Russell Brand Speaks Candidly About His Addictions & Recovery

this is a very special edition of under the skin because I'm not even hosting it I am the guest this week under the skin will be hosted by the great Welsh philosopher the Dylan of emergent new consciousness it is Brad Evans and what this man doesn't know about violence isn't worth knowing and I should lacerated my self and kick me own ed in before I deny his knowledge of the subject of violence with the with my book coming out and Brad has kindly agreed to interview me on the subject of recovery Brad I have my very much as a philosopher over the course of these of this excursion into the subcutaneous world we have become friends and I'm very grateful for you doing this I will now hand over full authority to you and yeah I'd like to begin by saying obviously read an advance copy of your book and it was actually a real privilege to read it and I was actually taken by a lot of the courage that you put down on the pages so that to me something to be deeply applauded now the one thing I guess you know I'm also I guess kind of humbled that your tea show trusted me to do this so - thank you and thank you for our friendship that's something with you know cherishing and I'd like to go you know directly into this question as I say it's kind of you know it's interesting being on the other side of this and the one thing that which I kind of think about you know is that for anybody who writes a book they know that it's a whole series of procrastination sometimes it takes months often it takes years and I guess the first thing that really struck me was what compelled you to write this book at this particular point in your life I felt anybody that's in recovery who has this experience where what begins is something that you're using to tackle a particular addiction in my case initially crack and heroin becomes sort of over time like I realized that the tools and techniques I was using to one day at a time not used drugs and alcohol were becoming utilized in every area of my life the way that I feel about sex the way that I feel about food all behavior and all forms of attachment can be tackled or at least my perception of them can be altered by working the 12 steps so excuse me coffee me but so what I felt was but this like at this point in my life where I feel like I've gone through so many layers of disillusionment disillusionment with fame disillusionment with Hollywood disillusionment with sex and disillusionment is I think by and large a bloody good thing who wants to be illusioned life so you know and I so I felt like you know the recovery is the lens through which I live my life is that my relationship is conducted through the program that I described in this book obviously my spiritual development the way that I relate to other people I by no means do it perfectly but it's a technique that make that so effective that I want to expound it because I've seen it change lives of people with really serious chemical dependency really serious behavioral problems and I think it's a technique that offers is a kind of counterweight to the overriding ideology of our time which seems to me to be a kind of determined and uncon and yet unconscious of self-centeredness mmm-hmm yeah I think when I was reading the manuscript and this call for transformation really comes through there and you can see there's a very personal journey that you go on and I guess I was trying to figure out what type of book it actually was and I know this is bloody ironical come from a so-called postmodern a story that I was trying to label and classify it and I think you know in an affirmative way it's it's almost like an anti self-help book and I think what I try to mean by this is that I think the central message which really jumps off the pages is that it's precisely these kind of traits of a self-centered individualistic kind of [ __ ] the world narrative and all its kind of loving sentiments which kind of gets us into this fix in the first place it's kind of just help yourself narrative and I think what really to me comes out of this is more about a sober and perhaps more truthful cry for human connection is that where you see the hope for the book yes because I think our culture and our biochemistry collude to create a kind of chronic individualism and I feel that the natural conclusion of a kind of a secular rejection of the mystical leads us to the conclusion that we are just individuals we here to survive we're here to fulfill our impulses in the original 12-step literature it says like we have no argument with those people that say perhaps man's purpose is simply to fulfill these biochem biochemical drives to procreate to survive to dominate the selfish gene approach but he says one thing we are certain of is no one has made a worse mess of this way of life than we did suffer from alcoholism and addiction and like me when I try to live my life as a means to find personal fulfilment or get into sort of a kind of peculiar despair I start to feel lonely I start to feel disconnected that don't mean I don't pick up the cudgel once again and try to find my way back to false prophets why I feel qualified to write a book on addiction is because I've been addicted to heroin I've been addicted to crack I've been addicted to fame money sex relationships other people's approval I see this phenomena emerge again and again and I'm starting to think that the label of addiction in itself is too confining that actually this is the human condition in motion you're yearning itself yearning and we live in a culture I think that uses as its fuel this will to acquire you know like I thought it's become the reason I read the book is because it seems to me that simple though this is in particular though it is in the origin it entailed within it are tools that could change people's perspective in quite a profound way and what you say they're bred about it it takes you from a point of view of going oh if only I can get this when I get that I'll be cool or if that person understood me or if I could have sex with that person or if I could get those shoes all of these puppy impersonal examples from my own life like everyone be okay and it doesn't work but if I go you know and I don't do it enough because I'm again I every day I wake up once again bewitched and hypnotized by individualism but when I go and spend time helping other people sometimes in real blatant sub Princess Diana way he's like going to a homeless shelter and getting proper hands on and being amongst it or if just on a basic communal way like we human beings should be taking phone calls from other people that are suffering reaching out talking about their problems for a change which you know it's odd that it needed to be formatted for me to understand it because I'm sure a lot of people just bloody do it naturally but it just gives me a little different way of talking to my mates if my mates are going through relationship struggles or personal struggles or work struggles I think all right well this is good cuz I can connect to you here and while I'm talking to you I won't be thinking about myself and my own problem and the more I do you know I think you know like in Christianity Brad I want to know what you think about all this stuff man like when it talks like when Christ says it get down with a poor that's where it's at it's not like oh my god we could birth scars and lesions he's like there's some energy there when you're helping others and the kind and not only that the other people that help others are beautiful so you start to feel a kind of elevated sense of connection purpose meaning all of these words that are I think being increasingly marginalized empathy all these things that are being excluded from those of political ideologies of our time and the social ideologies of our time suddenly become accessible through these most basic things you know there's an interesting point in terms of you know I think we can all kind of know in our lives when human connections seem deeply meaningful to us I mean know that these connections exist and we thrive on them and we know that they're kind of really reciprocal because they're based on an ethical understanding and an idea of love with one another but we often drivel actually two relationships which as you say we're trying to seek affirmation in the wrong places and they become very toxic and they become and sometimes Society can actually promote those types of relationships which we know are actually deeply you know detrimental to ourselves where emotional well-being to our intellectual well-being and yet we still strive for them and and even though we know they are completely empty meaningless what indeed may be nihilistic in terms of our own sense of self and I think that's possibly romanticism you know I'm not saying the romanticism is a mendacious idea but the the notion that you can find fulfilment by being with some aspirational figure some deity some living goddess your own personal Jesus I'll find salvation if I find them one you know that that idea I think he's highly prevalent but even more toxic than this I think is the commodification of relationships that happens on why as I say it's a collusion between biochemistry and culture like it's very natural I think on some level to meet a man and think what can this man do for me can he serve me can he make me feel better can I make money is he gonna be a good ally in a fight what can I do of it or in my case with women do I want to have sexual intercourse with that woman is this person gonna make me feel better about myself this is the commodification and the objectification it happens there in my case it happened quite quite automatically I have to work to not approach relationship in that way so and so for me the program is the antidote to the type of thinking to which I have a tendency that's all it addiction is is a tendency left on my own I will go that way unless I intervene unless there is a program and the other thing breath I think is it seems to me to be important is we don't choose between a program and no program we have a program you have the program of your family you have the program of your society you have the program of your culture you have the program of consumerism if you don't undo that program if you do not decode yourself like someone leaving a cult then that's the program you live in with the program of I'm not good enough I'll never be good enough unless I get this object or that object I won't be good enough and this that person can accept me now what I think this offers because it was designed to tackle alcoholism and addiction is a way of untangling the strands that web us to materialism consumerism and objectification and individualism all these things that are based on the idea that what can be measured what can be weighed is what is important see like my it's not like I am anti atheist in any kind of you know I know loads of people that I fees probably you like they're fantastic and incredibly smart and compassionate wonderful people my concern is that there's a thread within atheism that tells you that all the only thing that matters is that which can be ascertained and but and science in all of its main disciplines is forever peripheral forever on the brink of new discoveries and when you get someone like Elon Musk saying by like the with the kind of virtual reality technologies we have now there's no way of proving that we're not all currently living in a virtual reality and I had a go on my mates virtual reality thing my little mate is raised only eleven years old and four oh my god you can be immersed now in a totally totally different reality so Reena musk saying if we can do that imagine what other cultures could conceivably do you can't rule out the possibility that this is one well bloody ill that's what it says in the bag of a Gita except it doesn't use the word computer' you know like what is it that you want you know now we're saying yes the material world is an illusion that's like it's transmitted into your consciousness through the senses you reconfigure it and you in and and the inflections of your culture do you know what meaning you attribute to the external stimuli the only way of decoding that I think we're not the only way but a way of decoding that is by impersonal set impersonal crisis you get the opportunity to reevaluate that crisis could be divorced it could be drug addiction it could be a heartbreak or some other existential crisis but when you're at that point whether as an individual or as a society you can say is this the kind of life I want to believe that I want to live do I believe it could be different am I willing to accept help once you take those are the first three steps once you take those three steps it's possible to have transformation after that there's a process of inventory a willingness to change and then a devotion to conscious contact and to service and then you've got a completely different way of looking at the world yeah I think this you know this reevaluation is you know it's it's an ice triton is a really important thing but it's also a very difficult thing to start to reevaluate everything about your own sense of self your sense of behavior you know it's often easier to project your troubles onto other people rather rather than actually saying actually is this something about my own self which I needed to you know what how am i shamefully compromising the power in a way that's affecting my own relationships of the way I'm objectifying things daya fication and so on but I want to bring us on to the point the step that you said you know because I think when I was reading the book the first kind of couple of chapters was kind of like yeah I can go with this right it's kind of you know there's there's this step around okay admit you have a problem then go and speak with somebody then you go into this section now what you need to do is write an inventory of all the things which really piss you off oh wait a minute this is where it's starting to get challenging right and it's gonna start to get difficult and you you even say those words at the beginning so look you know this is not easy right this is difficult and and you talk about you know the let's write down all those things which you think create a certain your assault on your sense of salford on your sense of dignity and you know and the phrase you actually use it is the uncomfortable confrontations right so deal with this uncomfortable confrontations in your life and I wondered how did you actually feel of course from write in the book because in many senses you must have had to revisit a lot of uncomfortable confrontations which you would already might have kind of dealt with but in writing the book there was almost like an attempt to kind of revisit those issues and you know how how did you feel right in this book because of the efficacy of the program Brad it did not feel like the resurrection of the cadavers of my past because they have been buried and even in exhuming them this metaphors going well for the purposes of the book like it didn't they they they don't bring them back to life no like you know sort of I have a propensity to return to states of shame you know I like that I have that in me is easily triggered in me it's easily triggered like bleeding out to my wedding like because I think like this is the way I sort of have been explaining this you might like it right my mate Matt Morgan he said - he keeps climbing up saying hi don't climb up there she'll fall and your head will smash open like an egg right and ever since Matt said that a little boy coming kids go oh no my little smash like a Nick Matt said the image is too lurid for the child to be our hand but very like it's too potent an image right so me we're getting married like I don't think I don't getting married in the morning like standing all the way I think well what is marriage marriage is a ceremony this is a ritual this is about the relinquishes of the ego this is about coming together and making a vow to become a different man and to live in alignment with new principles so causes I'm looking at what what you know or in a burnheal accidentally we've not consciously but somehow actually looking at what is the meaning of a marriage it induces a state in me that's the point of ritual to induce a particular state no Meredith says my friend Meredith she goes people think that religion is about a text it is about the ritual it doesn't matter if you can't understand the Latin Mass better to just hear a lot babbling and so I think what is this guy talking about you know I'm sure some people identify with right now he's like the ritual induced the state in me the fear was so terrible the fear was so terrible Brad what am I gonna do and I had to use this program to cope with the level of fear I feel about getting married the next day not any fear about marrying my wife because I really wanted and really wanted to but something about that ritual that ceremony it meant something it wasn't nothing it wasn't oh it's only a bit of paper so turn up a churchill in a party no no no no no my friends there is the unseen there is the invisible something happened to me and I had to surrender 100% I had to surrender I said what is this fear trying to tell me what does the fear want the fear is communicating the fear is talking to me from my own biochemistry from our own body from my own consciousness a message a powerful message is being said sin and if I don't listen to it something bad is gonna happen to me I surrendered I surrendered wholeheartedly and every time I do that my life improves new states of consciousness are achieved through the surrendering of these biochemical circuits that somehow contains these neurological loops that we allow to encircle us and tether us to low states of consciousness yesterday on the bus but I want to connect it back to a question of philosophy because you know the trouble is with us bloody critical theories is we can't read any book without actually looking for the political and philosophical implications so you know like you know I'll read Alice in Wonderland I go this is the best bloody book of political theory ever written right but often we read books and actually most of them are just devoid of any significant philosophical significance or implications in other words they don't force you to think about a problem differently right now the one thing which I admired about the book was it's it's actually has a very deep political philosophical I feel of Safa Calaca texture to it and the one thing which I was kind of struck with the book and what I was kind of excited when I was reading with is is when you talk about this attempt to connection of about connection you also link it to the question of course you know life is very fleeting life is short and we need to find these connections and a meaningful existence and I think what the book really kind of finds almost like a rescuing for me is an attempt to introduce something of the substantive over the superficial and the substantive for you is spiritual and I was wondering how you can kind of maybe riff you know talk maybe a bit more about that you know what is it about the spiritual that is substantive for you in terms of dealing precisely with maybe the philosophy of the book what is substantial about the spiritual to me is its efficacy it works when I do these things I feel better when I am kind when I am loving when I surrender I feel better now these things can't be measured Mac and mechanized or monetized but they are in a fact in fact effective there is some truth in them that is difficult to legislate or iterate so that's why it works me and I think perhaps the reason that this program is so good is I didn't invent it it was invented or constructed by someone else like you know in the nineteen thirties in America a chronic alcoholic Bill Wilson who after like an incredible sort of an epic drinking binge that the type which had defined his life had what he describes as an epiphany and I believe epiphany to be the revelation of essence the previously concealed revelation of essence why do I feel this way what's going on suddenly you know why and Bill wasn't as disappear 'funny and realizes that he will never be able to be free from drink and the problems that result from it unless he helps other people to not realize he's one he can never drink again one day at a time - he's going to have to help other people that have the same problem in order to achieve this state and sets about it immediately first of all troubling drunks in New York going up to people in bars going let me help you let me help here and then predictably saying no get off me alone then eventually he has this of a program an experience which in the myth of the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous is the significant moment the defining moment and the conception I suppose he's in Akron Ohio and it worried for a business appointment and it comes on him he's in the hotel that he's staying at and he sees the bar and he hears the music tempted to go in and but adjacent to the entrance to the door is a public telephone this is the 1932 remember and he takes a chance and he rings up and he calls up a local priest and says look if you got anyone or a doctor maybe he calls like have you got any cause a priest have you got anyone in this area that's been coming in coming I'm the terrible trunk help me help me and I goes yeah we have he goes can you put me in touch with that guy I need some serious help like I want to help him he goes oh yeah this guy needs a few more phone calls here and there as they make the connection but eventually ends up with that doctor Bob the other founder of Alcoholics Anonymous goes run his ass he says to this guy listen I've got this problem I'm unable to stop drinking once I start it's ruining my life I ruin all my relationships with my job opportunities fall apart it's destroying me he explains to him his condition the other guy starts talking about his problems the two of them having initially like the birthday apparently the dr. Bob guy was like you know I'm gonna tell me like he told his secretary come get this guy after 10 minutes ok it seems a bit weird I'm getting phone calls out of blue when people want to talk about booze they end up talking for hours and hours and hours they recognise at the end of the four hours that neither of them had wanted to drink during that whole time because alcohol is not the problem alcohol is the solution to the problem of living under the false ideals of a materialistic society people are looking for something they're looking for connection some people just can't live without that connection so they find another solution to living without the connection booze drugs sex gambling and I think we're all on the scale somewhere all of us are one way or another trying to come up with it they're very like couple of days later the two of them they start going the hospital's troubling other people there are people here that are here from because of alcohol-related problems yeah that dude over in that bed he's been a pain in the ass all night can hear him shouting from behind the curtain another two of them go over there hit em up and suddenly you know this this is you know as you know a lot more than me Brad within lucky in historical terms this is only the 1930s we're in 2017 now this thing grows and grows and grows people realize oh my god this works it works now that it's written in the Christian language of the time is written in the patriarchal terminology of the time it's also understandably protective of its identity the anonymity is to make sure that ia as a thing is protected and that no one person certainly not me can say hey I'm mister ia because I know that I'm really still crazy I could drink or take drugs tomorrow semi captain's you know I don't know I don't know what I'm gonna do I'm certainly you know as I've made clear in the book it's not written from a position of authority it's written from a position of experience I don't know better than anybody moat like I don't know what crazy things I'm gonna do I just but I know that if I work this program I'll be alright if I work this program I'll be alright the only problems start for me when I go I think I'll take control of this situation and thought because me then ego desire pleasure fear rage the other program steps back in so the reason the spirit is important because it's the only thing that can transcend the material is the only thing that can house it is the crucible of the material world what is consciousness where did it come from what [ __ ] hell like and for me this very simple tool gives us access to consciousness in a way that we will not attain if we live in accordance with our biochemical drives and a culture that uses it to turn us into passive consumers yeah I think you can connect this to the politics of the times in terms of you know on the one hand you know we're constantly told that nobody's in control right so we have to accept insecurity vulnerability I'm not going to lead to a lot of people being anxious but what York seemed to be saying is actually letting go of this very ridiculous idea that we can be in control of other people's behaviors other people's lies like bloody North Korea this morning if we dwell on these things then we're gonna live in a basically you know in this constant state of anxiety about things we can't possibly deal with and I think that's kind of and how do we seek some kind of affirmation out of this well maybe to turn to a different sense of the consciousness might be the alternative to that but I want to come back to your story about you know this question of confiding because the example you talked about you know these two guys we speak in and of course there they are confiding in one another and that idea of to confide in one another of course requires confidence right to confide requires confidence you need to have the confidence to confide in somebody and you might be a random stranger but at least you have an established trust around this kind of sense of you know of the confidence and there's a particular passage I want to read from the book and not only I think because it brought a tear to my eye I gotta shut on the illusions people have of me I do have emotions every now and again seem like it yeah I didn't know the truth on suicide in you like you were reading the side of a tin of beans but also because you know I think it really addresses what's a stake here and this kind of you know it says you know suddenly my fraught and frightened childhood became reasonable and soothed my mum was doing her best and so was my dad yes people made mistakes but that's what humans do and I am under no obligation to hold these errors and allow them to clutter my perception of the present yes it is wrong that I was abused as a child but there is no reason for me to relive it consciously or unconsciously in a way that I conduct my adult relationship my perceptions of reality even my own memories are not objective or absolute they are biased and they can be altered now this to me is a really powerful passage in the book because what you're talking about is not only can we sometimes you know decide then we do have a choice around you Tory if you talk about the things that we hold and carry along with us I'm not saying that we can ever forget them or we can outlive them but we can choose whether they define our lives or not I'm the favorite central message which I think comes out of this is a very positive messages if you do come find in others that's where the transformative potential happens you cannot simply trance wake up one day and say I'm gonna be an entirely new subjectivity you know it doesn't happen that way because in order to change your behavior you need to change your behavior in the eyes of others right we are human you know we're not human beings with human becoming so we're always connecting to people and disconnecting and reconnecting and in that sense it requires a certain you know confidence to transform and I wonder what you think about you're right Brad there one of the things that recurs lately since Yanis varoufakis said it on this podcast was you know we exist in dialectic what is called like you know seal me in a pod and shoot me into space like in what am i what am i that Horace Jarvis Cocker put it more simply without people we are nothing you know like so like yeah you're quite right that it is a collective and communal activity this book you could learn you could read it on your own you could do the program on your own but primarily it's about how you relate to yourself and how you relate to other people and the passage that you read from a book just to clarify the abuse happened outside of my family and your the thing that I think is important about you know the my stance that you can one can alter the perception of the past and if you alter your perception of the past you alter the present is that there yeah as I said there there is no objective reality but you're right this is going to be a state that's difficult to achieve just sat in a room you could can't just say that to yourself it has to be realized in relationship I believe mm-hm yeah I want to connect this then now then to the social implications that you've already talked about you know you see kind of addiction as something which is not just an individual pathology but it's a social construct right we you know society gives you these certain values and those values in many ways play to the human desires in a way which lend themselves to addictive personalities and actually we're taught to desire the very things which could bring us back down to it you know on our knees and there's something about the tabloid press in Britain which is kind of revealing of this you know we like nothing more than the celebrity who falls right because it's almost like this that's not the system failing it's working all too well right because we kind of expected this right we want this to kind of happen and you know but I want to kind of connect it also to your other work on and I think you know some of the other powerful work and advocacy work you've done on the war on drugs and linked in this question of addiction to drugs now as we know historically the war on drugs has been kind of separated between almost like a war legal paradigm versus a health development paradigm now I think you know the shift towards seeing it as a health problem is a positive shift away from the war paradigm but too often when we shifted then to the health paradigm it invariably retreats back into individual pathology right it's the person who's just simply at fault because you know they fallen through the cracks or whatever else and I think what your book is also trying to do is either a layer onto this and say yes you know addiction is a health problem it's a mental health problem but unless we understand the social consequences and the social effects which give rise to this problem and constantly feed it then we will not gain a real tangible purchase on this and you know I wonder what your thoughts are on this because this is to me I find is really important in terms of really pushing the debate forward on addiction and the war on drugs more generally and my question of violence and everything else which follows the criminalization of drugs is a useful social tool in the management of populations and this has been explored in films like 13th and the house I live in brilliant films on how the criminalization of drugs allows you to criminalize portions of the population in a form of necro politics creating new economies new opportunities for social management and social engineering particularly in the United States economically requires slavery in some form to sustain itself the health model you're right I said I hadn't really thought of that that the implications of a health model as a determinant means the individual pathology is there is suddenly the defining contributor to the condition there is clearly a relationship like Yemen Harry's written about addiction and either like the example he cites his rat Park where we know rats that were kept in conditions like the you know that because interesting you'll love this is a postmodernist dear Brad that there's the assumption of what normal is in in laboratory conditions though they with unthinkingly have this is normal and they put rats in cages and go look at these rats they much prefer the water bottle that's full of crack cocaine than normal water and then some point out album it's probably or avoid that cage let's give them a nice cage then with all me a good [ __ ] to do and they stop taking crack who curiously enough so you know there is undoubtably like addiction can affect anybody but doing a particularly chemical dependency but it is certainly exacerbated by economic depravity but there are different forms of depravity also emotional depravity is like it's not a condition that the the sort of the the economically deprived people have exclusively control although be nice from to have exclusive control of something but its effects are felt more there if you can't get into treatment if you can't afford to address it it is more likely that you know I mean you're criminalized from the get-go you're already a criminal so now is what degree of criminality is it that you're gonna cop for when I went to that um I went on a police raid in West London once and it was like you know it was a it was a very revelatory experience for me Brad because like the battered the door in of what was a crack out like you know even the term crack house once I got like even me as a person that been crack houses I've never really sort of questioned of the idea that that's not an ounce it's not really a crack house and you went here like we went in there and bought the dwell within the crack house was not monsters it was like booting down the door of a leukemia ward thin emaciated broken people slumped pale in a chair denied sunlight of every variety spiritual and literal just holding their lives together with drugs and the it's interestingly circular that this program on an individual level takes you from self obsession and narcissism and deposits you at a point of service and kindness because that is precisely the program that's required on a social level that if we have an inclusive empathetic loving society that the necessarily you you include people it would become a more inclusive society I think this model of sacrifice that exists within Christianity the the sacrificed God for me I apply it in my life when I sever I see suffering I think that guy's homeless so I don't have to be and mater mind got he's leg amputated recently and he's a person who works this program like I met him at acts of a conference for drug addicts it was very badly organized and the hearth and he was on crutches and like oh you like mate I don't email minds before you know for it was a nice guy but I didn't know him that well you all right it's called Pete oh you all right mate he goes oh yeah I go what's with the crutches you know expecting are you know a trip to broke my ankle some sort of minor interest story and he goes oh I've got cancer I'm having my leg amputated at the knee [ __ ] Hill bloody no no I'm good I want to live I want to be clean and I've sort of like some wave hit me of like the truth of what he was saying and the beauty self or I learn about this person I caught his number stayed in touch with the week leading up to the amputation he's fine the night before the amputation he's fine for out the amputation I speak to in the next days on on a bed MIT Leon opiates because of the nature the pain medication it were blissfully happy and he continues to be because with this program this is a program that is effective he transcends the material condition just says well my leg is being amputated I can't control that but I can control my reaction to my leg being amputated and I think about this I can't get it obviously out of my head how was this guy managing this how is he doing it because he's not putting it on I'm talking to him every day alright Rob's I'm just doing this thing yeah I'm doing I've recorded another thing today so he's happy and the reason is is because he's accepted it he surrendered it he's working this program and he's getting on with his life he's not gone now I will be defined by this problem and that's unbelievable that's unbelievable to me that is that powerful and it's that effective now he does this again as we say in communion in conversation so it works on an individual level but you're quite right Brad it's not something that we should ascribe to individual pathology because where are these bloody boundaries what do you mean an individual we're all made of the same stuff we're all thinking the same force rules feeling the same feelings other than the variety provided by cultural inflection and social conditions we're all basically basically the same so like if we have systems that encourage empathy if we have systems that emphasize the corollary in connection between us then we will build a better society yeah and I want to push you on the the title and which is recovery and I think you know you could offer almost like a simplistic reductive reading of the title which is almost like you know how can you kind of go back to a previous better self right so how do I recover myself it's almost like the gorge best question right where does it all go wrong in your life right and then if you can pinpoint this but as you say you know for a lot of people who are in this condition it's the social forces the complex social forces there is no pinpoint able moment in somebody's life where you can say this is kind of where it all goes wrong but I think the way I understand them the way you're using the term recovery also is also a critique of the idea that we can live a perfectible life and one of the striking things which comes out up for me of this is kind of a humility with what you're talking about is you know on the one hand not only not to take yourself too seriously although we you know we have to deal with serious issues in the world but also this idea that it's okay not to be okay sometimes and to admit this is no bad thing that's true and this is something again I've only really found in within spiritual conversations and spiritual not doctoring that in the right word but it's likely for me this has always been framed spiritually like when I talked to Sharon Salzberg on this podcast she said that when you're meditating it's normal that you start thinking all the time you don't punish yourself for that you just returned to the mantra or return to the breath you accept fail ability as part of the part of the equation of your humanity that you to a degree relinquish the idea of perfection but sort of somewhat paradoxically I suppose breath that one of the meanings or implications of the term recovery is that you recover the person you're supposed to be supposed to be in infocomm as I suppose but meaning that a natural biochemical entity such as a human being or a tree does having it a code it has an intention it will grow a certain way if unimpeded by in our case social cultural personal familial conditions so what this the point of recovery is is to get you back on to that intended path and it is my belief that the intended path is not to be a passive consumer that just cooperates as an as a union we're within within a system of sales just as a statistic we are engaged we must re be reborn unto the present so that we can become really what we are so that we can become what we are yeah so this idea of rebirth I'm going to kind of try to end then on a very positive note and good then at the start of the book you deal with the big impending D or the death question right so nothing more positive than death right and as you point out during the introduction the reality of death individually and yet it's certain right is something we don't like to talk about publicly and yet of course we know from Plato onwards there's this idea that to philosophize is effectively to learn how to die mmm - to learn and to death might not be a physical death it might be the death of a relationship or the death of you know an idea the death of a person you once were and you can kind of mourn this right but I don't however think this goes far enough and I think actually might need to take it a stage further and there's a quote from David Bowie when he puts he says religion is for people who fear hell spirituality is for people who have been there now I think with this in mind I think the question your book kind of leaves me asking is how can we learn to examine our lives in a way in which maybe as you say the addict you know has a certain experiential value right because they have seen rock-bottom they can look at life almost the example you give of the people who are deprived of light right in this emaciated state they know what it means to look at life from the perspective of death right they almost already dead right so I think you know in terms of then your hopes or the book you know and looking at the future how can we learn and maybe take the voices of these people much more seriously in terms of if we appreciate with all kind of knee-deep in the mud right and we know existence is tragic but we know existence is also wonderful right so how can we maybe learn to go beyond this question of just simply learning how to die and look at life from the perspective of death and become much more affirmative of what we actually have in this all too fleeting existence well for me Brad it's become certain quite simplistic attitudinal shifts such as acceptance gratitude that I relinquish the idea that though I'm not homeless in a gutter smacked up off my nut because I'm somehow superior but just because of sort of a random set of coordinates and events of the positive me in a comfortable life and I'm really really lucky and gracious so I don't have a punitive attitude towards those people and I see a means like you know those sort of sometimes they write ourselves but where I came as a repositories potentially of great truths and important information one of the recovery charities or organizations that they work with BAC O'Connor they run facilities in burton-on-trent in the United Kingdom and stoke-on-trent you know in the middle of those areas and I went to an event with them the other day and like I spoke to that service users which means you know in this case drug addicts and stuff and like sort of talk through what they're doing in their program the counsellors a good number of the counsellors themselves people in recovery which I think he's always very very helpful and then afterwards my wife was there that sort of a satin that I put on a lovely spread for us God laughs erm you know sort of some crisps and maybe something even as far-flung as bruschetta but the kind of bruschetta one would get in stoke-on-trent yeah ketchup MuRF been involved I mean it's perfectly nice anyway there's this bloke are there who was a proper to glance at like if you can imagine shaggy from the cartoon scooby-doo but he slept outside for a year and he's had a bloody good kicking and no dental work like this is what this guy looked like Finn broken and like he's a drug addict obviously and I like he's sort of he's come lay and he's thin is [ __ ] and he's like ransacking the buffet quite gently you know just thinking oh there's food they'll take that and sort of packing out and stuff and okay so I might and I'll yeah you're you and you and I yeah yeah yeah that's right and and because I'm like when I'm among other people that have got addiction issues I feel like I don't have the obligation to try and act like I know what I'm doing or that I'm clever or that I'm in control and I said thank to him about feeling like oh yeah like maybe he mentioned Fame in some capacity and I go yeah but I do get like you know get nervous and I get frightened you fight for you like Russell Brand and like who cares what other people think about you it amazes people that know you if they don't know you're [ __ ] right now of this is highly colloquial but like also for me is sort of profound and beautiful and also the fact that he's even willing to take that role when me in someone who's there sort of visiting and kind of like I'm here as a patron of this organization like they like it's not like dumbfounded by the idea that I'm nervous and fearful he accepts oh this guy's just the same as me and there's an honor in that you know a real honor and I think they're waking people not only realize it but somehow can live it I'm sort of realizing it but the challenge is living it you know like that is there is no distinction there is no separation between him and me we're all spirit seeing it where like as the great Bill Hicks said we were all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively and when I realize and live that I'm not on my own anymore I'm not afraid anymore I don't have these obligations to prop up some avatar of myself that people might love or approve of or boost up or make much of to ameliorate some in a sense of worthlessness there is a the with it the selves is in the wound the selves is in the wound you know when someone punishingly says I'm worthless I'm nothing is it trying to reach the truth beneath that that we are essentially not divided separate from and therefore are everything in the oneness is not about annihilation of the self as in the subjugation you know refer to your work in a violent and destructive way but the recognition that there is no need for fear and there is no disease need for desire because we are already one we are already one and that these things are not just philosophical tropes or empty mantras they are things you can live by recognizing that your own suffering can become a tool and the suffering of others can be an opportunity if you can just break out of the pre-existing and imposed paradigm that you are here to earn money that you're worth is established by what you've got you know and like I Jason Segel the actor I'm friends with him and he went all those things we defined ourselves by like you know maybe there's a billboard up with your face on it it's just the symptoms of other people making money out of you it's not you it's not you and all that being flown around in a jet and fated over like that's not something for fear not doing that's something too we've escaped because gosh yes it's in its way as there is glamor of course glamour is a thing people respond to it pleasure and all of those things but there's no real worth in it like I met that homeless guy once and no he was not home as he was going to work with some homeless people I met him in New Orleans and he was off to go and sort of help out some homeless deal you know feeding homeless people and he didn't recognize that was famous that sweaty guy he said to me I'm Fame money all of that that's the crumbs I want to be at the banquet the banquet and somehow we've been tricked into thinking you know that's what real religious people toriel that so you'll get out of one crack on with what they're doing but this is not about subjugation this is not about asceticism this is not about denial this is about finding the truth and often the the material world is preventing you from getting there it's preventing you from getting it cuz with caught up in the ornamentation and we can't see that we're all part of one garment yeah so then to kind of sum up the one thing which I've taken really taken from the book is being an alone and loneliness is the greatest killer it's the because not only does it result in people dying prematurely but it can kill your sense of self-esteem and dignity and the to Braga's messages which I want to maybe just be nerd reiterated why take from the book is that if you are feeling alone speak to someone or if you see in somebody who's lonely give them a helping hand because they probably need you more than you really realize and I think that to me is the one thing which I wanted to take from the book and is that how you know do you have any final comments on that or you try to remind myself when I'm talking to people like I'm talking to another human being mm-hmm and I try to talk to them with love and respect and often if the or if the opportunity is explicit like you know if it's I'm dealing with someone's got drug and alcohol problems or some other problem that I identify with this is an opportunity to be loving I forget this all the time aren't pretty long distance from perfection but like I try to remember you know that I'll God you didn't really look at that person in the eyes you didn't make an attempt to connect with them but we can come from a perspective of love we don't need to only be coming from self-preservation we're not all here competing for resources it's yes there was perhaps there's some evolutionary truth to that millennia ago but it's not true now well we're here to help one another and in deciding that we can create it all it's a pleasure is always chatting to you Russell and you know thank you for the opportunity to get under the skin with you and turning the tables around that was a bloody good wrap-up Brad thank you so much for doing it it's really lovely to talk to you obviously a very beautiful person and you're clever it doesn't matter what I say I could go on such a long run in good luck where I'm referencing Zen Buddhism bloody Jack Kerouac consciousness itself biochemistry and like an indigo yeah yeah like you like your mind three seconds faster than mine which I don't like incidentally Thank You Brad this show was sponsored by my new book recovery pre-order your copy by going to Russell Brand calm and if you like this show please subscribe and review in iTunes only five star reviews please I'm very sensitive

Channel: Russell Brand

Views: 326,520

Keywords: Russell Brand, Brand Russell, Brand, Brand X, The Trews, Trews, Russell Brand Trews, Russell Brand video, Russell Brand news, news review, News, Recovery, Addiction, Russell Brand New Book, Russell Brand Interview, Drugs, Alcohol, Self Help, Russell Brand Drug Addict, AA, 12 step programmes

Id: 3YSfRyne7IY

Length: 48min 31sec (2911 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 15 2017