adapt to a diet consisting mostly of grains. So yes or no to grains. Well absolutely no to grains that are not organic. This is not only because inorganic grains are sprayed with Glyphosate but also because the FDA MANDATES that inorganic refined grains are fortified with folic acid (a synthetic chemical). What about whole grains, brown rice vs white rice or white flower vs whole wheat flower? Well, what does the bran on the outside of the brown rice taste like? Tastes like shit huh? But because it tastes like shit it must be good for us, right? And the ancient Chinese all ate brown rice, right? Nope! It tastes like shit for a reason and the ancient Chinese actually removed the bran from their rice for a reason. Yes!! YESSSSS!!! We are starting to think for ourselves! We are starting to think with our instincts and genetic code!!! We are really deprogramming here!!!! So, some organic grains sometimes, yeah sure, totally fine!

Now we will discuss SUGAR! What is so bad about it? And why is raw organic unfiltered honey or organic maple syrup okay? Remember chapter 7 and how there was one more drug we needed to discuss? Yeah, its sugar …. Well, it’s actually heavily refined sugar in the forms of white table sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. Brain scans have time and time again shown our brains light up when given heavily refined sugar, and light up the same way when given cocaine. When we ingest quantities of heavily refined sugar, our bodies react as they do when reacting to full blown drugs. Those cookies, why can’t we stop eating them? Go without heavily refined sugar for a while. Why is it so hard? And why is heavily refined sugar so fantastic when we get it back? Those Jelly Beans on the counter at work, why are they so hard to walk past? You know why you love heavily refined sugar so much. There is enough information in your subconscious, when you honestly ask the question, to answer for yourself why you love it so much. For me, as a full-blown DRUG ADDICT I know why I love heavily refined sugar so much. It’s a drug! Diabetes, that’s a pretty horrific condition, isn’t it? If a parent gave their child so much alcohol that they developed cirrhosis of the liver, then that parent should be imprisoned right? So, what about parents who give their children an even more debilitating condition from giving them an even more powerful drug? Whoooah! Sorry went off the rails a bit there. Actually, not sorry. Back to this shortly. Anyway, as for other sugars, fruit, maple syrup and honey let’s just directly quote Dr. Paul Saladino (the person I credit most for enabling me to not only lose over 100 lb. but thrive as well) “well-meaning individuals will equate honey (and maple syrup and fruit) to a coca cola. They will say it’s the same amount of sugar. And I would say let’s go back to the evolutionary framework. Humans have never been exposed to sucrose that is a disaccharide of fructose in a sweet beverage. They have been exposed to honey which is some sucrose, some fructose, some glucose in this gelatinous matrix with about 300 other (natural) chemicals and things that (positively) affect the gut flora, things that are nitric oxide precursors. So, it’s a completely different piece of information for humans but this is what has been lost in nutritional science, is it’s a reductionist”. It’s cocaine vs coca leaves guys …. Oh, sorry for those of you that aren’t drug addicts, that’s a BIG difference.

As heavily processed sugar spikes brain activity, has us dump dopamine, brings about much joy and decrease our satiety hormones, it’s no wonder that it’s not only addictive but extremely bad for our mental health, especially in children! And while heavily refined sugar is horrendous for mental health, what is far worse, especially for children are the food dies. Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3, are known to contribute to ADHD, mood swings, anxiety and overall insane behavior. Well-known and well documented. In fact, these clothing dies …. sorry some were originally clothing dies, food dies are completely banned in most other developed nations for this very reason. …. That wildly distraught child …. nope, not natural …. in fact, that child was just thoroughly drugged and poisoned by the food companies, our government and their parents. Criminal.

Now we will talk about seed oils. What are seed oils? Oils that come from seeds, peanuts, rapeseeds, soybeans, cottonseed, safflowers, etc. Just as natural sugars from fruit, honey and maple syrup are totally fine, organic, raw cold pressed seed oils are totally fine. Unfortunately, most seed oils don’t meet these criteria. The only ones that meet this criteria is the little bit of peanut oil, almond oil, cashew oil, etc at the top of the natural peanut butter, almond butter, etc. Now I would like to point something out here, there is very little new information that ever comes out about fundamental nutrition. While that sounds like a bold statement, it’s true. For hundreds of years doctors, scientists and health professionals have known that real food is great, that real food is medicine, that cholesterol is great and that the introduction of heavily processed seed oils into our diet has been one of the major driving factors of most chronic diseases. There isn’t much new information. The systemic fuckery has just sequestered and altered that information. And for some relevant seed oil fear porn (again we are talking about the heavily processed seed oils) let’s call on a leader in the modern-day health revolution, Gary Brekka. He says “If you take a seed, let’s say you take canola seed, and you press the canola and it comes out very gummy, well now they need to degum it, so they do that with something called hexane which is a well-known neurotoxin, and once its degummed they heat it to about 405 degrees, when you heat an oil like that it denatures and becomes rancid, so now you have a rancid oil that was degummed with a neurotoxin and now when you cool that oil back down it’s cloudy, so now they need to deodorize and decloud it and they use sodium hydroxide which is a known carcinogen”. And then it’s finally put into a plastic bottle and onto the shelf.

There is more bad news coming, however there has been enough negativity in this chapter so far. So how about the good news. Now that we have realized and accepted that steak, butter, honey, salt (oh yeah table salt is shit, just use sea salt and you are golden), cream, some vegetables, some grains and some nuts are thrival foods, we are set up to not only be able to eat healthy but stick with eating healthy as well because our bodies will be getting all of the calories and NUTRIENTS it wants. Delicious, full fat, full calorie, full carb, full salt, FULL HEALTH cookies, ice creams, pizzas, burritos, French fries, sauces, egg rolls and everything in between can easily be made using ingredients that are actually fit for human consumption.

In my generalized opinion, half of our health problems comes from our “food” simply being too far away from nature and half of our health problems comes from the incomprehensible amount of chemicals, toxins and poisons that are not just in processed foods but our environment as well. When we eat organic single ingredient foods like many listed above, not only are our bodies getting the raw fuel they need but we are avoiding an INSANE amount of poisons as well. However, this doesn’t do enough to stop the onslaught of carcinogenic and endocrine (hormone system) disrupting chemicals from infiltrating our bodies and LITERALLY shrinking our balls, feminizing men and LITERALLY making crazy bitch Karens even more crazy!!

Micro plastics, parabens, phthalates, nitrates, nitrites, chlorides, fluoride, pesticides, xenoestrogens, gums, petroleum, birth control piss and more, a LOT more actually! Back to food for a second, those “natural flavors” you see on the ingredients list actually include over 1,500 different chemicals approved by the FDA to simply be listed as “natural flavors”. And all of this shit is coming from everywhere; our toothpaste, deodorant, mouth washes, laundry detergent, nonstick pans, our clothes, shampoos, face washes, make ups and of course our WATER! Now I know you have heard these things before and I also know that you probably say “Mehhh, how bad can my deodorant or toothpaste actually be?”. There is no one panacea for perfect health and there is also no one cause of horrible health either. Don’t believe the shit out there guys; there is no one magical vitamin or natural toothpaste that will instantly make you healthy just as using a benzine sunscreen a few times a year will not instantly give you skin cancer. Later in the book I will offer to hypnotize you to get everything we have talked about in this book from your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, and that will be up to you to do or not. In any case there are a few extremely simple things you can do NOW to drastically reduce the number of toxins in your life. NUMBER ONE, buy either an under sink or countertop reverse osmosis water filter with a remineralizer. BOOM now your water is no longer filled with testicle shrinking xenoestrogens, chlorine and fluoride. Two, use tallow soap in the shower, it’s soap made from beef fat, trust me it’s great, you can’t tell the difference from store bought soap …. except our balls will shrink less, and ladies these things will help normalize your hormones too. Use a cast iron or stainless-steel pan. Brush your teeth with baking soda. And ….

WHAAA-BAMMMM now we are thriving. The process from healthy to unhealthy takes some time and the process from unhealthy to healthy takes a little time as well. Anyway, instead of fear porning y’all with doom and gloom, let’s make up a fictitious character named Alf, let’s pretend that Alf is partially you, partially me and partially the standard sick American. Alf struggles with depression, moderate obesity, low testosterone, erectile disfunction, bipolar, pre-diabetes, eczema, high cholesterol and excessive body odor. Since Alf started listening to Dr. Paul Saladino, Dr. Shwan Baker, Dr. Kiltz, Santa Cruz Medicinals, and Gary Brekka, he started to deprogram a bit, then deprogrammed enough to stop fearing cholesterol and started eating lots of steak and butter. Because Alf was eating more steak and butter, not only was he happier but he quickly started to feel a little better as well. Within a week Alf also decided to start using tallow soap, drinking RO water and was even cooking in a stainless-steel pan. Getting rid of all of these chemicals had Alf’s hormone system working better now too. His testosterone score even went up 100 points. Now happy and having more energy Alf started to exercise a bit and because he was building some momentum, Alf started not just cooking at home more but also searching out better and better foods. Now Alf was using regenerative ground beef and steak instead of corn-fed steak, his ice cream recipe was regenerative minimally processed cream, organic raw unfiltered honey and organic vanilla extract. Alf had only been doing these things for a month when he realized that his body didn’t smell as much, his mood was way better, he lost 15 pounds and his cock was even getting hard again. Alf soon went to his doctor and received good news; his blood pressure was down enough to get off of BP meds. And even though he was eating more red meat, his cholesterol was enough better he could get off of his statin meds as well. Beyond this, Alf’s blood sugar was now almost perfect too. Alf continued to think for himself, Alf continued to exercise more, Alf continued to rid toxins from his environment and within three months Alf was thriving! All of Alf’s physical health and emotional health problems were solved!! All of his mental health issues with the exception of going a little crazy from wondering why? Why if thriving is this easy, why? Why the lies?

Also / PS I am not a doctor and none of this was meant to be medical advice. Talk to your doctor …. or think for yourself. With thinking for yourself in mind you are going to have to do a lot of that because EVERY SINGLE idea I have expressed within is opposed by some people. Sometimes that is true because that person is highly educated and has better information and sometimes this is because that person is highly programmed. (It can be hard to differentiate between the two). Anyway, western medicine does have its place, it really does. As for the cholesterol debate, it was left out for a reason (because I forgot, shhh, our secret). Think for YOURSELF. Your DNA and genetic code knows the truth. While we should all avoid the same toxins, we shouldn’t all eat the same diet. There is NOT one single diet that is perfect for all humans. There is a perfect diet for me and there is a perfect diet for you. Play around with it, have fun, you got this!

Chapter 24 – The Real World, The Matrix Explained and Hypnosis a Hypothesis

Before too long Paul and I ended our RV adventure, he went off to do his thing and I went back home to dad’s place since it hadn’t sold. It still hasn’t sold actually, it’s too nice and has too much potential for a lot of people …. Anyway, if you are interested in an amazing California home nearish the Bay Area on 5 acres give me a jingle. How’s that for salesmanship?

And that is a perfect transition to talk about one thing that didn’t make sense to me as a kid. In my child’s mind, dad was an engineer which meant he must have made a lot of money and as mom was a nurse so she must have made a lot of money as well. Also, we had one of the bigger houses in an already nice area …. so why were there times where the family literally could not afford sliced turkey for sandwiches? I just didn’t get it. And fast forward to this point in the book I was …. will be a little careful here, talking to someone in the neighborhood, Mr. Neighbor was let’s say a retired doctor and Mrs. Neighbor was a ten-year lawyer, they lived in a $1.5 million dollar house and they were genuinely struggling to come up with $5,000 to fix their roof. Yeah, I get it, to some of us $5,000 is quite an amount of money. But to a couple with at least 300k coming in annually who live in a $1.5 million dollar house? …. Ehhhh yeah, maybe rich people aren’t so rich after all. More on this soon.

I had forever wanted to conform and feel a part of something, of society perhaps. Idealism it could be called. As a fairly profound belief in the spiritual world had placed some roots in my soul, I began to really see the Devil (that dude is a dick), and to accept God quite a bit. I saw that even though God’s love manifested itself as a father being tough on his children, the 7 deadly sins started to make some sense. Jesus too, a lot of that malarkey no longer sounded like complete malarkey either. A friend asked for some help for a week-long project at his brother’s lumber mill. It was hot, heavy and laborious work and it felt right. Man done wrong gonna make it right sort of thing. And what made it feel even more righteous was that Moe was a devout Mormon and because of this we got to bust our asses all week while talking about Jesus, Christianity and God. They say you stop maturing when you start using drugs and alcohol, and that’s not exactly true, but perhaps we do quit maturing spiritually. I was extremely grateful for Moe’s spiritual guidance.

I ended up taking a position at the mill and was trying to feel my oats. Finally doing what society sees as so perfect; drinking a little too much beer (oh yeah), working a 9-5 and trying to walk the path that had already been laid. Money doesn’t matter, right? Money doesn’t buy happiness, right? Money is the root of all evil right? HA!!!

Around this time the evil, horrible, misogynistic, sex trafficking terrorist that the media says Andrew Tate is, had started to become a mainstream public figure. He would time and time again scream “the matrix has programmed you” as well as say some basic truths, so basic that they were hard to comprehend. Truths like the idea that men do need to be strong, men do need to be capable, men do have a duty to protect. He was reiterating many of the themes (the empowering ones) that we have gone over in this book. He talked about business, he talked about money, and more so he talked about the real world. Quick note here - his school is called “The Real World” and I joined it. It’s great, I have received an insane amount of value and have even started a few businesses including …. I’ll tell ya later. Anyway, he talked about the real world, how things actually happen, how things actually get done and how the idea of bad guys and good guys is a complete misnomer. We all stole a few cookies as kids, didn’t we? We have all added a few extra minutes to our time cards haven’t we, and when the stakes get higher and we progressively more vulnerable to the 7 deadly sins. We are all vulnerable to a progressive spiral of doing more and more wrong, aren’t we? How did the good FDA get away with so much of the shit we have talked about here? How did the DOA get away with the same shit? The prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, why don’t they just fix it? There are rules and laws on team good aren’t there? And because we are team good, we follow those rules and laws, right? Ahhhh, we humans are tricky, we are mischievous, we are conniving, we are loving, beautiful and amazing, we are all of these things all of the time all as the same thing – HUMAN! Ya know that local gang you hear about? Yeah, pretty bad people huh? And your local sheriff’s department? Good people, right? Yeah well, cops are generally more team good and gangsters are generally more team bad …… but yeah, there’s mutual back scratching. Welcome to the real world; people, systems and governments are easily corrupted. I help you out and you help me out; it works on the smallest of scales and it works on the largest of scales as well.

I had fucked a lot of women in the past and now felt bad about it for a number of reasons. It’s in part due to Mr. Tate that I now love, respect and praise women in the ways they say they like to be loved and the way God wants his daughters to be loved as well. Right around this time I had started dating a lady. It had been a LONG time since being in that game and it was good. She was kind, sweet, caring, had an amazing young boy and I was really trying to be Mr. Little Perfect again. I was still holding a lot of mixed beliefs; men should be men, but men should also be pussies as well. Men should hold doors and pay for meals, but that would be sexist, that sort of thing. Let’s call the lady I was dating Rori. God! Rori was amazing!! You single mothers are superhuman! Rori’s son had not just a physical disability but a mental disability as well and seeing her in action do what she could as a mother was impressive to say the least! It was interesting, Rori was emotionally a little woke; ya know fat shaming was a huge “no-no” and gender roles were also just a sexist infringement on modern day women’s rights. However, I insisted on holding doors, paying for meals and walking on the inside of the sidewalk as we held hands. “Ha, sorry babe I know doing these things could be a little sexist, but I feel it’s my duty”. Rori replied with “yeah glad you recognize that, but do not stop doing these things! I LIKE IT! WE WOMEN LIKE THESE THINGS!”. And Rori insisted on doing the cooking, and I liked that. To be super fucking clear; men and women are different. We have different roles to play in society. Women are actually so amazing that God didn’t create them to do the few things a man can, he created them to do the many things a man can’t. I liked Rori and it sems Rori liked me, and because she liked to drive, she did the driving and I even made her a few sandwiches. Anyway, if any of that pissed you off, put a smile on your face because later this week I will be going to Jujitsu and will be getting my ass kicked by ladies weighing no more than 120 lb. Both, often times the answer is “both”. …… But why has there been such an unrelenting societal assault on both the divine masculine and the divine feminine as well?

Thanks to Dr. Paul Saladino I had deprogrammed from the food matrix and being with Rori encouraged me to be a fucking man! I continued to eat lots of meat and fruit, work harder, and lose weight. I saw the food matrix for what it is and was soon astonished by those who didn’t. Rori invited me to a Friendsgiving, and BTW brine bags are not baking bags, just fyi. Anyway, the event was cute and quaint, kind things were said, and bland discussions were had. There was a really fat guy at the party, fatter than I was. He was also extremely unhealthy, with swollen legs, sweating, and horrible skin issues. When he was asked “light or dark meat” he responded with “light because there is less fat”. He then grabbed a massive sugar drink, grabbed blank calorie white bread rolls and lathered them with seed oil margarine. This gent was in pretty rough shape. I watched him eat. Because he thought animal fat was bad, he added seed oil margarine to both meat and bread, and because the sugar drink was red and said “juice” his subconscious did its job and drove his actions. He just didn’t know. It was pretty hard to watch; he was poisoning himself and he had no clue of it. Sweat was dripping from his forehead, his ankles were becoming more and more swollen, his body was screaming for help, yet his mind was occupied with a completely misdirected sense of nutrition. It was painful to watch.…….

It had been a while since last talking to my buddy Keith, so the next day a friendly message was sent, “Hey Keith, happy late Thanksgiving!”. “Hey Casey, you too! How was your Thanksgiving?”. “Good, quaint, polite, just as we have been programmed”. Keith replied with “There ya go! That’s literally it, we have been programmed!”. The biggest lightbulb in the history of brain lightbulbs went off. “HO-LEY FUCK” I thought. The food, the drugs, the medicine, the chemicals, the alcohol, the money, the covid lie, everything! It took a while for everything to sink it, but what was instantly made clear was that the human mind is programmable.

We won’t talk too much about the money matrix here, largely due to the fact that I have yet to make millions and therefore don’t have the creds. In any case, one thing was made clear about what rich people do. They set up systems. Passive income? Mehhh sort of, but passive income doesn’t really exist. Instead, they create streams of income that once in place require very little maintenance. In fact, books using a print on demand model (like this one) are in fact a system. Money is not the main driving force behind this book, however the $4-$10 profit per book sale is quite nice. Paul had forever wanted to start a funny tee shirt business, that’s what Paul is best at, silly, stupid, and rather witty funnies. So how would we monetize that? A system, an online store, print on demand style, shirts so funny they sell themselves. And with that TrailerTrashTees.co was born. At Trailer Trash Tees we have not only the finest and highest quality tees, tanks, sweaters, bumper stickers and mugs but the funniest as well! Everything is 100% original and from the one and only Paul! Our products simply aren’t available anywhere else. Trailer Trash Tees – Put On The Off-Putting. What could be better than funny tees? Pshhht! That’s right folks, a leg length cock and balls!! Soon a subsidiary of Trailer Trash Tees was born, said subsidiary is CockSocks.co. At Cock Socks Co we have cocks on socks, designed to give the wearer the appearance of having a leg length cock and balls. We are a dream come true for every man. Rooted in reality, our white cocks on black socks are big but our black cocks on white socks are massive. CockSocks.co – Celebrating Cock Sockers Everywhere. Anyway, I like the real world, there are different guidelines. Sure, this book very much is the matrix, and in fact the only way to escape the matrix, is to go to the matrix. Cross pollination, that’s all ; ). TTT and CSC are both things I am proud of, however I am more proud of Paul for them. The socks are great, but the shirts are genuinely a good thing, they are funny, they get strangers talking, and simply put they spark a little joy in a world that so desperately needs it.

A matrix is simply a substrate that holds a medium together. And with that, quickly think of the grinding wheel on your grandpa’s bench grinder; the matrix are the glues and binders and the medium is the little aggregate particles. If they didn’t exist in unison everything would fly everywhere, and nothing would work. Now think of society; you and I are those little aggregate bits. You and I are (or were) the aggregate bits driving cars, watching tv, buying food, seeing doctors, taking medicines, ingesting chemicals, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, working for schools, hospitals, road crews, and engineering firms. We are the ones not just working our lives away and paying taxes to do so but also selling our sick bodies (worth 4 trillion dollars annually in the US) to big pharma. And we do this because of the matrix, the societal matrix, we do this because of our programming. From birth we are trained to consume, conform and regenerate, we are trained to eat poison, we are trained to listen to our doctors who only make us sicker, we are trained to believe tv is entertainment, we are trained to drink alcohol, we are trained, trained, we are trained, we have been PROGRAMMED, THEY have PROGRAMMED us, and we are they.

It was now clear why the richies couldn’t afford sandwich meat or to fix their roofs; they had been programmed by the money matrix. Some basic mathematic and financial education would have fixed that right up! But that would take copious amounts of money out of the debt seller’s hands. Some basic education about drugs, medicine, food, chemicals, alcohol, and fundamental wellness would have us all healthy as well. But again, that would be taking trillions away from the system, away from the matrix. And this is the paradox of the matrix; what helps you hurts the matrix and what hurts you helps the matrix. A programmed mind is the medium of the matrix and if it wasn’t for that programming the system would instantly disintegrate. This is the matrix and where the matrix thrives best is in states in which we are unaware of our programming.

Unfortunately for the matrix you and I have been doing a lot of deprogramming.

Somewhere around this time I was still trying to put the pieces together. Once you see it you can’t unsee it. The truth was so obvious! How do others not see it? How did I not see it? Anyway, in an attempt to understand the conundrum, I put this following work together …. (Please note that this was shared on forums in which pictures could be attached and the “deer” being mentioned was a piece of yard art made to look like a deer).

…….

Hypnosis - A Hypothesis

Hi there guys; here is that deer again. Thank you to those who liked the Facebook post and made nice comments about the deer. But I did what to make sure that we all understand that this deer isn't actually a deer and in fact is simply a wood statue that looks like a deer. Yard art, that’s all.

And linked in the comments is a video of a woman giving a speech at a school board meeting. She is dressed like a cat, but isn't actually a cat. As her speech was in part about decerning fact from fiction and reality vs imagination she appropriately needed to make sure that everyone knew she wasn’t actually a cat, in fact just dressed as one.

What the (expletive)? What the actual (expletive)? What in the actual (expletive) is going on here? How in the (expletive) did society get to a point where a lady dressed as a cat felt the need to make plane that she wasn’t actually a cat and a dissertation as such needs to point out that a fake deer art sculpture isn't actually a deer.

My forthcoming hypothesis pertains to the phenomenon of hypnosis. Based on years of personally observed accounts and analysis therefrom I hypothesize that those who are unable to decern between reality and imagination may be engulfed in a state best described as hypnosis.

Hypnosis is defined as “the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person apparently loses power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to direction or suggestion”.

The subjects at hand and pertaining to this hypothesis include but are not necessarily in part or in whole; modern day liberals, vegans, transvestites, members of the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous, and in part those whose augmentations of reality are so severe that we must treat them as “patients, not leaders”.

Now please allow me to explain a real-world account of an episode of the television show “Top Gear” in which one of the three presenters Richard Hammond was hypnotized. Off stage a hypnotist brought Richard Hammond “under” and back on-stage Hammond was told to believe that he was about to receive his new Porsche 3000S*. Hammond was programmed to know that his new Porsche 3000S* was the fastest, most powerful, most expensive, most beautiful, and best car in the history of ever. Hammond was manipulated to believe that no matter what anyone said he would know with all of his heart that everything about the car was real. Beyond this Hammond was programmed as to act with anger if anyone were to challenge him about his car and to become very cross if anyone were to damage his car. “1,2,3 wide awake!” Hammond came to and was presented with a small child's pedal car. Looking a bit dazed Hammond quickly started acting like a television presenter both admiring his new car and telling the audience about it. Another presenter encouraged him to take it for a little drive. And this is where things got interesting; as the car was just a toy Hammond couldn’t open the door and get in. Somewhere around this point another presenter said “Hammond that is just a toy car”, with confusion, anger and more conviction than ever Hammond simply …. well Hammond simply sat on top of the car. And now with Hammond pedaling the toy car around the tv studio another presenter told Hammond that they couldn’t hear the engine; so Hammond just started making a “brrrrr” sound with his mouth. Soon another presenter came on scene driving a kid’s electric car and ended up crashing into Hammond, just as he was programmed, manipulated and told Hammond became quite cross and very angry. The hypnotist then said “1,2,3 asleep”. Hammond was then deprogrammed and was again awakened.

The above account may not be 100% verbatim however it is plenty accurate for the point to be made. Also of note is that this was an entertainment television show, however it is my belief that the hypnosis was real. As Hammond did state and attest that in the moment, he truly believed such fallacies and more importantly referenced confusion as to how he went “so far” astray let’s say.

What we say / just read above was an all-around intelligent, capable and seemingly conscious individual acting in ways that were completely dismissive of reality. And below we will encounter the same, as it seems.

We must now note that fact is fact, fiction is fiction, reality is reality, men are men, women are women, toxic machine lubricants are toxic machine lubricants, alcoholics are those who suffer from alcoholism, and that the government lies.

Within the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous members are quickly led astray from the scientific definition of “alcoholism”. Members are programmed to believe that they have a “spiritual malady” and a “disease of the mind and an allergy of the brain”. Members are told not only what to believe but how to believe. Members quickly begin to lose sight of reality and believe that if they don’t participate in cult gatherings and group think they will die. Members retort verbatim, without thinking and simply acting as a puppet, things like “your disease is in the parking lot doing pushups”. With much personal time within and around the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous I can say with certainty that the pertinent aspects of hypnosis are alive and thriving within the members.

With a quick look at, and experience with modern day vegans one will see that they believe fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. are good for us to eat (fair enough). And quickly the wall of their reality being augmented is portrayed with beliefs that if “plants good” then “animals bad”. Questioning such vegans with discernment to such black and white ideals will lead to a “scoff” and a “no”. Presenting them with factual and empirical evidence as to the beneficial nature of some animal-based foods will often lead to stress induced by cognitive dissonance so severe they will believe plant-based machine lubricants are more fit for human consumption than an organic egg. As programmed and directed by a “heart healthy” label on the machine lubricants they often consume.

And the final subject fit for subjection is the modern liberal who simply lacks the ability to understand that penis and testicles are to man as vagina and ovaries are to women. Such subjects believe that a trans man is a “real man”, vice versa and that anything else other than this belief is “just such bullshit”. Such subjects often learn in literal sheepish fashion to act as their peers do; screaming, flailing, crying, and sometimes throwing anything they can find as their only defense to nothing more offensive than a man in a pickup truck. Almost as if, just as if “something” got inside of their heads, “something” so powerful yet so simple that it distorted their sense of reality to such a degree they would just ….... sit on top of the toy car when all else failed.

The above subjects referenced (liberals, vegans and cult members) are only a short form reference, however it is my proposal belief that the elements of hypnosis are there. Obviously, such people / subjects are conscious; clearly, they are acting and behaving in ways not typically associated with true voluntary thoughts and actions. And once in a state that lacks an ability to act voluntarily, it seems programming with how to act is easily placed in their subconscious.

While the term hypnosis may sound a bit spiritually radical, I maintain that the phenomenon is real and very powerful. I know and hope you know to that liberals, vegans, 12 step cult members and trans people are GOOD people. As the human condition is one that is “good” I would like to point out ways said subjects can and are “brought under” - trust and reverence for authority, hearing a narrative repeated, portrayals of “x” group or “x” person as especially special and finally locking them in with extreme notions so extreme that the wall of cognitive dissonance cannot be passed.

With my hat on your head please consider all within the above and attempt to see for yourself. Watch, question, analyze, and apply. Through personal endeavors I have seen many reasonable people understand fact vs fiction and reality vs imagination and be so grounded in such that seeing and understanding “what” is actually going on is missed.

Many beautiful minds have literally been programmed, hypnotized and lead astray. Let us all band together awakening not only ourselves but those led astray as well.

All best,

Casey J

……

The seed oils that vegans love so much are actually machine lubricants, literally that’s what cooking oils were originally designed for.

It was all clear now! We grow up so trained, so heavily indoctrinated and so deeply programmed that most people never see it, most people never even try to escape the matrix and most people (GOOD, WELL INTENEDED PEOPLE) pass their programming onto their children, and in this case the way it was passed down was with a candy bar. I have been writing this book for years now and have been since struggling with where, how or if I need to put the following in. But again, the story needs telling. Rori was a sweet lady, a good lady, and a loving mother who would do anything within her power to help her child. Anything except let go of desires for normalcy. Her child had a physical and emotional disability and I know that Rori wanted nothing more than for her child to be able to experience what other children got to experience. This included eating Halloween candy. What transpired next would seem completely normal, completely acceptable and completely healthy. Rori sent me a photo of herself smiling whilst holding her child, her child who was eating a candy bar. A totally normal picture, just like all of the other Halloween pictures we on social media every day. What I saw was the picture but what I interpreted was a child being criminally poisoned by a neuro toxic food die, a cardiovascular poison in the form of a machine lubricant and drugged by the most powerful drug known to man – heavily refined sugar. The way it hit me was pretty bleak. It was the most disturbing thing I had ever seen! A loving mother slowly or perhaps quickly not only killing her child but also making the child’s already spicy brain get even spicier. What we perceive and what we interpret are two different things.

Heavy shit. Within this book are the reasons as to why we are suffering, why we don’t know we are suffering and how to pretty easily end our suffering. That’s pretty easy and simple, but what isn’t so easy is going a bit mad in the process of trying to wake others up.

Rori’s photo was the one to really hit me so to speak, but it certainly wasn’t the only thing that hit me, if that makes any sense. Our relationship was short and sweet and over before too long. Our breakup had nothing to do with the mass poisoning of children across the US. We just needed to go our separate ways. Anyway, what was in the last chapter are the foundations folks. Sooo, quit poisoning your children …. quit poisoning them with so much refined sugar and food dies that they get ADHD and are given Adderall …. and we kinda know what happens with Adderall.

Life was infinitely better than it had been in the past. My HUGE ego had shrunk to the size of a massive ego and that’s quite helpful when it comes to a number of things. I was no longer taking any prescription “medications”, had lost 50 lb.and was only drinking a manageable amount of beer. ……Right, anyway serendipitously seeing the evil that is the matrix can be rather painful. I saw how easy it could be for people to do so much better in all walks of life and was once again relying on others to change, so I could thrive with them. Should have put a bumper sticker on my car that said “Proud victim of the month at Victimhood U”. It’s true, embarrassing but true.

Soon I became what my father wanted, what my friends wanted, what society wanted, and what the matrix loved, I became a middle grounder. Balance is key when it comes to emotional regulation and spiritual grounding …. However, when it comes to life, sorry but nah! Go big! Fuck it up big time! Or thrive big time! $30ish dollars an hour is enough to live cheaply on (especially when you don’t buy money to live), working a physical job and taking some steps to maintain health enough as to not die is easy enough to do, and drinking a lot of beer instead of an insane amount of beer kept me at a low mediocre life, but who is winning in this situation? – That’s right!

Sometimes I would be feeling decent and sometimes shitty, the pendulums were big enough for me to revert back to the lie that my mental illness was somehow hereditary instead of symptomatic of drug (alcohol) use, drug (sugar) use, and poison (food) use, etc. I would call in sick a lot, yet be productive enough to stay employed. I was consuming what the matrix wanted me to, beer and YouTube. I was conforming the way the matrix wanted me to as well, working and paying to do so. And when it came to what I regurgitated, I was saying the things that have been said in this book, but was not acting on my words in a truly meaningful way.

While things weren’t perfect, things were better, as even through these times of mediocrity there was much spiritual growth. It was clear that there were forces of good (God) and forces of evil (Devil), it was clear that the Devil is the great deceiver and that while dancing with him may be fun, such dance is also destructive. I was reminded time and time again of God’s love in that the puppies were still well; in that He showed me some basic truths and even provided a friend we will name Fetus. Fetus was my coworker, and he was of course given the name Fetus because he was only 21. Fetus was in fact an antagonistic little shithead, but I liked him for it. Fetus was also a bit of a glimmer of hope in some ways. Even being a Fetus, he busted his ass, didn’t buy into all of the propaganda perpetuated by the matrix and had genuinely strong fairly traditional values. Fetus was a man in that he knew what it meant to be a man and acted upon it. Fetus was also a man with balls, balls big enough to be a bit vulnerable, open up about the shit young men Fetuses like him were going through and take steps towards self-improvement. On many of occasions I would play the role of Uncle Nugget and try to offer guidance to Fetus. Sometimes said guidance was helpful and sometimes it wasn’t. And in return Fetus would encourage Uncle Nugget to get his ass in gear, to quit being such a hypocrite and to fight against the matrix.

When it comes to seeing the matrix, it can be all too easy to take a draconian style of interpretation, a style of interpretation that leads one to believe in some sort of top-down master plan. At this point who knows; it’s possible that there are some eight evildoer world rulers sitting around a table planning and plotting how bring further demise to the world. It’s possible. But what is more probable is that serendipity always thrives; in realms of both good and evil. When we have an understanding that the moral compass of humans today is the same as it was 1,000 years ago and also have a basic understanding of the real world, it’s not hard to see just how easy it is for the matrix to thrive in evil ways, in evil ways with its fuel being minds that have been programmed by it and souls that have been taken by seeing it.

Chapter 25 – A Reason To Fight

God damn it, I really don’t want to write this.

It had been quite a while since seeing Rick, and I knew he had been struggling, the whole family did, but apparently we didn’t know how much he was truly hurting. Rick was a pretty amazing human; he had wits in areas others never would have known wits to exist. He could piece things together in ways others couldn’t, both physically and metaphorically. You couldn’t win an argument against him. It wouldn’t matter what it was, Rick could have proved water wasn’t wet. Unfortunately, on the other end of Rick’s gifts were some struggles; he definitely had Aspergers. That’s why he saw things differently. I also now know that he just wanted to be special. He even said that often times people think that they are special but actually aren’t, and that based on his condition he actually was special. Rick, I wish you realized how special you were …. realized how special you were and didn’t need others to validate that. Rick you were a protector of your little brother, and your little brother didn’t reciprocate that. This book is dedicated to you. Everything from here on out is to venge your death and to stop what killed you, from killing others.

The story must be told, the story must be told, told to protect others. I was aware of Adderall and its dangers, obviously, but that still wasn’t enough. The last time I spoke to Rick he seemed relatively okay. He was in a sober living house, was working on getting a job, and was even into health a bit. He was actually waking up to the food and chemical matrix. Rick said that while he was taking Adderall that it really wasn’t a problem for him like it was me and to not worry. Haaaa – I have no words.

Details do need to be spared here, so it went like this, Mom - “Rick shot himself”. Me – “okay”.

Often times very successful (financial or otherwise) people talk about wanting “it”. The basic premise is that if you want it enough you will find a way to get what you want. It’s a very powerful and impressive trait. In fact, we drug addicts and alcoholics are fucking super human! Our ability to learn quickly, be willing, capable, determined, have an uncanny ability to be all cunning as well as to be so disciplined in our pursuits that we will even lay our lives down for it is God dammed impressive! Pretty fucking stupid, but impressive none the less. We have the ability to get what we want; we just have to change what we want.

Paul was in a bad way after the event, he was going to need help, there was NO OTHER OPTION but to be there for Paul, Mom and Dad. It seems that is what truly wanting it is, it’s when there is no other option.

It would be nice to find some poetic palabras that paramount the peaks and pits of the human’s ability to feel, but that simply isn’t doable here. Within 36 hours Dad, the puppies and I were heading halfway across the country to be with the family. It was quite the time to be alive if we are honest; the love, the hate, the anger and the grace. Dad and I could talk freely, dad and I could remember Rick, the bad, the ugly, the amazing, the silly, and the majestic. It was a time of wonder; it was a time of awe. It was a time to look as the big clouds and bask in their brilliance, it was a time to see God’s children as God’s children, it was a time to embrace all that was, is and will continue to be not just the human condition but consciousness as well.

There was no other option. Paul was in a bad way. Mandate 1, keep mom at Paul’s side. Mom was sane, way too sane actually, bad but good for the time being as she could do her duties. Mandate 2, keep dad mission oriented, he was doing alright, but would sometimes slip. Mandate 3, maintain the puppies welfare. There was no other option. I was fucked in all sorts of ways, so mandate 4 was to trust dad to catch my slips as to enable mandates 1-3 to be fulfilled.

Dad and I managed to reach Paul and mom. Mission 1 was complete and what then transpired will not be shared. For understandable reasons Paul and mom couldn’t be at mom’s house. However, I did need to be at mom’s house. There was work I had to do, and for a myriad of reasons the scope of said work will not be mentioned. The puppies were in a room that was made safe and had food and water. My pulse had not dropped below 120 BPM in a few days and now came the hard part, asking for help.

Ya know that cult of Alcoholics Anonymous, yeah well, keep your friends close and your enemies closer mother fuckers. It was 9:30 pm on a Sunday night and within 15 minutes of picking up a 2-ton phone two gentleman were at the door. I didn’t know what the fuck kind of help I needed, but I knew I needed help. They didn’t know what the fuck kind of help to give, but they still managed to provide it. Those two complete strangers dropped everything they were doing to serve a fellow alcoholic; I have no words. Should probably offer to buy ‘em a drink, uh sorry, couldn’t resist. They laughed with me, cried with me and held my hand and prayed with me. Now 10 pm on a Sunday night and one of the mother fuckers even started cleaning the kitchen. Put it this way; the young Muslim man was helping the old Christian lady cross the street on the way to church. There is one God, there are multiple paths to him.

My pulse was going to become a problem. That much adrenaline for that long couldn’t continue without psychosis ensuing. Sure, I was sober, but you can’t stay at zone whatever that is for that long without something giving, believing the delusion that I am physically immortal has kept me alive many times in the past but I knew that my brain would soon go if there wasn’t a fast and hard intervention. Zyprexa and Seroquel were on their way down my throat. Friends close and enemies closer.

The following week was a whirlwind of managing the practical, the spiritual and the emotional. Our bodies are incredible things!! Mom’s house was no place for us to stay. Paul and mom were staying at a dog sitting house but that would only be for a few more days. Uncle Jon said we could stay at his old abandoned house …. But it needed some shit handled before being livable. There was no other option. Adrenaline is interesting …. I managed to take a residential sized refrigerator up a flight of stairs, and of course through a house, to a car and through another house completely solo. There was no other option.

Turmoil, hell, love, laughter, embrace and many prayers that Rick’s soul was being taken care of. Although Rick took his own life, it is abundantly clear what killed him. With infinite prayers for his soul there was no other option but to fortify myself, try to help the family and prepare to fight the matrix.

I was acting and applying all of the lessons within this book. That marathon goal, that marathon dream, there was now no other option, I WANTED it. Eating mostly meat, fruit, organs, honey, maple syrup and minimally processed dairy meant I was losing weight. I went out for a long training run. Unfortunately, my shoes were fucked, the pain caused my crotch to moisten and had me quitting at mile 5. A few days later the shoe problem was fixed, my crotch moisture content was managed and I went out for 10 miles. I was now 305-310 lb. which was a problem because I was losing weight too fast! If you are going to do a marathon, especially one at 300 lb. you really need to put in the time doing many medium short run / walks and a few long run walks first, and I had only gone out twice. FUCK IT! I went out again to do another 2 miles one day, another 8 miles another day and then was going to just fucking do it. But then Covid happened. Truth is, I was the only person I knew who hadn’t had Covid and that’s probably because I wasn’t vaccinated, HA! Anyway, the cov cov fucking sucked, it was pretty bad!!! Emergency Ivermectin took it from HORRIBLE to manageable very quickly. Being down for a few weeks meant more problems because not only did my little bit of training go to waste but I was now right at 300 lb. I had things worked out on that scale. Standing at the bottom of the scale I was 296 lb. and the top of the scale 300 lb. I had to be 300 lb. for the marathon, because it was for an honest 300 lb. plus record attempt. Fuck it, I went out for 11 miles one day, gave myself a few days rest and decided to go for it. Check that, I decided to do it. There was no other option.

Saying “bahhhhh” I decided to carb load the night before. I ate pasta, lots of it, bad idea. Must have retained a bunch of water weight because I gained 10 lb. overnight and officially weighed in at 309LBS on the morning of the official attempt at setting the world record for the fastest 300 plus lb. person to complete a virtual marathon. Now doing a “virtual” marathon actually makes things way easier. As this was virtual, it meant I could do it where I wanted, when I wanted, on the day with the best weather. I didn’t have to pay money for entry fees, hotels or other travel, and no crew was needed because I was just going to do loops around a local lake. As for who adjudicated the race, HA! Systems of government are usually set up by themselves for themselves, aren’t they? So, in accordance with the IRD of TNMC LLC, I was allowed to make the attempt. Psssst! Those fancy sounding acronyms don’t mean much …. just like many other “official” agencies ….

6:00 am, 309 lb., 26.2 miles to go and I started running, then quickly stopped running and started walking. All of the “whaa-whaaa” crybaby shit was gone, and so was all of the woke self-empowering shit too. Yeah, sure it sounds all righteous and shit to be fat and embrace yuppiness by being able to get to this milestone or that milestone. But there was more on the line, a lot more. 2 miles and 3 miles down and I had to shit! That pasta was a bad idea, diarrhea and lots of it!! Mile 4, 5 and 6, every loop was a stop at the bathroom to produce more diarrhea. Sure, I could have decided to try another day, but there was no other option, just had to do it today. I channeled some DC and some David Goggins, and Goggins said “having poop in your pants doesn’t make you a poopy pants, a crotch so wet you quit is what makes you poopy pants”. Mile 10 and 11, I needed to test my legs, so I ran a bit and was still able to sprint, I was doing okay. Mile 14 and 15, and my fat ass was into uncharted territory. My asshole was resembling a baboon, my thighs were sopping wet with sweat, however my vagina was completely dry. I had never experienced a dry vagina before; something bigger was going on this day. I was trekking solo, but there was somehow universal unity. This was for Rick, this was for the weak, soft, low testosterone pussies who were in fact showing how capable they were by going to such extremes of pussiness! Yin and Yang. 18 miles and then 20 miles down, I was walking almost all of it, so I ran a little, and found I still could run which meant my legs were okay. It was getting warm, my feet were starting to blister, I was getting sun burned …. and I didn’t care, there was no other option. Wait, was I getting delusional? Were airplanes talking to me again? The answer was no, which meant my mind was still okay. 26.2 was in the bag. The song “We Stand Together” was on repeat, it was the anthem, and it was working, but I needed to turn it off. I did a loop in silence for Rick and all of those still struggling. I get it, traveling 26.2 miles on foot at 309 lb. sounds a little crazy, I get it, but here’s the thing, YOU DON’T GET IT! Our minds our powerful things. We all know David Goggins is the hardest man on earth, he was the one that introduced the idea of taking souls. Oftentimes it’s bad for the ego to need souls, but fuck it, my antagonistic fat ass wanted a soul, I wanted a big one, I wanted the soul of Goggins. That fat skinny fuck couldn’t even run ¼ of a mile at the light weight of 305LBS and my fat ass had just done 25, close to 26 miles so I went for it! I took off running as fast as possible and didn’t stop until 26.2. The dishes were done. Time? Ohhhh … less than 9 hours. : ). An official world record for the fastest 300 plus lb. person to complete a virtual marathon? Still waiting on Record Setter to finalize things. Or has the IDR of TNMC LLC already recognized this attempt??? Anyway, Goggins said “at 300 lb. you ain’t got nothin’, you ain’t got no dopamine in there, there’s nothin!!”. Hopefully this proves that we are more capable than we think, and even more capable than some say.

The marathon thing was literally a pipe dream, yet it happened. It was just another step. Seems once we believe that the impossible isn’t so impossible it becomes pretty probable and just not that big of a deal. One more step.

Paul and I were also spending more time together as well, going to the gym, dog walking, hiking, paddle boarding etc. Ricks loss really enabled me to love Paul more than ever before. Through spoken and unspoken words, it seems we both now understand that there is no other option. I am proud of Paul; he continues to bring the best funnies to the world via Trailer Trash Tees and he has even received the honor of being a best man for his buddy’s wedding. He has done good things for this world and will continue to do so, there is no other option.

Hard to know what to say, things were horrible yet beautiful as well. It was a time to dig even deeper into the realm of the divine. Where did we come from? What are we doing here? And what happens when we die? Really don’t know, however God’s grace kept being shown. I started going to church and the messages just made sense. Perhaps it’s pretty wild that many of us in modern day America believe we have it all right and that because we are so hip and modern, the Bible must be full of total garbage. In fact, it now seems as though the Bible is just a book of metaphor. A book that has timeless wisdom. It seems that speaking in metaphor has its importance rooted in two places. Number one is that we are all in fact always in some state of hypnosis. Speaking in metaphoric terms forces one to use their imagination, which has roots in our subconscious mind, our subconscious mind which as we have discovered is responsible for our thoughts and actions. The other reason as to why speaking in metaphor is so important for the Bible is because such tongue transcends time, which basic language doesn’t as it changes so quickly. Ain’t no cap, hope you hip to this rizz, no sus. Point proven. In any case as of today I am not a Christian, Jesus seems great, really great, however truly accepting him as my Lord and Savior isn’t a possibility yet. There is one God and there are multiple paths to him, amen.

Continuing to eat real food designed for human consumption and exercising quite a bit had the pounds falling off. Speaking of exercise, it would be a sin to not mention The Phoenix. The Phoenix is a sober activities group. Their only requirement for participation is 48 hours of continuous sobriety and yes, it is TOTALLY FREE. The organization is great. They team up with local gyms, venues, etc. and have all sorts of activities ranging from tennis and frisbee to boxing and jujitsu to yoga and rock climbing. Their motto is “Together We Rise” and together we do. Check them out! Spread the word, and if their events aren’t prominent in your area become a volunteer and start one.

Mom and dad struggled in their own ways. Losing a son is different than losing a brother and because of that Paul and I have done our best to thrive as that’s all parents want from their children.

Uncle Ron was the only non-immediate family member who had much involvement with Ricks loss. Ron is a pretty impressive self-made all-American man, and aside from the fact that he is a fucking idiot. ; ) He is wildly smart and beyond that a good fucken dude. Sometimes I question if progress is really progress, however the technological advancements Ron brought to not only the US but world as well are downright impressive. Despite this, he remained quiet and humble through all of it. It was nice getting to know him a bit, but I had a foot in mouth moment when Paul and I were helping him build a fence. It was a long, hot and dusty day. Paul and I were working hard but so was Ron. Almost 80 years old and could answer the question “what color is your Bugatti?”, yet there he was, shovel in hand waging war on the prairie dogs by building a fence to stop them.

Through all of the wrong, through all of the evil of the matrix, things are starting to feel right. At that point though, a previous sports injury led me to suffer a really horrible stiff neck. Determined to not go the pharmaceutical route, I decided trying a massage. The masseuse was not only intelligent and awake but had backbone as well. She had in fact dropped out of med school because she saw how dark that world was. And after the massage I felt 10x better, until the following day, that is. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I ended up going the pharmaceutical route. Called a tele-doc. The lady doc was good, she was thorough and when she asked why I wasn’t taking anything anymore I told her in plain language “because mental health drugs are horseshit, and when one eats right, exercises, doesn’t drink or do drugs, they aren’t needed”. She started in with the ole “ahhh you really better talk to a family member, you really gotta, blab la blah”. I had heard it before, take our drugs that will fuck you up so much that you might die to prevent you from thriving basically, that sort of rhetoric. However, I misunderstood the angle she was taking, because in fact she was saying that she wished I could talk to her family member who was fucked up on meds that she should have never been on. I said “Yeah doctor, glad you are one of the good ones …. So often what y’all do is evil …. Respectfully”. She basically said “Yup I know, honestly wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for the massive amount of med school debt”. I of course told her about the masseuse, and she was very happy to hear that story, and it brought her joy to see others not only waking up but acting on it as well. Anyway, talk to your doctor. She ended up doing a really thorough exam and basically said “Yeah dude, your neck is jacked, and you actually would benefit from a muscle relaxer” she of course recommended some homeopathic remedies too. I had to swallow two pills, one was called “Pride” and the other was called “Cyclobenzaprine”. It did work, it did do its job, but yes it also really sucked, made me feel like dick and I gained about 10 pounds in three days …. Perhaps it’s a good reminder that sometimes, rarely, but sometimes pharmaceuticals have their place but more so than that it felt right to have been around those with equal hearts and intentions.

We are products of our environment and what transpired here again just felt right. During a coffee date with my trainer, she was talking about her new boyfriend and how he was the perfect person to write a particular book about a particular ultra marathon. For a number of reasons this gent was the right person to write said book and what Serin said next was pretty cool; “He isn’t just another fat guy who lost 100 pounds, ran the race and wrote a book about it, he blah la blah”. She meant no disrespect, in fact the opposite. But here’s the deal, losing 100 pounds and running a 100-mile race may sound beyond belief to the layperson. It did to me, yet it no longer sounded Godlike or impossible in any way. It’s pretty cool to be around those who attach the word “just” to something that seems so big. It’s humbling, it’s inspiring! So, what justs are you going to do? And BTW, I have yet to run a 100 miler, don’t really want to (yet), there are other “justs” on the horizon.

As winter would approach quickly, a big decision was on the table for mom and the family. What did mom want to do with her house? It seemed like it would be unhealthy for her to move back, so the decision to renovate and sell was made by her and family. Understandably it would have been too physiologically taxing for mom to take on such a big project so the family handed the project to me. It was going to be a BIG undertaking; it needed a LOT of work. Uncle Ron said he was really counting on me, and frankly I wanted to make Ron proud …. Also, I wanted his foot to go in his mouth. On many occasions I agreed with family that yes, such work is a big job yes, hard job yes, complicated for many reasons job yes, but an easy job if I am JUST ALLOWED TO DO IT!!! Plans were made, a timeline of 3 months was set. Ron even said “that’s an insane amount of work to get done in 3 months”. I wanted his soul, and six weeks later Paul and I had the place damn near perfect and market ready. I don’t mean to brag; I mean to boast …. JK! On the other end of petulance is a lot of capability, and frankly it just felt right to show that.

So where are we now? Well, Rick and I had plans to learn to fly paramotors together, and that’s not going to change. Rick and I will be learning to do “just” that and I am going to take Rick for one last flight. One last flight, he will be set free in the same location at the same altitude at which he would detach his hang glider. We both flew around that LZ, Rick with a hang glider, me with a parachute. We have yet to fly together, but that is going to change. I am so sorry for not protecting you, Rick. I am so sorry for your pain, please rest in peace and hang in there till we can get you that flight. “For once you have tasted flight you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return” – Leonardo da Vinci.

In the meantime, Paul and I will continue setting up systems, continue to move forward and continue with what feels right. The words “I have been set free” are on repeat in my head as these words are being written. It is unfortunate that Ricks loss is what has given me a reason to fight, and maybe it hasn’t been a fight, maybe it’s been more like a flight. These days I am thriving more than ever before, have lost over 115 lb. with only 30 lb. or so to go. A number of “justs” have become “justs” and there are more to come; just learn how to run into the sky with a paramotor, just start a few food companies, just write a few more books and we can’t use the just word for someone like you. The final straw, the real goal is to help others, to help you, the weaker you are the greater you can become.

Perhaps, now that we are near the very end of this book, it is the appropriate time to talk directly about Red vs Blue politics. Obviously, we have talked some shit about liberals, and perhaps that was a mistake. Look it’s pretty simple - “it” isn’t about Red vs Blue, the matrix is the matrix, the deep state is the deep state, and the real world is the real world. Remember twenty years ago when the Democrats were antiwar, anti-big government and anti-big pharma? And 20 years ago, the Republicans supported those things? Twenty years ago, I would have voted blue. I now vote red and twenty years from now I will probably be voting blue again. Understanding that the matrix isn’t so bueno. The human mind is programmable and that things can EASILY be taken out of context to inversely represent its intended representation, is it possible that the devil has once again been the great deceiver?

Now that you have seen the matrix you can’t unsee it. Seeds have been planted and they will continue to grow. If you want those seeds to grow MUCH faster, if you would like to be hypnotized a bit the next chapter is for you. If not please skip directly to Chapter 26 – Conclusion.

Chapter 26 – Days In The Life

Here is an opportunity to go on a little guided meditation, a guided journey, an opportunity to allow yourself to be a bit hypnotized. This journey will be a technically fictitious yet a very common occurrence that is happening to many folks in modern day America. Now, the only thing that is needed is for you to forget that you have already read the bulk of Crazier Than I Thought, Seeing The Matrix An Autobiography And More. Just forget what you have read so far. Now, would you like to go for a journey?

Awesome, I am glad you decided to come along. Now feel free to close your eyes and start to relax …. that is unless you are reading this instead of listening to the audio version, then ya probably need to keep your eyes open. Ahhhhh, okay now go ahead and take a deep breath in “uhhhhhhhhh” and out “ahhhhhh”. Gently wiggle your feet and relax your toes, from your feet to your legs relaxing and getting comfortable. Your stomach settles a bit and your shoulders drop, your jaw becomes un clenched and you are loosened up a bit. That’s good, there is no need to go way overboard with our relaxation, I mean you are only being a little hypnotized.

Cool, so here we go. Now, for whatever reason imagine, just play pretend and imagine that you have recently moved to a new neighborhood near a relatively small but quickly growing town in middle America. The neighborhood you recently moved to is nice, it has beautiful homes with nice sized lots. In this this neighborhood the roads are perfect, the developers left a lot of the natural trees and shrubbery, there are multiple parks, your neighbors are great annnnd the HOA is even halfway reasonable. Now, by having “recently” moved to this neighborhood we mean that you have been living there for 3 or 4 months now …. whoops, check that you have actually been living there for close to 5 months now. Crazy how time flies huh?

Now that you have been living in this neighborhood for close to 5 months now you have adopted some habits and routines. Your nightly wine and chocolate habit isn’t the best; however, your morning exercise walk is a great routine. And speaking of morning time it happens to be 7:30 am, time for your walk.

Shoes and socks, some new pants plus a light sweater and you are out the door. Not but a few steps into your walk and you see Becky. Becky is also out for a morning walk pushing her baby in a stroller. While you don’t actually know Becky all that well you really do appreciate her because she always gives you some sort of compliment. “Hey Becky, good morning, how ya doing?” you say. “Good morning! I am really well … OMG I love the colors and designs on your pants! Tots fab!” Becky replies. Carrying on you round a corner and onto Sally Street. This happens to be your favorite part of the neighborhood as the street has a long sweeping bend with dense and tall trees, great for shade in the summer and provides a great sense of privacy. While the shade from all of the trees is great in the summer this morning happens to be a bit brisk, the shade not helping so you pick up your walking pace to get your blood pumping. Today is Tuesday, aka trash day so a lot of the neighborhood is full of “good mornings” and “hellos” between those taking their bins out.

With a faster walking pace as well as many neighbors expressing friendly “hellos” you are feeling quite good and pumped up. Down Sally Street a little way you see Tim and Jim both taking their trash out and frankly they both look like shit. Jim says to Tim “holly fuck bro I feel like dick!”, Jim replies with “ah motherfucker me too, but hey it was a great time getting fucked up and watching the Raiders get stomped on last night”. See Tim and Jim are both big football fans and their team played Monday night football last night, and you think to yourself “ha-ha boys will be boys, football and beer – god I love America!”. Even further down Sally Street you see the home owned by the Butchers who are very politically active. They have a number of signs in front of their house that say things like “science is real”, “this home is no home to hate”. And the Butchers even state their progressive and loving ways with a big rainbow flag flying in their yard. Without too much thought you quickly say to yourself “eek the world can be a bit cruel, glad there are families like the Butchers who are so tolerant and progressive in such a cruel world”. Nearing the end of Sally Street, you see Amanda and Jane and they are taking their trash out as well. Amanda says to Jane “morning girl! Thanks so much for letting me borrow your air fryer, that fat free fried chicken recipe and kale chips was so easy to make, I gotta get one of these myself”. Jane replies with “oh Manda, you feel free to borrow it any time”. See you happen to know Amanda quite well. Unfortunately, she is really struggling with her weight so she is really trying to eat really lean and replace sugars with calorie free sweeteners. You think “good on Amanda for trying so hard, if she just keeps up with her healthy eating, she will definitely loose the weight”. You also know Jane a bit as well; Jane is a sweetheart and a really good person, but you know she really struggles with mental illness. Jane has told you she has been “working through” many different medications until her and her doctor find the right ones. You even silently sing Janes praises a bit for being not only so tough but upfront about her struggles.

Finally, Sally Street hooks a hard right and opens up into an area with fewer trees and a big open grass field, a perfectly manicured grass field with no blemishes or weeds. Out of the shade the sun is now brightly shining on you and quickly taking away the bite of the brisk morning air. Beautiful new homes, nice neighbors, perfect grass fields and warming sun, “Ahhhh, quite nice” you think. The sidewalk next to the paved road you have been walking on has now turned to a foot path near a small creek between the rows of houses. In the creek are a few small fish and even a duck here and there. On this foot path you see a few joggers, a few dog walkers and a few folks pruning trees. This walking path soon exits the nature area and puts you on a sidewalk next the very busy Main Street. Cars, school busses, trucks and Ubers all zooming back and forth and you enjoy seeing the hustle and bustle of a bustle of your quickly growing small town. There also just so happens to be a skydiving dropzone only a few miles away that operates daily. Every once in a while, you see the parachutes flying around and today happens to be one of those days. Thousands of feet up you see seven or eight parachutes flying around. Because of the busy street right next to you, you can’t hear the screams of elation from first time skydivers and subsequently you think “crazy bastards, heck no I would never go skydiving, waaay too dangerous!”.

Fortunately, you only have to walk a short distance on the sidewalk next the busy street and quickly you are back walking around the neighborhood. See, the neighborhood you live in is sort of split between the town houses, the residential houses (where you live) and the luxury homes which is the part of the neighborhood you are now in. Bigger houses, bigger yards and nicer cars all around, “must be nice” you think. Your friends the Jones’s live in this part of the neighborhood and it just happens to be that you know the Jones’s better than any other family in this area. Y’all go to the same church, the same gym and often hang out together. And speaking of the Jones’s you see Mr. Jones aka Josh leaving his driveway in his nice new Tesla Model S and shortly behind is Mrs. Jones aka Katie loading up her tricked-out minivan with their three kids. Josh has a realllly high paying sales job and because of this they can afford the nice cars and house, with Katie only having to work 20 hours a week. Katie is struggling (as always) to get her 3 screaming, crying and rambunctious kids in the car ….. as is always the case. Again, you low key smile and laugh as you know Katie has it handled, once the kids get in the car they will behave because Katie has some healthy Rainbow vegan yogurts that her kids just looooove!

A few meandering blocks go by, again all quite nice, nice homes, nice cars, nice roadways, nice parks and more. Soon you are back on another footpath and after a few minutes on the path you are nearing your house. Next to your house lives Bruce who eats red meat every morning and every evening You know this because you can see and smell him barbequing. And in low key passing Bruce has expressed that even though he isn’t really a Trump supporter, these days he feels that he kinda has to support Trump. Eats red meat every day and supports Trump …… eeeek, yeah, “it is what it is” you think to yourself.

A few more steps and now you are back home, another good and healthy exercise walk completed. Now time for a quick bite to eat, shower and then off to work. Your work day and evening go totally normally …. and by a normal evening remember your wine and chocolate habit? Yeah, you enjoy a little wine, a few pieces of chocolate and are soon off to bed. Your room is a little cool so getting into bed is a bit uncomfortable but soon the blankets begin to warm you, the wine relaxes you …. the chocolate …. chocolate fills …. fills you …… and …. night-night.

As you sleep a few dreams come and go. As you sleep without even realizing it you wiggle and snuggle up with your warm and soft blankets. As you sleep another dream comes, a wonderful dream, a dream of hangover free wine and calorie free chocolate and just as you begin to take your first sip of this hangover free wine – “Ehhhh!! Ehhhh!! Ehhhh!!”. Your alarm blares and another day begins. Today is Wednesday, and no longer Tuesday. Today will be fairly similar to yesterday with the exception being that you started reading Crazier Than I Thought, Seeing The Matrix An Autobiography And More; your day is normal, more wine and chocolate and sweet dreams. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and into the next week, your days are as they have been with your normal routine and you have finished reading Crazier Than I Thought, Seeing The Matrix An Autobiography And More. And with that, tomorrow is going to be mostly* the same as last Tuesday.

Slowly getting out of bed you do a nice yawn and stretch, “uhhhhhhhhh – ahhhhh, sniffle sniffle nose and eye rub” and soon you head downstairs to your coffee pot. As you click the coffee pot to “on” you realize something you haven’t recognized before. See, behind not only your coffee pot, but the toaster, and sink, and dishwasher is a tile backsplash. You have noticed the tile backsplash before but what you amazingly missed was the blue accent strip in this tile backsplash. You say to yourself “ah hey that’s actually quite nice! …. How haven’t I noticed that before? Small niggle though. I’ll definitely notice this blue accent strip all the time now”. Your first sip of coffee is amazing! Your second sip almost as good and next you peer out the kitchen window, and you say “oh look Sherl and Mike (your backyard neighbors) planted a few cherry blossom trees …. And so did the Walters …. And so did the Franks. Hmmm, I wonder when they planted those?”. Now the dirt around the bases of these trees didn’t appear to be freshly disturbed so they must have been in the ground for at least a little while. Next you say to yourself “Ohhhh yeah that’s right a few months ago the new nursery had a sale on a bunch of these cherry blossom trees, bet that’s when they all planted them”. Again, you say to yourself “odd that I didn’t recognize those sooner, I like them, won’t be able to unsee them now”.

As this scenario you are imagining is rooted in something completely realistic, what happens next is also completely reasonable. Your morning coffee settling means you now gotta go poop, you really really gotta go poop! Quickly shuffling down the hallway to the bathroom, you turn round, drop traw, begin to sit and then realize there is no more paper on the roll. At this point you have to make a tough but very important decision. Quickly you decide “I am going for it!!”. Scurrying out of the bathroom, pants still round your ancles you head to the closet with linens, cleaning products, a few jackets, paper towels and of course toilet paper. After grabbing the toilet paper, you scurry back to the restroom, not even wasting the time to close the door, you make it to the toilet, sit down ……. And relief…. you don’t need any more guiding words. ….. Oh, and the closet with the toilet paper had been organized? You say to your partner “Hey babe! When did you organize this closet?”, to which they respond, “Well over a month ago when you asked”. “Oh my, thanks! Babe I am sorry for not recognizing sooner, you are the best!”.

The time is now nearing 7:30 am and you remember what that means? Yeah, close to walk time. Socks, pants, a light sweater and hat on, just gotta grab your shoes. Sitting on the stairs next your front door you start to put your shoes on …… your brown shoes, and for whatever reason you look over at your black boots, dark brown dress shoes and black sandals. As it happens in this scenario you aren’t super fashion conscious and you aren’t really a sneaker head yet you ask yourself a somewhat random yet simple question; “why are all of my different shoes very dark colors?”. As someone who isn’t too interested in shoes you don’t care too much but, in this scenario, you do put a little thought into the question. After a small bit of time you remember your grandma, your grandma who you loved very much! But when you were a kid, your grandma was very hard on you and your cousins anytime you had dirty shoes, so ya’ll always wore darker shoes that didn’t show dirt as much around her. To this you say to yourself “well holy heck and by golly, very small niggle overall, but it is surprising how such a small “trauma” has had lifelong effects”. Now you look up to the heavens, smile, wink and say “Hey there Gam Gam, ya know I love ya, but sorry I am going to get some white shoes and not care if they get dirty, HA!”. Victories over our past traumas are always great!

Shoes on and out the front door you head, a few steps down the sidewalk and there is Becky with her toddler in the stroller again.

NOW, wide awake!

Wide awake! For the past ten or fifteen or so minutes you have been doing a little guided imaginative journey of a technically fictitious yet completely reasonable “days / week in your life”. But of course, you know that because you have been aware and in control the whole time. Last Tuesday was completely normal inside (meaning you) and outside (meaning the outside world / not you). So far today has been completely normal on the outside, yet not so normal on the inside. Today you have seen some things, noticed some things, recognized some things, check that you have ACCEPTED some things. In regards to the tile back splash, the cherry blossom trees, the linen closet and your shoe quirk you have bridged the gap between RECOGNITION and ACCEPTANCE. See, the linen closet, cherry blossom trees, your shoe quirk, etc., etc. are TRUTHS that have been around for quite some time, while you did recognize these things, you didn’t ACCEPT these things. Bridging the gap between recognition and ACCEPTANCE can be done a few ways; literally opening our eyes, a WILLINGNESS to accept reality, and mostly just connecting the dots with the information we already have with what is literally happening around us. In essence this is deprogramming, this is connecting our conscious and subconscious minds.

Now in no way did I hesitate to guide you towards acceptance of your shoe quirk, linen closet, tile back splash, etc. because these things are pretty much inconsequential to this guided journey and your real true life. As we continue, check that, if you decide to continue with this imaginative journey, I must warn you! I must WARN YOU that today you will continue to ACCEPT some TRUTHS about this world, about society, about things that matter and unfortunately these TRUTHS you will ACCEPT or begin to ACCEPT are going to be quite uncomfortable, quite unnerving and frankly even quite heinous!

The choice is yours; red pill? Or blue pill?

Red = uncomfortable truths you will never unsee.

Blue = stagnant blissful ignorance.

Okay, I see you stayed and took the red pill. Temptation sure is a bitch.

And back to it, back to it.

….. a few steps into your walk and there is Becky pushing a stroller again. And again, Becky compliments something about you. “Thanks Becky, you are always such a dear”. Then quickly you notice her toddler in the stroller, like really in the stroller, completely covered by this big thick plastic canopy. You say to yourself “ah, yeah too much sun might be a bad thing but I think everybody should get a little bit of sun, it’s healthy, …. yet we for so long have been told to fear the sun, huh weird”. Deep inside this heavily shaded stroller cocoon are small hands white knuckling a big tablet with flashing lights and rambunctious cartoon noises. No healthy sun and lots of unhealthy led lights close to young eyeballs …. Yeah. And finally, you recognize that Becky’s toddler isn’t like one year old and in fact the kid is close to three years old. You think, “eeeek, at three the kid should be running circles round their mom”. Nothing here is inherently evil and Becky is trying to be a good mom, but it is a little unsettling to see a youngster in such an unhealthy environment when they should be playing in some good ole healthy dirt. “…… society has changed a bit I guess” you say to yourself.

Soon you find yourself again walking down Sally Street and once again Jim and Tim are out. Jim is back to his old self, full of life as he gets in his car to go to work. However, Tim is looking even worse for wear; bags under his eyes, slowly shuffling his feet as he walks, wearing the same clothes as yesterday and even quite stinks of booze. As it turns out Tim’s backyard isn’t too far from yours and last night you did hear a few beer bottles break and Tim arguing with his wife. Yesterday your thoughts were of “ha-ha” and “boys being boys” and “uhhh raw beer and Merica!”, however today …. not so much. See, one of your acquaintances, named JJ from back home (where you lived before moving to this wonderful neighborhood) is quite the Facebook whore, always spouting off about this or that. One of JJ’s Facebook rambles included talking about how he himself was duped by not only alcohol but society’s view and love of alcohol. He explained that before reading the book “This Naked Mind” by Anne Grace he too thought that alcohol was cool, sexy, made one not only tough but smarter and funnier as well. JJ also explained how this book not only showed him the truth about alcohol but enabled him to ACCEPT the truth about alcohol. The truth about alcohol being, 1 - it’s simply a really gnarly, toxic and addictive drug, and 2 - that unlike other dangerous drugs society sees this drug not as a drug but as an amazing elixir of life. This morning you happen to remember all that JJ said; this morning you are really seeing the extremely dangerous side of alcohol. Before this morning you did know that alcohol could be quite gnarly but this morning you are ACCEPTING that alcohol is quite gnarly.

Next you see the Butcher’s house again, rainbow flags, proclamations of science, and demands for love, peace and acceptance. The Butcher’s youngest son Taylor is about 7 years old …. and recently you have seen Taylor wearing more girls’ clothes and even calling himself a girl. Seeing Taylor this way has been a bit “unique” we could say, but so far you have thought it wasn’t that big of a deal …… I mean children do have quite the imaginations. Next through the open window of the Butcher’s house you hear Mrs. Butcher making more of her YouTube videos …… and you pick out Mrs. Butcher’s words “I am very happy my “daughter” has come out and I am fully supporting “her” decision to fully reassign her gender”. “WAIT WHAT!” You think to yourself …. It’s all clear now - you have heard of boys pretending to be girls, and here you see it’s really happening. You also have in the past heard some right-wing podcasters talk about the insanity of “gender reassignment” and that it can include not only providing the patient with synthetic hormones but also permanent removal of genitals!! Quickly, you FREAK!! Its real, it’s happening, you accept that a little neighborhood boy is in the process of PERMANENTLY altering their hormones and has the support of their parents to have their genitals removed!! You dial 911 …. But don’t click send because the above is legal in many US states. ACT ACT ACT!!! You must act now!! You start to run up the Butcher’s drive to go physically save Taylor …. But quickly you realize this would result in your arrest!! You keep on with your walk; freaked and frazzled!! This matter is serious and needs attention, however the abrupt acceptance of this heinous happening is too much, the result of the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance kicks in and quickly everything you just accepted goes to the back of your mind.

You are sweating and out of breath, but you start to calm yourself. Next you see Amanda and Jane again. This time they are talking about the new “Jolly Wally” plant based, sugar free, caramel flavor coffee creamer. “Wait, wait, wait” you say …. “What kind of food name is Jolly Wally anyway? …. And isn’t DOCTOR Paul Saladino right in saying that that REAL food like meat, fruit and dairy is actually super good for us?! And, and, and Amanda has been going hard with her lean chicken, kale chips and “healthy” vegan chemical foods …… and she has been doing this for some time …. yet she is getting fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker. There is too much to process, yet you realize that something doesn’t make sense with what we have been told healthy food is. And, and Jane …. her situation DOESN’T MAKE SENSE either!! For years she has been on all of these “medications” yet her mental health isn’t getting any better. And, and, and you remember that Jane told you she pays exorbitant amounts of money for these meds that she absolutely “needs”. Again, you say “this DOESN’T MAKE SENSE”.

You are now thinking “gawww, what’s going on? Why am I thinking these things? …. Weird!”. Fortunately, the weather is absolutely perfect today and soon is that beautifully manicured park and lawn at the end of Sally Street. You hear a few rabbits rustling in the grass, some grasshoppers buzzing and a few birds chirping. “Ahhh how nice, wonder where those little fellas are?” you say. You don’t see them in the grass, you don’t see them next the community trash can, and there not in that cherry blossom tree. Turning around you see the community drainage pond which is a bit of an eyesore if we are honest; tall grasses, a shrub here and a different shrub there, a jagged oak tree at the ponds corner and even some weeds. ….. But you then see that is where the rabbits are, and where the squirrels are, …. And the grasshoppers, and birds. Boing, spring, boing – those grass hoppers really got some legs!! Chirp-chirp and phflewwww a little finch bird with red and blue winds flies from the oak tree to a spring nettle bush limb in the middle of the pond. And wow there are two squirrels playing …. or are they fighting …. or maybe they are fucking; but in any case, watching the squirrels is quite amazing. Chirp and phflewww the little bird flies from the limb of the spring nettle and in doing so knocks off some of the spring nettles uniquely soft and cotton like “leaves” onto the ground. Under a number of these spring nettle bushes are piles of their soft and cotton like “leaves” and in these particular areas are really tiny but absolutely beautiful flowers, hundreds of them, they are teeny tiny but absolutely gorgeous! Turning back around you see the big manicured lawn and my oh my its one really vibrant color of green! One color of green across the whole lawn with millions of blades of grass that are all completely identical. And a perfectly straight line of cherry blossom trees and …… a trash can. To you, this is kinda like walking in to that one neighbor’s house …. ya know that one neighbor who has an absolutely spotless and perfectly designed house? It’s nice, but something isn’t right … it’s too nice. It’s beautiful make no doubt but it’s so perfect and straight and clean that it makes you feel a bit stern and even anxious. Now you turn around again to see the drainage pond and “ahhh” natural colors, imperfect shapes, leaves, grasses, flowers, trees and animals. You say “ahh wow this is actually quite beautiful, not an eyesore at all!”. You turn around again to continue your walk through and beyond the perfectly manicured lawn, and you see a man taking off his hazmat gear getting into a truck branded with “Clean and Green Environmental and Lawn Services”. In the bed of this truck are bottles and chemicals and tools. This truck looks clean, respectful, responsible and professional. Then you see 3 or 4 warning placards of the chemicals on board …. eeeek that doesn’t look good. As you start to cross the lawn you start to see some nice looking little temporary flags …. nice looking flags that say “WARNING!!! Area recently sprayed for maintenance, DO NOT enter, play on or be near this area for 2 weeks. ‘Wait, wait, wait … that truck is here every month!!! And every day kids play here without reservation” you say. You think, is this actually okay? Does anyone care? Should we care? YES YES YES we should, you begin to think. Cancer, autism, mental health issues, reproductive problems, environmental toxins …. all of those things are here! Right here! Happening now!!! Again, just as you wanted to save little boy Taylor you want to save these children!! Quickly you decide to send a group text and email warning all parents to NOT have their children play on the lawn for 2 weeks because of DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!!! You decide you will do that as soon as you get home.

As you continue walking you soon reach the little nature path between the row of houses. Finally, a little sanity; a few ducks, a few joggers, and a few dog walkers. Taking a few breaths, you try to calm yourself and figure out why you are noticing all of these things …. you wonder if you should give your doctor a call, I mean you are a bit … something not “normal” today. Jane says she calls her doctor whenever her head is a bit off to make sure to know what to do with her medications …… yet Jane is more INSANE than ever, you realize!! You know you and you know that there are some traumas in your past, some shit …. some of this stuff you have yet to overcome, yet some of it you have conquered because you are a STRONG, and responsible person! Knowing this you stay the course, remind yourself of who you are and carry on.

The short nature path and the bit of sanity again quickly opens up next to the busy and bustling main road. Yesterday you were happy to see your town growing, with fast moving cars and trucks everywhere. However, today you accept the OBVIOUS!! “What the fuck!! OMG I am standing 8 feet away from cars, Ubers, and massive trucks all traveling at 40, 50 and even 60 miles an hour!!” You say, This is dangerous!! Very very dangerous!! Yet we all do it ….. I mean we do kind of have to, yet, why don’t we ever think of the insanity of it!! Jeeze!!! You look up and see the skydivers again. There are 6 parachutes way up there …. Way, way up there … just floating around and not falling out of the sky …. Not falling out of the sky because they never actually fall out of the sky. You quickly say “Wait they’re not in much danger, I am the one in danger” HONK!! And again “Ahhhhh truck I am the one in danger!!!!”. You freak! Fortunately, the path next the busy street isn’t very long so you run, you run fast, and you make sure to run on the side of the sidewalk furthest from the street. It’s short but you are running hard and out of breath …… and soon thankfully you make it back to a safer and slower area of the neighborhood, the area of the neighborhood where the Jones live. You are out of breath and again frazzled! You do a number of quick head shakes, saying “holly fucking fuckedey fuck, gawww”, both of your hands go to the top of your forehead and then slowly down the side of your face, this wiping away a little sweat and also acting as an attempt to calm yourself.

Soon Mr. Jones aka Josh drives by in his nice new Tesla Model S, and that is a relief, if all of this is just a dream at least a few things are normal. And again, there is Katie struggling with her screaming, crying and rambunctious children trying to get them into the minivan. Their car ride yogurt will calm them down you remember …. their vegan rainbow yogurt …. That Katie always gives them to calm down. You say “…. again, wait yogurt is made from dairy …. Dairy isn’t vegan …. Modified plant goop might not be so good …. and the MASSIVE amount of refined sugar …. the FOOD DIES for the rainbow color!!”. After saying that to yourself you remember the social media push of mothers who were WARNING WARNING WARNING parents to keep kids, especially kids’ hyperactivity disorders away from refined sugar absolutely, but more so than this the crazy ass food dies!!! These sugars are proven to be highly addictive and you clearly heard from other mothers that removing the neurotoxic food dies from their kids’ foods COMPLETELY fixed their insane behavior. Katie’s kids aren’t just rambunctious little munchkins ….. her kids are ADDICTED to refined sugar and being POISONED to the point of clinical insanity!!!!!!! Katie, a GOOD Mother you know has literally gotten her children addicted to sugar (the world’s most powerful drug) and is LITERALLY POISONING her children!!!! You start running towards Katie to warn her of the INSANITY of this exact moment, but before you get there the kids are in the car driving past you …… consuming machine processed plant goop, the world’s most powerful DRUG and literal brain POISON!!!!!.

And silence …. A weird, weird silence and a calm sensation, yet there is that ringing you are hearing ……. It’s like time has stopped You look forward on the path you will continue to go home on, and slightly to the left you look at the golf course where someone is teeing off …. time hasn’t stopped but it feels like it. A car drives by and things are still silent – except for that ringing. Then ringing sound stops, time seems to start again, you hear a bird, a golfer holler “fore” and cars in the background. Speaking of the background, you see the Jones’s house, a big beautiful multimillion dollar McMansion. A multimillion-dollar house that is owned by the Jones and a small portion of the roof is brand new. You now remember Katie telling you that their house really needed a new roof but all they could afford was to replace the worst of it. And that they were behind on their credit cards, that their food bills were difficult and that Katie was now looking for more work. Now you say to yourself “Josh has a super high paying job and Katie works so they could afford this house …. but they … well apparently, they can’t afford it …. John and Katie make 2 or even 3 times more than you, but are really struggling financially …. this DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!!!”. Having completed this statement to yourself, you now think enough is enough, and you start blasting music through your headphones and continue towards home.

With your favorite music blasting, you are walking very quickly and you just want to go home. Whatever is going on with what you are feeling, seeing and accepting is too much, and you just want to go home. And on the way home is another grassy community area …. being sprayed with POISON!!! Now that you have accepted some truth, this causes you to freak!! Fuck it! You are not much of a runner but you start to run!!! Run and run and run!!! Even while smelling the fumes leaching from the “Clean and Grean Environmental and Lawn Services” truck. Faster and faster you run …. You just want to go home. You see POISON food wrappers on the sidewalk left behind by children, again truly seeing the heinous nature of such products. Faster and faster you run. You are getting close to your house! You see a few alcohol bottles through the open window of a house and see that that evil is everywhere, another mom with her baby deep, deep, deep inside a stroller white knuckling a brain washing tablet. Your heart yearns absolutely yearns to fix all of these things now!! Crazed, manic and out of breath you are now back home.

Back inside you sit on the couch not knowing if you should scream, cry, act or ask for help. “What happened today?” you say. “What happened today?!!!” you say again.

And what has happened is you have started to wake up! You have started to see the system, the fabric that holds society together, you have started to see the matrix!!! You have started to see the food matrix, the drug matrix, the alcohol matrix, the chemical matrix, the financial matrix and the chemical matrix!!! You have started to question everything!!!! You have started to say “hmmmmm”.

Now!! WAKE UP – WAKE UP – WAKE UP!!!!

……. hey, wake up

Chapter 26 – Conclusion

And we are back. For some, that last chapter was a little unsettling and for some it was a full awakening.

Thank you for being here, thank you for the strength to become you, it has been an honor to present you with Crazier Than I Thought, Seeing The Matrix An Autobiography and More.

The only thing that can stand the test of time is time (that’s a pretty stupid saying, isn’t it? Fuck it, for the time being we will keep it). It’s hard to say what is really going on here, we are an infinitely small part of this universe and for that reason we are infinitely important.

Seeing the matrix is a never-ending process. Keep looking, change the way you interpret what you see. Find truth, deprogram, reprogram, thrive and spread the word.

Forces of evil have forever been attacking forces of good. It’s time we decide where we stand. Rick was my reason to fight. What is your reason to fight?

This book will mostly remain as one that relies on attraction rather than promotion. Such methodology is fairly simple; if this book hasn’t been helpful to you, why should it be promoted? And right now, is when you can begin to fight. If this book has been helpful to you, please help others by sharing it with them. Of course, don’t be afraid to go to TruthNugget.Co and find that big ole “donate now” button as well.

“Wisdom is knowledge of things that do not change” – Thomas Aquinas

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