Hunter Biden

Hello. Today we have Hunter Biden on who is an author. He was a lawyer. He was a lobbyist. He is an artist and he's a recovery advocate. Obviously he's the son of Joe Biden, the 46 president and he has a book out now called beautiful things detailing his harrowing journey through fucking hardcore addiction. Yeah. And so this is a very addiction heavy episode. It's we try to minimize any political nature. I think this is the kind of story I love to hear about

addiction. That's primarily what it is. Yes. So I hope everyone goes into it with an open mind because it's some incredibly honest and vulnerable and powerful. I agree. Please enjoy Hunter Biden. I'm really, really chariom late. You're pretty sugar? Yeah. All right. Nice to meet you.

“Luckily we had sugar in the raw otherwise it was bringing out a white powder. That's what it started”

for these things. Sugar in your coffee. I'm a little shocked. I'm going to be honest. We'll start with stereotypes. Yeah. I thought you were tougher than this. Oh no. I got my few things. I got my nicotine, a little bit, a bit smoking. When I got clean, Melissa, my wife, she convinced me to go to this guy. Which is named the hypnotist? Yeah. I don't know his name but I know of him. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That was like bullshit. And I went to work. Yeah. And then like six months later

I got to know this is like my first indictment in my second. I was like, I need some nicotine. Yeah. He said he could get anybody off anything. I was shocked. Have you seen this guy? Like he's like out of a movie. He's got the worst two pay you've ever seen. Oh, right. He brings you into his garage that has all this brick a bracket everywhere. Yeah. He's sitting like in a park alone. And he has a bottle of water. This is I remember. Yeah. He just talking to you about nicotine and cigarettes. And when

you start and things like that and all I remember is just to do this. There's never a moment where

you're like you're under the very end few comes. And it's just three sessions. And at the last session

“he said, that's it. You're done. Wow. And I was done. That's crazy. How about this physical withdrawal?”

Not done. Did it feel? No. The craziness? No. Now he does it over three sessions. And like the first session, you're going to smoke cap of what you smoke. Okay. Okay. Okay. Second session. You're only going to have two cigarettes a day. And then the third you're done. And I was done. I mean, I was smoking since I was 17. I mean, when you were sober, probably a back. Yeah. And when I was. Yeah. Well, when I look back, I remember my epic hangovers. And at this point, it's hard to really know

because I also had smoke like three packs of camel whites on nights that I party. But if you're

blowing lines, the cigarette never goes out. It's just one after another. And you wake up feeling

horrendous. You know, I don't, I don't know how to unravel. The alcohol is that the cocaine was at the same amount of cigarettes. And that's the whole problem. It's one way to come over. This is

“a big wall. That's what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of your position. I've”

heard you speak on this a bit. I think statistically we would agree, right? I think the shocking number I heard you say is like, you add up every single other known drug in the amount of deaths caused by alcohol is five backs, some total of every other drug. Yeah. Which I guess then you can try to parse out like what is the quantity aspect of the drug and then what's the quality of aspect that's causing that destruction? Yeah. What do you think? I think it's both. Alcohol number one is

so ubiquitous. But beyond it being ubiquitous is the only drug that impacts every organ to be a body. And every pleasure center of your brain, if you're in stimulants, it's like the dopamine reactor. If you're into opiates, it's the opioid receptors. Exactly. Alcohol does all of them. And then you become truly physically dependent upon it, meaning that your body will shut down if you deny it the amount of alcohol that you've been putting in it and you'll go into seizures and die.

And the only other drug is facing the freeze-dried alcohol is the presence. And so from that perspective and then you just look at the societal effect of it. And that part is the quantitative part and the quantitative part being that it is so ubiquitous. The amount of deaths and destruction that alcohol causes in everything from car accidents to literally just people phoned on the steps to people beating the hell out of their partners or the kids or the things like that.

Yeah. Man, you remind me of how insanely hard alcohol was to quit in that you're never more than a

Anywhere. You're always within a couple hundred feet of this thing you're trying your hardest

“to never get into your own home. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, if you have a partner who does it normally.”

Yeah, I kind of almost forget how insurmountable that first section was of just like, how will I ever begin to ignore the amount of alcohol? I just see all the time everywhere I go. Gracefully, I've not walked in in 23, 22 years. I haven't walked into a lot of rooms and saw bowls of cocaine. No, exactly. And if I saw bowls of cocaine every hundred feet. Crack either. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

or heroin or opiates for that matter or other synthetic opiates. We now it'll be interesting to see what the kind of long term result of it'll all be. I'm generally in favor of it being legalized or fully in favor, but it is becoming ubiquitous now. Oh, me too. By the way, I'm not for profession. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is what it is. Yeah. I would rather see legalization of everything before it's just a much more honest approach. Yeah, I don't know about it. Everything, but I don't fully

thought it through. I used to think that. I don't know as younger. Crack at year 711. Yeah, sure, you San Francisco, you can see it. But that's a thing. By the way, the reason I talk about crack, the way that I talk about crack is because it comes with such a stigma and it's so shocking to people. And I don't say it to shock people. Joe, we're going to do this whole thing where,

“oh my God, you should hear him talk about crack. It's like a lost lover. Well, it's just honest.”

And I don't mean to talk about it that way. And I want to always make clear, it is actually that

dangerous. And the other thing about crack for me is this idea that there's this process. And it's a whole different thing. And it's kind of like the secret. It's not. It had bad branding. I mean, crack sounds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're already a sound. If I can gross, yeah. Exactly. If it were called taint cocaine. It's what it's adjacent to taint cocaine. It's because there's also some racism in the mix. Well, there's a huge amount of racism. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. That was a lost goal.

My senior little writing is like your thesis at your rate at Yale. That's what I wrote about. What? I wrote about the disparity in sentencing is relates to crack, which the Obama administration changes and then the Biden administration kind of riddled together. Yeah. This arbitrary distinction legally. The response to it was understandable in retrospect, and that it kind of came in it just tore apart communities and record speed

and that level of violence. But the level of violence always is never necessarily associated with

use. The level of violence is all around the trade. And I would say to people, just go watch the fucking wire. It had a standing effect on so many communities. And the reason that I am so open about it, number one is just because you've had probably the same experience. I don't know of anybody who hasn't been impacted by addiction in their lives on where another. The thing is, as much as we talk about it, people don't talk about it. And it's really hard for non-act

to understand. I want to express an overarching goal I have for talking to you, which is I try my heart to keep the show apolitical. I want Republicans to feel as welcome listening to the shows. I do Democrats. I think the things I'm interested in talking about. I hope everyone would get to hear about addiction, about trauma, about all these things. So my goal is to keep it as apolitical. It's possible. But I'm going to break it right now to just say, there's only been a single moment

that I thought Trump potentially lost his momentum with his base. And it was the one moment he tried to come after your dad about your addiction. You could just feel in that audience. Everyone's like, oh no, you're talking about my son. You're talking about my brother and love. You're talking about my mom. That one didn't work. I just think it's so pervasive and everyone's had the heartbreak of it. I've so few people are fully insulated from it that I just thought, wow, weirdly of all these things,

that's the thing I think cut through the sharpest. So your intuition or insight into that is actually

“really spot on, which is interesting because that's what the whole attack on me initially was all about.”

Was all of the salacious pictures that they stole and cobbled together from, I don't know, how many different devices this idea that there was like one laptop that somebody had, it's just bullshit. Your whole life was a fucking train wreck, right? There was a whole group of the train wreck. But like you, not my whole life, three years of extreme addiction. You know, I mean, look at those pictures and 90% of them were somebody taking a picture of me.

But regardless, then what they did is they conflated two things. One that was completely untrue, with one that was completely true. I was a crackhead. The thing that wasn't true was that I was taking bribes from like Ukrainians and Chinese and was involved. But if you can get somebody, you know, there's this thing called elimination is rhetoric. Rachel Maddoz talked about it.

in which if they can get just 5% of the people to believe that you're a pedophile or a crackhead,

“attach like the worst thing that you can say somebody, the ability to get 30% of the people”

to believe that you're taking bribes, is that much easier? Well, and then we're circling back to the far-reaching tentacles of labeling crack, the kind of racial connotations, the now new heights of shame reach by the addict. If you're cocaine addict, you're in great company. You're with Sigmund Freud for pizza. You're with the luminary. It's a Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. When you're a crackhead addict, your group is totally different. And so you're already

juggling the shame of an addiction. And then you add on this other factor, which is like, oh, no, it's known. I'm full exclusion of my community. This is the one thing that, no, I am the bottom of the barrel, even among addicts. I am the shittiest of the shitty. So yes, if we establish you as a crackhead, then really your reputation's gone. So all things are conceivable at that point, because we've already designated crackheads as being zombies who are the worst of the worst. Yeah.

So it all works in concert beautifully, actually, to be clear, I handed it all to them on a silver platter because I was a crackhead. And so my thing now is, yeah, yeah, so what, what are you going to say about me? What are you going to ask me? Like, I just did kid's ovens. And she, this is to me for six years. The line that she used over and over again was degenerate crackheads, crackheads for son. You know, I've been sober for seven years on June 1st. Congratulations. And clean it's

over on seven, not that I find any distinction between the two, but she didn't know that. She did not know that. No, she just assumed that I was doing coke that are doing crack because what about the bag of cocaine that was found in the White House and he realized that for six years, the New York Post ran a picture of me. I mean, I was on the cover of the New York Post one of the anybody in the history of the New York newspaper. No kidding. And one year period of time.

Okay. Going back to like Alexander Hamilton. Why? And I was their number one story. They were right. And one and a half stories about me on average a day for like a year. And then it went to one story every two days for the next five. And each one of those stories was awful to begin with.

But it always included a picture of me with a pipe in my mouth or in a motel room with a woman

like a degenerate crack addict. And so why wouldn't people think they'll use like, I'm shocked by how many people are shocked when I say seven years. Well, it depends to those people. You come to me in that category. Of course, you're permeating. I don't even follow a lot of that stuff. I don't follow the New York Post. But you're permeating all this during the election. I'm aware of the fact that you're an addict. There's not a press release that you got sober. There's no big headline that you got sober. I don't

“know until I think I see you on channel five. That was the first time I had seen you post all of that.”

Well, I was like, oh wow, this dude's talking about it. This is red. He's sober. And what a fucking story. And my kind of story. So let's go through it. I guess let's start in Wilmington, Delaware in 1970. You arrive. You arrive one year old brother on the scene. Yeah. But how much older is he there? He here today. Oh, yeah. You guys really now virus twins. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I guess technically we missed it by a day. Joe was not waiting. Yeah.

My sister was born with 60 months apart. Really soon after. Oh, your mother man, three children under two and a half or something. That's bonkers. Yeah. I would imagine for you. It's really hard to know what to assume people know about you and what people don't because you're caught in the center of you. I think people vaguely know there was a tragedy. I think a lot of people don't know.

I agree. I vaguely just like, oh, yeah, Joe Biden went through hell when he first became a

“center. I know he lost some family members basically, right? But yeah, December 18 1972, what's happening?”

Go back. My dad was 29. And he decided that he was going to run for Senate against this guy, named Caleb Boggs, two term governor. And I take it the time he was three term senator. This incredibly liked incumbent. And my dad ran this campaign and tell her what you could do at the time. And what she was able to reach almost every single voter by literally just key my aunt, my uncle's, my grandparents, and my mom more than anybody can't visit the whole state. Yeah, for real. How many

people lived in Delaware at that point? I bet you like 600,000. Oh, you could conceive of deliberately don't mean everyone. They put a piece of literature on everyone's doorstep, every home in the state of Delaware. And what was his novel offering that people were like, yeah, remember, 1970, you had a Nixon landslide also. And so he talked about civil rights and he talked about the

but he won. And it was a shock to everyone. I don't think it was a shock to my mom.

“Where did that put him historically as age? The youngest ever to win an election. So wow. He couldn't”

take the oath of office until he turned 30. You can win, but you can't take the oath of office until you turned 30. President's 35. President's 35. And the house representative's 25. So anyway, he wins. And he goes to DC for the day to interview potential staffers at my mom was supposed to go down because they just put a house with us. And she decided to delay it a day because she wanted to buy a Christmas tree. That was December 18th because we were celebrating Christmas in Delaware,

I guess. And she was pulling on from an intersection of stop signs. This is a big hill in a tractor trailer slammed in the side. It was me, my brother, and our dog, and my sister and my mother.

And Bo and I survived, but just barely, we were trapped in the car, but my sister and my mom were killed.

Pretty instantly. Yeah, my brother. I believe about to turn three, three months away from three. Exactly. I was almost three, but was almost four. Do you have any, I mean, I can imagine you have any memory of the exact of the accident yourself? No. I have memories. You probably know this. It's very rare. They say like 10 or 15% of people have memories before the age of seven or five or something like that. I believe I do. Yeah. But I don't know if it's because so many people have

told me and photographs. But trauma might add a different element. Yeah. And so I choose to believe that I actually have the memory of my mom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm used to care just running like picnic baskets. It's also irrelevant whether you remember not like we had a goborumonté on, right? So a goborumonté was abandoned by his mother for a couple months. I love him. He's the greatest.

“He doesn't remember that. But all of his circuitry remembers that. It said his arousal setting”

at that moment. Exactly. And by the way, I used to deny myself the idea that the accident and the trauma of it and lost my mother and my sister being in the car. All of that had any impact on anything in my life. I was so surrounded by love in the immediate aftermath of that. And then going forward like my dad, I don't give it shit with anybody thinks about him politically. My dad is literally the best dad in the entire world. He's even better grandfather, which pisses me off.

But he's the best dad in the world. Also your aunt and uncles moved into the house. My aunt lived in the house. My family and my uncle Jamie converted the garage into an apartment. And my uncle Frankie was in and out and my grandparents. I'm both sides. We spent every summer up in the finger lakes up in Lake Alaska with the hunters who I'm named after. I probably spent at least two nights a week at my grandparents, what we call, my mom and dad a

Biden's every week until I graduated high school. And on top of that, because of the notoriety of the thing, an entire state, which is small, state was Paul, a doctor. You guys, you know, everywhere we went. We had more aunts and uncles than anybody deserves. And still do. And so I

kind of always denied the idea. You're like, I'm fine. We would probably would have felt

and grateful. That's exactly the amount of love. And then my mom came along. My mom now.

“Hold on. You're seven. Seven. Yeah. I think seven. Seven eight. It's also relevant.”

Sybil received a ton of broken bones right here. Yeah. He was in a basically like a interaction that a body cast for a long time. But you had a fractured skull in brain damage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. No, like how could it not happen? I can tell you that. But you now that I felt guilty, taking that my life was anything, but this bundle of love. Did you guys do a lot of debriefing about it or processing it?

Not the accident itself. But we talked about my mother and still do, incessantly. She didn't pretend that. She did not get any way that she did not exist, including my mom. But my mom became she honored the memory of my mother in a very real way. I mean, I talked to my aunt and uncles about it to this day about how by all accounts, then obviously my mother was a extraordinary human being. Everyone will tell you that my dad

got elected at the age of 29 for one reason. It was because of my mother. So you're right up until Georgetown, you're at a private school Catholic. Maybe a Jesuit school? No, it's not Jesuit. It was Norbertine. But I started off. My aunt Val was a teacher at the Women's in Friends School. So little Quaker school in Delaware. It was great. And I went there until ninth grade. And my dad had gone to Archmere, which is a little Catholic school in the border of P.A. in Delaware.

And I played football and I decided to go because my brother had gone there, which was probably a mistake. But I was just, I'm much more seated for the Quaker Essex than I am

How were you in both different? We were inseparable. And we fought, like brothers fight. But no one else could fight my brother without me or somebody do something to me without my brothers standing in the way. My brother would kick my ass, then don't beat up the bully. Yeah, yeah. But I was more evenly matched. I know that I was much more Ignatius than he was. The difference between us is that Bo is a extrovert. And also,

he had a confidence that was just immediate. You can ask anybody. I was an extraordinary human being.

And I mean, everybody called him the sheriff. He never drank. He was always the guy that drove the car.

He was always the one that was, you know, cutting people off when they're about to do something stupid. Yeah, he was like that from the time he was eight years old. And I loved drawing. And I loved poetry. And I loved sports. But I also loved playing with my army man by myself in my room. Mm-hmm. You were sensitive. You were sensitive. I was much, much, much more sensitive. Added generally are. Yeah. It's part of our yard. Yeah. Because we're not stupid.

“It's like, you were exactly. That's what I always say. But that was the difference between us.”

He was the constant presence in my life. And only the most beautiful way that I can articulate. Yeah. You go to Georgetown. You get a history degree where you always set on going to law school. Mm-hmm. How did you decide that? So when I was at Georgetown, the best part about Georgetown was, is that I got to meet these really incredibly fascinating, young Jesuit priests that were very much a part of campus life, at least back then.

I met a guy named Ted Dziak who had started the thing called the Jesuit International Volunteer Corps. It's basically like a Peace Corps, but it is done under the auspices of the Jesuit community. But it's non-economic goals. You don't go out and proselytize or anything. You're trying to convert it. No, you go out if you were Methodist. It's just public service. And they had a beachhead in Belize in Nepal and Micronesia at the time. And we started a thing called

the Jesuit International Volunteer Summer Program in Belize. And because of that, I was really involved also the thing called the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugees Assistance. And there was another Jesuit there that ran that. He was one of like the OG refugee and immigrant advocates in the country. And I was involved in that. And I decided that I was going to do the Peace Corps. And another guy, guy named, name it all these people that nobody

does. Yeah, that's fine. Watch and Bill Watson. Why are you going abroad? Join JBC, which is a domestic version of the Peace Corps. What about Portland? Exactly. Because he was from Portland. Which, by the way, was a great thing ever. Because this was 1992. It is just the coolest place in the world. Coffee cigarettes, groan. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like I sat in Powell's bookstore and read all the

“beat poets. You have to endless cup of coffee and three packs of cigarettes. And you live with”

other volunteers. You make 80 bucks a month. That's all you get. And you pull your money together for groceries. But you're riding the bus and you're working in the community and you're living in the community that you're working, which would mean the basement of a church figuring out how to get people food or get their lights turned back on. Or, you know, get the heat turned back on and winter. It was a great thing ever. And you met your first wife there. Yes, exactly. And she was

a volunteer also. And then we've shortly after that had Naomi. We got married. I went to law school. I did my first year at Georgetown. And you were married with a kid at 23, right? Exactly. And I had Naomi on my last exam of my first semester of law school. And the professor let me out of the

exam. So I took it after Christmas. And he gave me an A. And I did really well. And I'd always

wanted to go to Yale. I did got rejected. And I didn't think I was necessarily going to get in. But I did really well. And got into Yale as a transfer. They like except like five to seven people here. Sidebar was it interesting to leave the bubble for the first time and go to Portland and that you grew up in Delaware, dad's a senator. It's politics politics politics politics. And you go to Georgetown,

“which is in DC. Again, you must at that time think the entire country thinks about politics all the”

time and cares. Yeah. And then you go to Portland. And was it nice to get an outside perspective? And did you feel that happening? Yeah, not as much because I needed an outside perspective from the politics thing. But the difference with Boni was that we never grew up in that. We grew up in Delaware. My dad took the train back and forth every day. And so in the state of 600, which is like I know,

I take a million people or just under a million people. Everybody knows my dad and you guys kind of

get this idea of me uncle Joe. They knew him as Joe. Like when I get pulled over by the cops, it wasn't sorry sir. It was like, I can't wait till I see your dad. He's going to kick your ass. Yeah. I mean, that was our existence. When I went to Georgetown, that was a little bit different. But still not overwhelming. It's not like anybody knew who I was by the way that people on the street

you think about the addiction thing. But for me now and retrospect, particularly this time, this last seven

“years in which I had to kind of make a choice, the ultimate choice to live or die. So many of the”

decisions that I made in my life that had really horrible consequences were all based in fear, fear of judgment, fear of sticking out, fear being found out, fear of shown truly who you are. But when I was in Portland, I could be the guy that was sitting and reading Ginsburg and the Paris review. Make it launch and put cows exactly while I was making 80 bucks a month and yeah, not give it a shit. Can you think at this age? So if I do it, it's like, there's some really

memorable moments with using. One is the very first time I decided to drink some beers out of the

fridge. My dad was a recovering addict. So I was never going to do it. Then one day I was like,

no, I'm going to do it. I'm going to find out on my own. And I do remember having like three beers out of the fridge. And literally thinking, oh fuck, this is the feeling I've been craving and couldn't articulate. I don't know. I can't compare it to non-addicts. But just immediately, I was like, this is a magic. 100%. I know exactly where I was. I know exactly what happened. I was at a adult party with my brother. I picked up a champagne glass, went underneath a table with a

tablecloth over it, dragged the glass and thought to myself, oh my god, this is the answer to everything. Oh, yeah, truly. Because then I left underneath the table and I danced with everybody and I was happy. And I didn't continue to drink all the trolls clip this stuff. I wasn't drinking at the age of eight,

“but I remember that experience. You know, when people said, why did you do it? Because it worked.”

Well, yeah, it's a medicine. It works. It works. It works like that. And then you find something

works even better. I played football. So you know, during the football season, none of us would drink kind of. And it's what we did. What we did on the weekends. Yeah, what are you going to do be the one person not doing it? It's a hard thing to ask people. You know, it's time. I really drank after I was eight. Remember what it was? Exactly. And talk about regulating emotion. Is a friend of mine had taken this parent's car with another friend of mine. They had a couple

beers or whatever. It was speeding down one of these back roads in Delaware and ran into a tree and the sheet tied instantly. Talk about the wrong response to that. The wrong response to that was he was my best friend at the time. Is that we stole beers in the back of the house. And I

“remember that enormous guilt. I don't think I've ever told this story. I remember my dad picked me up”

from his house the morning after we between us drank a 12 pack, I guess or whatever. But you know, you're 15 years old. And going to mass, we'd go to mass every Sunday. That Saint Josephs on the brand new one, a little Catholic church. And having to leave and tell my dad, I think I have the flu and thrown up outside. And I think it was less a response to the alcohol than it was to the normity of the guilt that I had just like our friend, the consequences for him for what happened

were enormous. And the guilt of that. And as you know, guilt is appropriate. But the thing that is not is the shame. So then what's the only thing that you know, your brain is telling you, it works so that you don't have to feel that shame and anxiety over that shame or the thing that you're not telling somebody. Oh, I know. Have another drink. Yeah. So that was like at 15. And then it's a cycle. So when I get to Portland, I've made it through college. I actually did pretty well,

not without October fest in Burlington for Mont, gotten a street fight in somebody curb me and broke every tooth out of mind. Oh my God, dumped on my leg on the curb and broke my leg in three places. I was in a cast for six months and, you know, I mean, oh, it was awful. But I didn't stop me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't stop me. So when I get to speak to Portland, there's this whole new me. No expectations. Nobody that

knows all of the small town or the small college kind of group. And it's filled with purpose. Yeah. It was incredibly promising. And so I drank, and obviously to excess, I don't know what your drink he was like, but I wasn't a blackout truck, unfortunately. I really wish I blacked out

because I could go and go. You know, the bill never came to do at that age. No. And the truth to

the matter was, is because I wasn't engaging in anything in which the bill came to do. We were going to nickel beers at Nampil in Portland and play in pool. We didn't have any money on the Lincoln K. Yeah. Stay tuned for our share expert. If you dare, we are supported by all state. Checking all state first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door. Have you ever seen a parking lot full of

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“affiliates. When's the first time it occurs to you? I think this is like for the laborers and”

there's these kind of stereotypes that are true and not true, which is the first of all this

notion of like a bottom, which is like, oh, there's not any bottom. I had like 30. I always say a

bottom is your dead. Yeah. Maybe in jail if you're like, but just that moment you go, oh, I should die last night or I should die over the last four days. This is life or death. That's a bottom. Yeah. And you go, are we going to keep going? And often you keep going, even though you write it. You find it a bottom. When do you start recognizing, I do this differently than people and probably I'll have to quit at some point. When I was 29, I start to realize my

competitive drinking was unlike any one, not anyone because you find your group. But even among those heavy drinkers, I would still be going at six in the morning and I was doing. And then

“when I was 33, my wife at the time said like, you need to slow it down. Were you accumulating any”

wreckage? Had you gotten DUIs? No, no, you're keeping it pretty. Yeah. And I, you know, I built my own law firm. I graduated from Yale. I did really well from law school and I was a senior executive vice president at a major bank when I got out of law school and then I went to work for the Clinton administration. You're not on to lean on you're doing well. You're getting gigs that other people are getting. You're able to show up the plummeting self-esteem from the addiction

with these external things. And I had three kids by that. Well, right. But were you also thinking that maybe it's a part of your success? Like I could see you kind of, anyone being sort of like, well, this is part of the whole recipe. I do this and I'm successful and it becomes a part of your

identity. Yeah. And what I always say when people come to me and I love it because I say to them,

I don't have any answer for you other than getting clean silver is easy. All you have to do is change everything. Right. But it becomes a part of your identity and you think, what am I going to do? What am I going to do on a Thursday? What am I going to do on a Friday? What am I going to do on Tuesdays? Everything revolves around drinking. What am I going to do on vacation when I celebrate? What am I going to do with five o'clock? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Five o'clock.

“Yeah. Exactly. Can I sprinkle in another, I think, facet of this very complex system of addiction?”

I think for men, at least for me, there's a big chunk of masculinity involved in this whole journey for me, which is again, I was the dude who went harder than anyone and I showed up and did my

shit and I had great pride in that. That was a real indicator of my alpha masculinity.

It validated me. Just scratching and clawing for this validation of being appropriately masculine was also some facet of it. I don't know what percentage, but it was in the mix. Was that happening for you to all of that fear of really being seen? You build up this persona of being tougher than anybody more capable than anybody. Because really, I'm just a sensitive dude who wants to entertain people. I love my daughter. It becomes a shield for everything and it becomes this identity.

It is literally the polar opposite of your true self. Because I'm not that guy. I don't want to be that guy. And so doing the speech, doing anything public, I needed a drink to do it. I thought I needed a drink to do it. In the past life, if this was seven years ago for me, the idea that I wouldn't literally be a puddle on this couch. Just if you put a microphone in front of my face and knowing that there's a camera in the room or that I had to get on a stage and do something. I'm so afraid

of that. Now, unfortunately for everyone, I don't. So I do it. I do a lot more. But you're exactly right. So it becomes your persona and what having with me is what I did was like, okay, I'm going to prove to everybody that this is not a problem. I'm not going to drink for January. I'm not going to do 30 days. And I'd get six. And I'd break it. And I said, oh, that was just one break. It was for the weekend. And then what ends up happening is, is any start

hiding it? It becomes binge even more. And then I'd be like, hey, I got a trip that I got to do for business. And that business trip would be two days at which stretch into four that would stretch into five. And then it would become home. You're dead on arrival. I just laughing at how many times the game plan evolved so quickly. It's like, yeah, 30 days. And then just weekends. No, just Wednesdays

the like one day we just hold on. There's also physical dependence. There is physical dependence

that people take out of this generation. Yeah. It's like you can't actually just stop it any moment. You kind of have to like tide trip. And if you're an addict, you can't tide trip. It's this crazy trip. Nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about all of that in terms of the wellness piece of it

“in ways to be able to mitigate that and how you should do it with somebody. You really do it”

understanding what you're doing. But regardless is that for me, it became so many promises made, so many promises broken around alcohol that poses like, hey, let's do something about this for real. Let's start to look. And I found Crossroads in Tiga, Air Clapton's place. Oh, I sent my best friend here and there. It's great. By the way, it was for me at that time. And this is what is in 2003, so 22, 23 years ago. It's in Antigua, but it's not a resort.

And you earn swimming privileges. Like, Aaron would call me and be like, oh, yeah, I did all blood blank. I'm going to get the swimming notion today for two hours. Exactly. You get to go in the bus to go to the ocean to go swim. And it has a real community aspect, at least when I was there. They were really wonderful. And I get there with all of those preconceived notions

“of how my life is going to be so empty because I don't have alcohol in anymore. And I was introduced”

to the program. All of a sudden, I was like, wait a second, this may work. And I got out.

My brother picked me up from the airport and immediately drove to a meeting over at DuPont Circle club. Oh, what a good big brother. Yeah. He went into the was an open meeting. He went to the meeting with me. That makes me fucking emotional. Yeah. Yeah. He goes up to this guy and says, hey, do you sponsor people because he is spoken in the thing? He goes, yeah, of course. He goes, I'm going to just give you my brother. And I got my sponsor. I stayed clean and sober. And again,

I hate the distinction. What is the distinction? Well, you say you're sober if you're not drinking. And you say you're clean in the other program if you're not using drugs. But it's all drugs. But anyway, I was not on any mind altering substances whatsoever for about seven year period of time. And did you love the program? I love you. I still love the other thing. Those people that I met are still clean and sober. They want to see people like a handful that through everything

have always been a lifeline for me. If I had my phone in front of me, you'd find like four

texts every day from those same people that gave me a lifeline back. When you're looking at the landscape in front of you, yes, all you see is all the things you're not going to have like the camaraderie with friends that intimacy with men, the thing to do on vacation, the celebration, the staff for disappointment. You're very aware of all the things you're going to lose. But what you don't consider is you're also going to lose this impossible way that has been on your shoulders,

which is the shame and guilt and regret. But you don't even know that yet. You can't conceive of a moment where you won't be walking around feeling like the biggest piece of shit that ever lived. That's not even in your imagination yet. And I think the gift of it that's kind of hard to sell kids on or sell people that are new to it is like you can't really even imagine when it's life to walk through life with maybe regrets but not shame and you've made a men's and you're walking

free of all that because for most of us it's been decades since we knew what that feeling was like

“it's impossible to tell somebody the only thing that we can do is to show them and hope that”

they get the chance to experience it. And by the way, that's seven years wasn't like I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth in any way but what I know now is that I had not fully done the work because it was that armor that still existed in which that shame still lived and not even about specific things just about truly being me and so anyway I relapse. I'm on a plane and it was 2010 I think and I'm coming back from a business trip in Europe clean so over I have been upgraded to

like this business class but I was the only one in there she comes by with a cart and it's a bloody Mary cart like a full bloody Mary cart and I swear to God you know when through my head one of my counselors at Crossroads and told me a story about how he had been sober for seven years and he had a drink on a plane on his way to Washington DC from the West Coast and he woke up in Indianapolis in the internet. Why that would be an anyway like maybe I should try the

yeah yeah but I did yeah and of course I didn't have one bloody Mary on that plane and which I think I probably came and told people that in my group I had six and I got off the plane and I went to a corner store on the way home and picked up you know a fifth of Smirnov in that

are you like oh my god I brother has to keep do you have guilt about that? No no I don't have any guilt about how much my brother adored me. He wasn't like oh god I got to get 100 he was like what the fuck you've been trying so hard let's get you back man you're doing great when we get back

“I'll go to me. I think the meanings are great. I love it. I could use it too I probably have to”

actually it was like never any like talk about unconditional love that he had between each other

but anyway thanks Mark and I think I maybe should have been killed to you but no no no I just think I really didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't get it with my wife at the time. I had guilt with my kids who I adored and adored me but then I cycled then it was like I came back and I went to Antigua that time I got shingles three months later somebody prescribed me oxycodone I started down that path and which led to a bottle of sperm off and I was in

that cycle and then Bo got diagnosed with Gleeve Lestoma in 2014. It's a death sentence. If I were you carrying around I'm a piece of shit and I'm a scumbag and my sweet brother gets

this diagnosis I would think the amount of shame it would exponentially trigger in me that I should

be the one dying. Why on earth would it be him? 100%. You already have this latent survivor's guilt. Right. This is why I opened up to the idea that I can talk about that trauma now because of course it had something to do with everything and just forget about the drinking addiction just in terms of my fear you already have that latent survivor's guilt. The worst dream because I ever had in my life as a kid was my brother dying. I remember vividly the only

nightmares that I ever remembered was that it was losing both and that became true but playing in slow motion like you know the end is near coming and it's going to be awful and it was awful and I did things like I decided to join the Navy and I relapsed the day before I went into the Navy reserves at the age of 42. Pistot I get yeah a pistot discharge from a discharge from Navy reserve. I know and so I'm going through all of the treatments with bow and all of the things

that we're trying and you get down to the end they're doing an experimental stuff but anyway he passed away was the 30th of May 11 years ago and from there on out just everything not because of him regardless of that I just as easily could completely screwed everything up. Yeah even if he had stayed healthy. Yeah even if he stayed healthy it accelerated. Yeah and the biggest thing that accelerated is immediate after bow died my marriage fell apart. I mean immediately after we attempted

to do things I attempted to go back that we have a stayed in I had a silver coach and everybody was afraid that I was going to kill myself and that I'll fell apart within a year. Do you remember

“you must and it's a rhetorical question but the first time you smoked cry. From June of 2015 to the end”

of June of 2016 I had been in and out I did like 45 days in the inpatient and I came out and I did this thing where I had this guy the three times a day it had to blow into a breathalizer and it takes

a picture of you and so I was doing that and then I had a relapse over Christmas basically on the

zone yeah I relapse I admit that I relapse I go back into a outpatient program which is like six hours a day in DC but I'm living by myself for the first time in 46 years and by the way nobody's fault of my own it's just to be clear I'm not blaming my it doesn't sound like you are yeah I think it's even more important for me to say that over and over again and I relapse I used cocaine and I drink and I come back into the program down the Monday and I say hey I relapse I drank and I used cocaine

and they said you gotta go take the drug test and I said I'm not going to take the drug test it's not protected by hippo you're in a rehab facility not in a categorized medical facility it's discoverable and I don't want to do that I'm telling you what I did and I'm not keeping anything out they said when unless you take the drug test you're not coming back in and so it was on a K Street in DC and I walk out and I know the Lincoln Park which is literally two blocks away

“and I knew the worst possible thing that I could do was go smoke crack and that's what I decided”

it was the answer and I did and it was a revelation and again show broken me this is a love letter but I mean it is as it adds the ultimate warning from someone whose life was torn apart by it was

snark cocaine it goes into your sinuses it slowly dissolves it slowly enters your blood stream

“when you smoke it your lungs converted immediately they dump it all in your blood the only”

thing's faster is shooting interveniously it's a different experience because you're getting all of it right away and there's a piece about crack that also is this idea that crack is dirty what really the truth of the matter is the way that you manufactured crack I figured out how to do that pretty quickly and got much better and better and better at it most of the impurities that you could find it when things were mixed get burned out and so it's a very very pure form of the drug

which has a immediate effect there's really crazy study that I heard out of University of

Pennsylvania and which crack addicts they did these brain from live brain images but live with

smoking the highest that you get as a crack addict is the millisecond before you ever ingest the drug that's the dopamine and that's the power of the drug it's not even the drug it's literally how are the brain the power of the brain it's crazy and so it worked really effectively what you're looking for is like the micron before obliteration as the goal which is so fucked up

“so fucked up got it so fucked up it's sad I mean that's why when when you tell the stories”

about people saying degenerate crack addict and so it's like who can't hear these things and not think one think God I don't have that to this is sad we need to help people to like shame to add to the shame I do not understand you as if the person's like thriving in life and she's like upset or when it's like we're being a shit in cars smoking pipes as you can see from the thousands of pictures I was not thriving you want to play there are a few I must say good though

you into depths I didn't I became aware of your story because a woman that spent some time with you wrote some peace that I happened to read and I quite enjoyed it for a few reasons a she like like you this woman who wrote this thing I don't even know specifically what I was like let's say something if you can hang out with an addict who's fucking smoking rock all day long and you come out of that you still kind of like the person that's really kind of revealing because you're at your darkest

shittiest monstrous you're just a bottomless pit right of give me more of everything so the fact that that person still had kind of a kind of opinion of you I found fascinating but also it was an interesting perspective to see the person orbiting someone in that zone and then just imagining people that

orbited me when I was in that zone I never really get to hear what that person's experience is like

you gotta hear from a lot of them I over compensated knowing what I was doing to myself with being as compassionate empathetic and generous to a fall you know basically come beat me up when you get robbed all the time all the time I mean I don't know how many laptops and phones that were stolen from me and I don't say this like oh I was such a victim the way that I swaged my guilt was I just would give it all away or know that it was gonna be taken all the way

then it didn't matter who it was it didn't matter if it was bicycles who lived with me in my apartment knowing that she was robbing me blind every day or whether it was a prostitute by the way which was all about drugs that's the fastest way to be able to figure out if you want to figure out how to get drugs is that that's the easiest entry way particularly for someone like me into that world I mean eventually I had to go down to like the viral district at 4 o'clock

in the morning and score and know where to go you have guns you know my face you're not naive you're smart dude you went to yellow you also recognize like I am desperate for this thing people around me are even more desperate because they don't have any means and so I'm not naive yeah I'm gonna get taken for a ride and I'm willing to get taken for a ride because I want access to the thing it's all terrible symbiosis exactly and I consciously knew that I was killing myself

one hundred percent of it it would go up and even during that period of time like I went for treatment and did up again and five of me oh DMT therapy or any of those effective they hear about people

“claiming I think that they can be very very effective my experience with five of me oh DMT was one”

of the most spiritually enlightening things that I've ever done but that's because I did the I have a game before which was not as effective for me because I was smoking crack up until the three hours before I went and did it I have a game is I think one of the strongest if not strongest psychoactive pollution agenda on the planet it's a plant from the Iboa plant in Africa that they've used for thousands of thousands of years studies have shown that it has a great impact

particularly with people with PTSD and opiate addiction it's a very very long lasting 12 at least

that frog toe venom where they cut your arms and purge you know I went to this charlatan and

“Massachusetts and did ketamine infusion therapy but all the time I'm still using and I believe in”

those things and I believe in those alternative things not as an answer but as additive to something if you approach it with the respect that the plant medicine actually requires for me I don't want to ever do any of them again yeah I'm afraid to do anything but also yeah the notion that you're going to take one thing to break your desire to take another thing but it can be when you really healthy is it can be a mind expanding experience it can break up neural networks that have existed

since the first trauma and it can rewire new pathways you see literally if anyone ever really

really stops to think about it is kind of the perennial philosophy of the connection of all things then everything is love and I don't mean love in terms of the more sense of it but in terms of there is no distinction between me, you this table this earth the universe and anything else at least that's experiential these are arbitrary about impossible to articulate just a beautiful thing to experience but it's not the answer the one thing is you still come back from that and if you're a

filled with shame and fear I have lost your family yeah you have a relationship with your brothers widow be awful what grief and addiction loneliness and every other thing that you can come up with to think why something like that would have been a good idea for anyone while you know

“that you're tearing your family apart we talk about the shame and the only thing that has you know”

is being able to talk about it knowing that like I'm going to talk about this now and there's going to be 400 people that are going to come into your comments and say what has come back you know to me and by the way and we say like yeah I don't know by the way I don't know and I don't care maybe put this way is that when I was in the depths of my addiction I did some really really shameful things that I have no excuse for and I don't think that drugs and alcohol and addiction

are ever in excuse but I do know this certainly part of an explanation no I can observe you all of it and I can observe you on it and they're pretty distinct creatures I think people have some fantasy of what the crack seems like but again when I've been with friends it's like full vulnerability full lack of any fear that you'd be judged full expression of yourself that's the joy of the thing is like I'm you got it tell me new how much I love you and that's so scary for me to do

sober as a dude yeah it's just hard to find many compatriots say that group comes smaller and smaller it's smaller until you're in a super able tell off of 95 in West Haven and then and of all

of our stories is ultimately as isolation so even if there's 20 people in the other room exactly

you're in a closet smoking crack and you really don't want to be interrupted and you just need that there to know you're not completely alone even though you are I think it's maybe worth we maybe should have done this earlier but to remind people of the difference between shame and guilt because those are very different and correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like shame is I'm bad and guilt is I did something bad yeah it's exactly so guilt to me as a good Catholic boy

doesn't really practice much anymore but I learned some good things is that yeah guilt's an appropriate thing yeah we should have you feel bad about this that and the other thing you know go read my

“book I feel bad for it off yeah and what you should do about that is that you should have toned”

and make it men's and I mean toned like go you know whip yourself with this holes on your back until you bleed I mean go and say I'm fucking sorry yeah I apologize not expect the other person

to say oh I forgive you but you make it clear that you know that you did wrong shame is I will never

ever be good enough you're I'm on worthy I'm on worthy I'm on worthy I'm on worthy of my own self love I mean that's the thing about the honesty the biggest thing to get honest about like I always talk about this thing radical honesty you kind of get honest with yourself that's what like you really really really do and I never really knew what that mean note you hear all of these things in the room even like the serenity pair well what the fuck does it mean know the difference between you

know like I don't you know but there was a moment when I finally put it down almost seven years ago it wasn't by any virtue of my own I had that experience of like it wasn't a white light but it was like a choice there's a tiny window open right now yes and if you don't step through

because it just kind of came up and again I can forget now look I relapsed on opioids but I haven't drank in 22 years right I'm pretty removed from because each of these addictions has their own specific personality I talked to opiate addicts and I had that experience and that's one experience it's as much different from the hardcore alcoholic experience for me but I was reminded of this because

my best friend who I sent a treatment and I were talking about a third friend who is hardcore going

through right now and I was reminded we were just talking about I called him to say how grateful I am he sober seen this other friend I'm just so grateful and we were talking and what we both agreed

“about that I think might be again and lightning to people is like there's a point where there's a”

third rail in your mind it's not necessarily you want to die you want to die for a period of time long enough that when you wake up all of the wreckage will magically be gone like there's this third desire it is a blitteration in death but it's not I remember not wanting permanent death but I definitely want to die for like three or four years and then wake up with a clean slate disappears like a bit of a fantasy disappear it was a literal fantasy with me think about it I

came out to California told everybody I was going to rehab because I was going to disappear that was in my head is I'm going to disappear for three years and then either I'm dead but more realistically I'll come back a new man but I was disappearing for all intents and purposes if any rational person was a little boy in you that's like maybe if I run away long enough they'll remember

that they loved me and that they missed me and they'll forget about all this first time I ran away

what I did is I wrote a note and then I went hit under my bed so that I could hear everybody tell me

“how much they missed me yes yes yes yes that's what it was yeah and it doesn't go away you just”

you're still acting like that it's like a full-grown old man it's actually this huge old thing by by this three years there'll be so glad when I walk back up the driveway we could put all this behind us yeah don't go away stay tuned for our adventure expert if you dare not only to my fantasy not come true the whole world right when I got clean in June of 2019 just fell on top of my head outside my doorstep in every single crevice and looking cranny my life

you were being accused of every broken deals with the Ukrainian oligarch to win favor yeah on this let me ask you certainly your behavior couldn't have been above board for 15 years

while your own desperation was raging right here's what I own yeah there's any validity to some

“of the here's the validity the validity is I should never have taken the board seat with Brisma”

that's the validity of it that's the Ukrainian oiligarch company it was not with Ukraine was not with a foreign government it was not with an oligarch it was public about going on the board I served on 14 other boards before that I was chairman of the board the US World Food Program the largest humanitarian organization in the world I was vice chairman of the board of the largest railroad company in the world which is the National Passive Rail System which is Amtrak

I was chairman of the board of the Truman National Security Project chairman of the board of the Center for National Policy I was a professor at Georgetown's Master's Program in the School Foreign Service for 4 years I had my own business in consulting and I had been in more places in the world than 99.9% of people very high functioning at the time the most prestigious law firm doing corporate governance at Boysheldon flexor and had my own business and so when they came to

ask me being on the board I said no I would represent them as a lawyer and I represented an lawyer and the former president Paul and the first democratically elected president of Paul and president of question Fc asked me after representing them for two or three months because they were under an extreme and ordinary amount of pressure from the invasion and dumbass where their wells were from the Russians the entire purpose of that incursion into

eastern Ukraine was to extract and take over what they could not take over the single greatest resource in Ukraine which is natural gas and so he convinces me that will be public about it you'll be transparent about it and you come on the board it obviously turns out to be a mistake

that we know this is this is because you have 25 years of my entire digital footprint you have

“every single email I think I literally am probably the only person in the world if this happened to”

anybody else every photo that you every took every selfie every voicemail every single text message every email that you've tucked in 25 years were dumped in the internet and to this day remain there whether it is your selfie's news or whatever we're out there a 90% of us are getting canceled oh yeah by the way 100% people would get it there's not one single email text message they have all of my voicemails they have voicemails from my dad saying sweetheart please where are you you

need to get help I mean they have everything there's not a single thing in that in which I say hey dad or hey dad's chief of staff or hey dad secretary or hey anybody's I'm getting paid by these guys we need to do this not a single one there's a text message and what the board secretary a breeze must says it was nice meeting your dad and I know we were at a restaurant together and he sat down and there were 10 other people at the table he was in from Ukraine I introduced him

to my dad and that's it now they had an impeachment hearing over that this will I take responsibility for doing something that could ever cause the perception of that yeah now not to get political but what these guys are doing now and I hate even putting the comparison between the two because that was the standard by which we as a family had lived and here's the point I really don't care about rehashing that but I'm more than willing to and welcome it

but what they did was in 2018 there was a Ukrainian rationalic art who was offering for sale my laptop it's before they laptop repair shop guy ever existed he was offering it for sale and Rudy Giuliani along with Lev Parnas and the guy and Igor Frumann that he deputized went to Ukraine and then to Austria eventually were on their way to Austria to buy this hard drive

and they never made it because Lev Parnas gets arrested Lev Parnas he's one that got arrested

he's working for Rudy and he gets thrown to the wolves and so he tells the whole story truth racial matter made a whole documentary about it called from Russia with Lev and Lev points out that what they did was and what they eventually found was a record of my addiction and that was going to be the October surprise but the problem was is that in between that time I had sat down with Adamentos of the New Yorker and I had told my whole story nobody told me to

you went rogue for that one 100% real yeah but intuitively I knew and this was the difference between any other time that I got in clean or sober ever which is I got a call from this guy he wants to talk about Ukraine I say where are you from he's from the New Yorker I had an obsession as a kid with the New Yorker thought it was the greatest publication ever to the point where I had the

cover cut out taped up to my wall and then I read some of his work and he's an incredible journalist

and I said I talked to him he just was really honest and I told him my whole story as it

“related to addiction and so I had out of myself I think Adam said one of the first calls that he”

got after he did that story was from Steve Bannon said you am ever you scooped us and so they had it they had the hard drive they had the phones they had the laptop and two phones that were stolen in Las Vegas they had a laptop that I left in my psychologist office and Massachusetts that was there for a year and passed around what a hunt for all this yeah exactly and then a laptop repair shop owner who happens to be blind literally legally blind turns over not to anybody except

surprise surprise my arch nemesis through Rudy Giuliani and his lawyer who cobble it together and cobble all of these sources together and they presented it to the world two weeks before the election remember what Rudy did is he went to the courthouse steps in Newcastle County Delaware with a laptop which it was no such thing with Bernie Carrick of all people who's now cadres to sold dead but he was the former police chief who was entitled for primary and broad

and they go to the steps and they say this is a record of degenerate there are inappropriate pictures of minors and they do exactly what is elimination rhetoric which is an old Russian trick

“accused them literally the worst thing what am I supposed to say in that two weeks when the world”

is coming down and so 40 NSA former security officials come out and they say this has all the earmarks we're not saying that it has been all the earmarks of Russian propaganda and then Twitter

of the story but the content of the photographs which were nude photographs of me which

“violates their terms of service yeah that's the only reason is that your post put on their front page”

me with my private parts blurred out naked which by the way is against the law because of the Bill Milani had just passed to take it down act but then that becomes a suppression story and they would have won the election if anybody just had known what was in the laptop okay well now you've had seven years everybody all of you and I include the two of you and me and everybody else you have had my entire digital footprint unlike anyone that I know of in human history available to you

for 25 year period of time what do you find literally nothing other than I was a degenerate crack at it yeah and I was in rooms I should not have been and I was with people and prostitutes and dancers and drug dealers smoke and crack and do another drugs and 90% of the text messages

but you do not find anything about foreign corruption or bribery anything like that finally after

two years they come back and they offer me a plea agreement because I failed to pay my taxes on time in that period of time which I had had subsequently paid with penalties and interest of over $800,000 after I got sober and found out that I had not filed my taxes so I paid them with penalties and interest and that during that period of time I bought a gun and I checked a box to say that I was not currently an addict and at the time this is honest then when I walked into that store I didn't

think I was an addict I was at least three days clean well yeah you're not going to say you're an

“addict I didn't even bought it fucked up yeah yeah just not doing that here's the thing every single person”

today in the United States of America based upon the law that I was prosecuted for if you have ever smoked pot or you smoke pot even remotely on a regular basis which means more than one to month

basically and you own a gun you're in violation of that same law which means about 85 million

Americans are pregnant but they prosecuted me for it we can't find a single other case what was me I don't know I you know being held to hire standard like yeah well let me see this though this would be like if I sponsor do you right yeah so I don't and I don't claim to have any more knowledge than you do but let's just say for one second we'll see how the question goes but I ask you to be my sponsor do you foresee a future where you could actually let all that go yeah I've let it all go

you think you have no I'll wonder if I had been accused of a lot of stuff I did you it would be

“nearly impossible for me not to find myself so here's the thing that is completely fair question”

and I hope that this is as honest to the answer as I think it is which is I have let it go other people have not let it go and so for instance only time I spent a lot of time thinking about it is when I come and sit down with you because you're nervous it's gonna spark up the whole no is because I'm answering the question and so when I leave here I'm able to put it down and I guess when you see let it go am I angry no I think the the most dangerous emotion

that any addict can have is uncontrolled anger let me come at it from a different way God damn it that is it possible that the most of all version of yourself the most piece for the most serene version of yourself might come around to having gratitude is crazy as that sound no for Johnnie although you didn't do all those things if you're dead sober none of those things happen 100% so I'm not victim-chaming but we also agree like had it been even a little

lighter on you maybe you're dead really so maybe we don't have a wife maybe you don't have a new son so maybe all those guys almost everything everything the greatest lesson I learned

in this corona is exactly that is it when they tell you to make your gratitude list I always thought

and it is appropriate thing and you doesn't have to be an addict to get up in the morning and benefit from making a gratitude list which is like everyday in Southern California 7 out of 10 you're like I'm grateful for the weather yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm grateful for my wife I'm grateful for my son the relationship that I've rebuilt with my daughters and for my painting and the coffee that tasted so good and like all the good things that are going on

happened to you that brought you to right there have you ever read the nostic gospels that they found

“in Nage Harmony I'm not a scripture guy but there's a great thing I listen to the audiobook”

of a famous book called the nostic gospel he says basically I'm paraphrasing is learn to suffer as I do and you will be able not to suffer and it was like yeah that's it be grateful for all of that suffering because there is no way that you are here sitting in this chair right now without

all that without all that I would have never ended up here in Southern California I would have never

met Melissa I would have never had bow I would never have the depth of my relationship with people that I love now and particularly the depth of the relationship that I have with my daughters now I would never have had the wherewithal to understand that this was for me a question of life or depth and each one of them I was a little bit perceptibly by self perception able to get a little bit better about the gratitude in the moment and when I really hit me

was when the verdict came in in Delaware so I decided not to testify because what they'd done is they'd put my family on the stand they were going to if I testified that they were going to

bring as a kind of witnesses and ask like it was just off and Jerry came back and when they pulled

the jury they were like I hated that we had to come to that because it's bullshit but technically

“we believe that he violated the law and I remember and everybody was like I looked around”

and there were literally the entire prosecution piece like a wedding press cases people sat on that side my people sat on this side and I looked back and I literally saw every single person almost every single person that I cared about by my mom and my sister and my uncle and my aunt mouse the guy that grew up with my dad you know Reverend Bullock and all of these people from the community that had known me all those people that I said that were my aunt and uncles yeah

they were still there for me all the people that I thought that I had lost that I was ashamed because I had been in the embarrassment they were all standing there proving to you despite what you're telling yourself that you're worthy of love and the closet's open and here's all the skeleton that I'm all convicted and yet you're still here I didn't think you'd be here if I was perfect and yet you're here and I'm at my worst yeah that's powerful really really powerful

there's some players in this that don't have much social redeeming value but they gave me an

incredible gift they gave me the gift of being able to be honest with myself if they never really

started it this stuff I wouldn't have admitted to anybody I'm not sitting here talking to you out of some insane courage that I got because I went to Rishi Cash for five years and meditated I'm sitting here because you know what it's already out there yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that is a gift there's nothing to lose huge gift you named when you're company's Santaca yeah yeah so you're into the stoics or yeah there's a stoic road forward exactly

those people you're powerless over them right I mean you are as powerless over those people 100% as you are over crack it's none of your fucking business I would have an impossible time executing what I'm suggesting let me own that no I know I have a thing where I had listen I had violence stepdad's and I decided when I'm 18 no one will ever get one over on me there will be no me being subjugated so I have a overly activated sense of like you're fucking with me I will go to

the end I'll die I'll die over it I know this would be like the hardest challenge for me but also it's not happening to me so I can kind of see from the outside that any piece of your heart taken by those people is a wasted piece I think potentially you actually could get there if it was just you but his family is oh yeah forget it you would kill everyone yeah yep so I understand you can look at it and tell him that I'm owning that it would be nearly impossible for me but I also

know that's the truth if your mom was getting dragged and just literally killing people are talking shit about people have all these opinions about her that are wrong you'd go nuts uh huh I what and so I have to give you some credit he can be your sponsor but I can feel like you're friend I give you credit and he isn't out of any and I really mean this I'm not just being like humble it was not out of any courage on my part it was so ubiquitous that I didn't have any other choice

“unless I wanted to die that's what I'm trying to point out but some people died some people do oh I'm”

proud number one I'm most proud of anything I'm proud of my sobriety over the last seven years in the heat of all of that yeah I've been enormous when I pride I haven't grown a son of pride that I've gotten to where I am but I really mean it it's more than just like a few people same bad

like half the world yeah yeah and the machinery of the government that's what I mean in the

“plot of the machinery of the government which no one can unless they've been subject to it it is staggering”

I mean like people say well you know what you got a pardon and you've never faced any consequences

probation officers coming into my bedroom and my wife was still in the bath naked because they could over the course of a three year period of time why would even say they've got it wrong which is I would sit in a jail for six months and at heartbeat over deal with the emotional damage I caused you didn't get out of the consequences of your behavior that's your father hugging you at the end of his driveway crying saying you I just don't know what to do yeah that's exactly

I would sit in jail before I'd have my dad say that to me I know God like that's not even the harshest punishment yeah you don't really get out of any of that and here's the other thing Melissa is still ready to kneecap a lot of people I got honey can't say yeah I want to get this it from somebody like you got to the end of it and you then really become to realize is that when it's all direct to you it's so much so much more overwhelming and hurtful to the people that truly love love you so

“my kids yes and that's what nobody understood with my dad too no my dad and I talk literally almost”

every day so long so sorry I'm like dad what are you sorry about Jesus yeah yeah it's going both directions she's thinking if I weren't running this wouldn't happen you wouldn't have been a tool yeah it's all sadness that's my last question for you and again in the most apolitical way possible I can't even really imagine what it was like to be by your dad's side and watching him in public coming up short how protective you must have felt during that time

how stressful that must have been what was the experience of watching your dad not at his best

have to be at the height of the struggle oh the first thing that you do is you get incredibly

defensive but you're right what happened culminating in an incredibly obvious instance of the debate in which my dad didn't rise to the challenge that's just objectively true is that my dad did lose a step he didn't lose his marbles not one single person on the record in this entire time has ever said that Joe Biden was not available present and capable of executing on every single decision that this administration had to execute on not one now did he trip over a sandbag

and fall and look like in 83 year old trying to get up at the Air Force Academy speech did he freeze on the debate stage and look like he was 83 years old 100% did he lose a step literally where his gate got shorter 100% all of those things are true which by the way it's a whole another discussion about how we are as a society going to start to treat and deal with people as they basically become more in firm but still are all mentally there is everybody that's 83

years old that shuffles a little bit have dementia I don't think that that's true by the way and I don't I don't hold any animosity and that's not a hard question for me but I'm more interested in emotional again the powerlessness and somebody who just endlessly had your back most beautiful way you have such an enviable father I mean truly from everything I've read about you guys what a beautiful father it would kill me to have america talking about my dad again not because I figured out

some meditative process by virtue of who I am you better figure out how to be able to stay in this country when no matter what present in the yard at any given point in time anywhere between 40 and 60% of the public thinks you're akin to the devil it is like a constant perimeter of favorability on favorability he's the worst president he's the best president he's the greatest person he's a demented clone that did all of these things all I have to say is it my dad

“has his record he will have his legacy I think that he was unique as a president in the United States”

in that I think that the job by definition requires a level of narcissism that almost any other job in the world does not require and that he came to that office without that narcissism I think that he had more empathy and compassion for normal people because he was the most normal person to ever occupy the office you know my favorite moment of his I know you've seen this they

did an incredible two-hour front line on Putin yeah and there's a moment where they're sitting

and he looks directly at Putin and says I think you're soulless basically I'm paraphrasing

and then Putin says this is the first guy who's ever he's like a liked him exactly you're respected and probably he's George Bush had gone and said he goes you know I looked into his eyes and he saw a soul and so my dad's sitting across from Putin and he looks into his eyes he goes I look into your eyes and I don't think you have a soul yeah yeah and Putin likes it whether he liked it or whether he's smart enough to pretend it to like it in the moment because

he thought it was tough I mean there's a whole not a cat but he's the only dude we've had thus far who's look Putin and the eye and said you're soulless yeah he is a lot of integrity everyone's had an opportunity and he's literally the one human being on our side who did that

“and that's what I mean about my dad I love McCain for the single moment that's why they were”

best friends on the presidential campaign when his supporter calls Obama Muslim he has a hold on hold on that's not true these little moments of integrity well even worse it's like the idea that that was a deal breaker but regardless my god in a four year period of time coming out of a pandemic my dad created more jobs in any other president with two terms by double in the history of the United States he cut child poverty in half he passed more legislation than any president since

Linda Bay and Johnson he had a better midterm even though we lost the house than any president

said FDR in 1932 he expanded NATO he stood up to Putin he added two countries for the first time in

NATO's history to NATO Finland and Sweden he re-established our connection and alliance with the Pacific Rim countries and Japan and Australia I mean I could go on and on and all of those things are lost in the mix of the insanity of what's now the chaos the fire hose of falsehood and insanity are you have see fight on the lawn of the White House and we're painting the reflecting poll blue and he made 3700 stock trades in the month of February alone the first president in the history

this made one let alone 3700 and we're building a tower in Abu Dhabi and we're putting Trump tower in Saudi Arabia and we're going to turn Gaza into a golf court I mean it's just like you got to stop you can't take it all in but if we get back which is pretty good we do because I love this country and I'm not just saying that like raw raw I love this country I'm fully aware of what's this country's capable of and the horrible things that it has done in the

name of var democracy I am fully aware of my history but at the same time I truly still do believe that we are the greatest single hope for I'd like to put it it's a a star track future and not a Star Wars future I don't know of any president that just as a human being this is good of me and is my dad I love that well look I admire anyone who's gone to helm back and shares it deeply you and I will have a connection that's deeper than all these extraneous other

things that are spectacular because we know what it's like to be completely humbled and destroyed by

“something that's unique right I think it's the kind of a bonding 100% yeah yeah yeah like you could”

have any political leaning you could have pointed to you to those I was just talking about we feel much more gentle yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah my hope is I've had this experience bunch of times in the meetings I go to were often people arrive in their big headlines kind of arrive people who need a lot of privacy comes to some of the meetings I go to and I've had a couple moments where the people that walked in I hated publicly it's one dude was like well this aunt

gay legislation then got caught in the bathroom I was like this fucking hypocrite you know I just hated him and this person started sharing I was like this person was completely devastated and destroyed by this thing and they know the depths of hell and I have compassion for this person what a unique experience to have on earth if not for this condition I have I wouldn't have had that so again I'm so grateful that I could value something about somebody they're honesty we can cut through all the

shit and I love it it's so fucking powerful it's almost magic it's incredible the self-control

“do the next right thing and show compassion pass it down and that's what I learned from it”

and I often fail at the self-control but I don't fail in the way that I used to and I sometimes don't

have the compassion for the people that I find so offensive but can't and I don't always do the right

thing but I know at least this is what I think about every day hmm was it been a delight mean

said that you like to have me on I was like all right I love what you guys do and if you want to

hear the very heroine tale of all this I encourage everyone to pick up beautiful things your memoir about this whole life of yours which is worthy of a book there's nothing so great meaning and thanks so much for everything he is at our care expert buddy makes mistakes all the time they got my equity here he's got a little help of facts we're bringing vintage shirts I wish it looks like it I would have to call mine unfortunately retro

I mean it's from an old old pink foil thing but it is a new shirt okay what is it really promise

“the 80s well that's what I'm told see I could it could be a lie how would one know I wouldn't well”

the sweatshirt's definitely old I can tell by like the tag and the stuff but they could have

plopped that right on but yeah they can fake Rembrandt's and stuff and have real experts sign off on them exactly they could get up they could get one over on me yeah yeah sure I'm not that good we're recovering I guess you want to talk about it yeah we were just recording yeah armchair anonymous yes and now we're recording armchair anonymous it's a prompt that but listen some emotions for sure so the person we were speaking to was at the apex of

their emotional journey of the story I felt very very inclined to be present for that yeah

course and I hear Rob's door open yeah my first thought is like why is Rob thinking he is

time to go outside I thought he was getting the food oh okay that's good I don't better than all those things I don't better than anyone oh exactly I know you know better so I'm just like this is a strange move right and it was a little it wasn't like if Rob was going to get the food he would have done that quiet it was loud yeah and then I went to oh me and what my can I got to get my kids understand they cannot interrupt me at work and then it was Kristen yeah and immediately

when I saw her face she was crying yeah she was like a very panic panicked and crying yeah and now I literally have my real life wife panicking crying and then we have a guest too of course I care about who's also crying and I'm like oh my god I'm gonna have to fucking tell this lady I got to go but I had to go yeah I mean we didn't end the call but I had to get up yeah it was fine because it's gonna come come come come you gotta go we right now you gotta put this bird out of its

“misery oh my what happened so back story and I think I've been reporting on this we've been”

having the sweetest two or three month affair with these crows that have really come and taken to walking around our yard yeah they walk around and we've named one of them yeah it was maybe and we've been feeding putting out food and they've been taking it I was just last night I was in the sauna and because the screen was down I can see out of it but obviously the crows they were just a little directly in front of the sauna for 20 minutes I'm watching just like interact and I'm like I

just I feel so lucky that there's these beautiful crows in the back here my favorite animal yeah and I'm just watching them they're getting more and more comfortable I go outside and what has happened is a friend's dog has a tacked one of the crows really bad the all the other crows are in a tree directly above the fallen crow and they are yelling or as they should yeah I'm so bummed for them of course you're bummed for you and my family is all every Lincoln's bawling she

watched the whole thing and then I got to find something yeah I didn't use your hands we'll just say that I did not use I mean I'm glad a terrible I hated it was terrible I mean it's a little crow I've been watching who I like and then I know that that's his mom up in the tree and it's sibling

“yeah I think the mom obviously feels guilty and then I'm like okay that's done I get the crow wrapped up”

and then I got a quickly trying to nurture my family to check in as everyone's stable and then could come back here and then drop back into that yeah at least it was a kind of dark story we were hearing it was like you had to just like be happy again I'm so sorry I got to go blow up birthday candles right exactly it wasn't frivolous although we didn't tell her what the emergency was

so my dark energy it wasn't like you had to come in and put on this like very happy it was a funny

yeah you poop where exactly yeah there's a one okay so remind me you the one time you didn't wanted an authorized event yeah yeah so um yeah that was terrible that was a terrible event really sorry I'm really sorry I feel like that was the universe making me pay for the pigeons somehow you are you already paid for that that was a long time ago yeah of course hopefully a tone for that

“I think well I'm really sorry that all that happened I'm very sorry you had to be the one”

candle it yeah I get very anxious in those situations yeah well whatever with foods like

everyone's I my head I'm just like oh my god like everyone's so sad and so destroyed and like

it aren't they're not gonna come back for this for a couple from this for you know how I feel about a motion so yeah but I mean you I'm like oh no like this isn't good like he's killed he's murdered today my favorite he murdered his favorite oh my god and also like murder of Croes you know there's something in there it's okay we'll save the word play for another let's just hold off on the word we'll play for today who's just right there so you know I just went

back inside check this is what you guys get for calling yourselves a murder oh no sorry I'm sorry inside and now people are going up to the store to get materials for a grave oh that's good yeah I guess

“that's what that's nice yeah no one knows what to do you don't know what to do but I um yeah I was like”

I don't think I should we we had ordered food the food I thought Rob was running out desperately to get yeah and so and um we we a finisher I'm sure not must be at a little break before the next one so I was like I'm gonna go the long way to go get the food right you didn't want to deal with it it wasn't dealing I was like they might be like how insensitive is she to go get her food anyone hungry

I got extra chips I don't think I'm gonna eat this third one I mean that is something

I would do in a nice way like can I help with the things I have yeah it went starving right now anyone feel really hungry or is there any distracted by other emotions or should I just eat crow I'm sorry they're angry sorry yeah it's too soon okay I really don't it's just a bit too soon but this is how this is how I'm being cramed with you and I love this is how it is being friends with you I bet okay so maybe I am now getting but I don't want you to have a reaction okay so I take it back okay

any hope I still feel like like um fighter flighty yeah yeah yeah from that experience of running in

“running out and I was like thank god I've obviously of course from Chris and runs in I think it's”

something with the children same so there is a level of relief what is very partial I know but yeah but I heard something about Bert Crow and I thought she said low uh the another dog so I was like uh like but then you have the dynamic of everything you have the dynamic of that it's someone else's dog so all of their stress I know I thought they're talking about their dog over and they killed our favorite members of our family well I mean sincerely no they shouldn't feel bad like you and your favorite

members of our animal for you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah for me for you yeah but if the dog killed Frank you might be happy but that would be like really yeah feels weird to speculate but I I definitely think whiskey would have been a push for the family no yeah you think they'd be out there right now just laughing and doing work if whiskey was dead right now no I really don't you're probably right but it's okay your favorite member your favorite animal members for sure yeah

the beginning of something that was quite fun and beautiful happening and they're not coming back there's no way because I have incredibly good memories so the other thing this is and this is where it's probably selfish of me I'm like this dog did this but I these Croes are watching me right now they're staring and they're going to watch me do that why is that selfish that they're going to remember they remember there's all these incidents where it grows remember about thirty years no I'm saying

that's not selfish of you I'm gonna be trying to be friends with these guys so hard and now they're

they're smart they could yeah also by the way they saw what happened so they know it wasn't you

“I hope but maybe they thought I was going over to resuscitate this crower I think they knew it”

couldn't be resuscitated or they would have come down and grabbed it I've clad that wasn't happening well that would have been fucking better if they like go down and grab it bring it back up to their area because they wouldn't have seen it at that and then I would have been having to shoot them away so that I can you can't have this thing suffering in the yard that's all to table yeah real life will find you yeah you know you you we've we've created this little cocoon that we

like virtually nothing gonna happen right we're just sitting here talking yeah we're gonna fight but whatever we'll get through then then life just you know fine yeah yeah but I feel bad because like because you're so tough and you had to be the one to do it and it's like oh yeah he's like he's

“like that's why we have him is basically yeah we deal with everything for this moment you better”

do the thing yeah that you bring to the table but I do think I want them to know that it hurt your family is pretty bad I think they know you know I think it's my job to tell them remind them you know that was really hard on DAX okay yeah you're gonna be a just for a day what that's nice yeah I did feel it was hard on you yeah I didn't like that well thank you any who see and I and then I tried to make jokes like you do to make it better it didn't work

some I got oh yeah this is it was very soon yeah and puns already I just you know a nice good day puns are questionable I know but they were both pretty good okay I'm probably not in a good yeah later maybe later you know a few years I'll hear this oh you know what that was a really good joke oh no well I mean that was a lot I'm really sorry that happened shank it off what's up summer's here kids are getting out of school you're gonna go to a

graduation tomorrow oh yeah we are going to a little baby's graduation do you want to be so funny to be sad so the fifth grade dance was Friday night oh which one to go with her girlfriend's

“members I think I'm gonna tell the whole story yeah yeah yeah so um that was Friday night”

and what was rad was this just makes me so happy um she said can we drive the link in like she wanted to show up at the dance looking rad and we delivered were you all bringing her friends or you just you dropped her off mom and delta night and you're on a big grass field where everyone parks and yeah we pulled up in the link and it's already low but in the

grass it's just like right and always ran up to the fans they're asking what kind of car

that is so that was pre-mo she's in a dress she was great did she do her hair and stuff oh of course she had wring lens yeah she looked incredible what's interesting is when Lincoln had her fifth grade dance because it is the end of elementary it's the last thing they're really on together so when I picked up Lincoln the entire class while all the girls they were bawling they were hugging each other it was so sweet and then maybe people remember the overall demeanor of Lincoln's class versus delta

has been night and day as you know like they were delta's class is so naughty they had to rearrange the recess structure because they couldn't be trusted around the pre-k kids are well is naughty clients naughty group cops come in no those were for her classmates last year all right so roll back up to pick her up and they're still raging and Delta's like I danced the whole three hours and yeah yes that was because I knew no I loved school dance and my favorite memories each in your higher

those dancing so she did it she danced so hard so anyway there's a photographer that would do these like 360 shots so yeah so she would get in a group with her friends and then the camera goes around

them and this is embarrassing to admit but I'm looking at this first all I see of course because

I'm the dad yeah it's like oh she's at the cutest girl that was ever born yeah you know when I'm looking at her and all her friends I'm like oh she's the cutest one yeah but that was that I go what she's really quite short oh really I'm gonna show you the video and see if you have the

class and everything but I just had this woman was like oh she really has had the christian experience where christian was like a tiny tiny person yeah you know and I just didn't really realize Delta that I didn't realize that either that she was necessarily let's see that's so cute oh oh wow oh my god she's so cute it's crazy there's another shorty yeah there's one another shorty but your name but but Delta is yeah I was like oh she's the little girl in class she's even shorter

“than the Indian girl sure I don't know if I'm allowed to say yeah I think she's loving these but”

no okay so she's always like I finally came out of the water and saw clearly

for the first time and then I said to her I said you know I just I noticed from these photos you're a shorty aren't you and she goes oh yeah Delta I'm like the shortest girl in class other than so-and-so oh wow wow yeah I mean once so she's just like yeah the short girl like once you are the short girl you just are her you know like you don't even think about it yeah and um it does a little bit explain like you know she's in such a hurry to lose her teeth you know it's like an

ongoing thing and she got her x-ray that said they were still not coming out for a while she was like

to have this day to be in and I never really am like why are you in a hurry to lose your teeth

but I think if you're the tiny one she'll like let's get the fucking show on the road get ready see let's give me some puberty let's get a few inches yeah you might be informed by the

“height it might be well what's great is I've never heard her complain about it that's why it was”

not even on my radar like her best friend who I thought was really tall right now thing is probably an average yeah yeah whoa that is weird oh she's really tall because whatever other friends is also not that tall little taller than her middle but like yeah interesting yeah I mean I didn't um I mean I

wanted to look completely different but the short thing never bothered me yeah I don't know why for

whatever I had so many other things that were higher it is a lot easier for the for a girl to be the little girl in the club than the big bird yeah yeah that's a much harder road oh of course yeah well maybe she should be a cheerleader she could be a flyer you know short short people have a lot of advantages in that way they don't have cheerers why I don't know that for sure but I don't think they have cheerers she's going because it's an all-girl school I know they just look at the competition

no they should sort of competition cheerleading because competition is nothing okay doesn't it's not cheering for the boys now it's not I knew feminists was going to ruin this country and here it is okay all right well do you some facts 100 by me sure okay let's do a few fat yeah I found this to be wow yeah this was a good one it was it was you again did you have feelings about him before I didn't know much about him same I really just knew his name and I knew of all the crazy allegations

I knew about the computer and I hadn't seen his face until that interview I watched which made me interested in it right yeah I mean yeah I knew the same thing everybody else knew very but very surface even I didn't even really know he had such a legitimate career before all the dust up you know I didn't know he's a lawyer and you've gone to the great schools and all that shit well and then obviously the what we talked about the debate where Joe Biden is what worked Trump references him and then

“Joe Biden is defending him and it's like very I remember that moment yeah upsetting that he has to”

defend his son yeah and he's like he's working so hard it's just heartbreaking honestly but um I don't want to suggest that there's these are comparable levels of co-building they're not but it felt like he was making fun of him that his son had cancer I mean that's what it felt like like your kid has this life threat me yeah exactly illness and I'm gonna shame me over this is like fuck there's no and then he really got himself into crazy because he said it and then

Biden was like that's something about him dying he was like no your other son and it's like yeah

a parent could possibly imagine yeah horrible but I also like I don't think I knew the extent

of the tragedy they had all dealt with I didn't either I kind of knew right I knew that Joe Biden

“had a real big tragedy and I think I knew he lost his first wife right like I didn't know the extent”

of that I know he's sworn into the Senate and the hospital all these 29 all this stuff like you imagine dealing with that at 29 baby I mean no no like absolutely not it makes me it makes me have so much respect for him honestly yeah yeah I've told three or four different people post interview I'll go like do you know the whole story and no one does yeah that I've talked to you yeah and the two different times that kids were present what do you think they're following

question what when you said like yeah this station wagon um did the dog die and I'm like I didn't ask wow but it goes to show you know this rule in movies you cannot kill a dog in a movie I know

“rains are crazy are I think is because the innocence almost the opposite it's like we know humans”

coming every shade of good and bad and and so like there's bad people you know you can imagine easily someone dying that wouldn't bother you at all like a Putin gets shot tomorrow I won't care in fact I'll be happy right there's no dog I'm gonna be happy that was killed unless he ate people I guess but oh shit this just came full circle like I wouldn't be happy if the dog had killed the crow got no because I don't think the dogs capable of malice right right anyway

there's something intrinsically more innocent about these animals of course yeah but it is a funny prior sliding scale of prior and I obviously you have been a bad person like don't get it I mean I get it I do get it intellectually in that way like oh yeah there's an innocence there's about but I don't feel that ever so I don't I of course my question is like the children

I would never think about the animal right right right right it's really telling and interesting

and fascinating that we because we're social primates like war built to think some people deserve certain things and punishment is built into the system and like it's just interesting how we

“view each other versus how we view almost everything else but again I think there's a nominally is”

I don't know that I don't know I mean obviously you can speak for yourself I don't think you really believe that people should be punished and I think I believe at less and less and less right I think people should be removed to keep other people safe. Yes. Me too. Not in a united way necessarily. No why why why do we doing it? Yeah I think I'm aiming better. Yeah my level of wanting someone to suffer like feel bad because they did something wrong is is pretty much gone.

Yeah like there's still a step that alive to my knowledge that you know I didn't like I don't want him to be suffering. Yeah. I don't I don't really. Well it does nothing.

No that's the thing. All though I mean again to be fair like I've never had a

love on murder exactly and in that case maybe I would fully just be like yep want them to suffer for the rest of their life because I have suffered for them. If you kill someone in my family yeah yep so that is the paradox. Yeah I know. We just have a lot of very fascinating hardware. I know we do. That controls how we it's this whole thing or it's like if these one million people died for this reason and me's one million people died for this reason we can put such different

values on that you know like if we think someone deceive someone in the pursuit of that or if we think it was a natural cause or we think it's like the deaths that deaths you don't you don't have the person anymore but it makes such a big difference to us how that happened. Which is a bit all in our mind you know it's like the objective tragedy is that someone you loved is gone. Yeah but prematurely feels or by the hand by unnatural, unnatural kind. Cancer at 25

expected but I do think it's like that's the way they're bought it's that's that was their

body their body can handle this life or whatever there's like a lot of things you can say to yourself but when it was really avoidable that feels yeah that's it's too mad name like it's it's very upsetting. I mean just don't murder you know like let's just not do that. But just like we have all these sliding scales but it's like if there's a just a legitimate accident and an intersection if a lights out that's one thing. Yes. There's not a light out someone blew a stoplight now we can

ratchet up that person's drunk like yeah I know the objective things all the same someone was

killed operating a vehicle you know and then we've got like a huge range of how we feel about that.

“Yeah I think again on the scale is about the level of which it could have been avoided and if”

it's just someone making a decision in their mind I hate this but I'm gonna kill them or like I'm just gonna shoot all these people like that is so far on the one end of the spectrum of avoidability. It's harder to accept. Yeah but because it's interesting yeah. It didn't have to have. I mean I guess what I'm saying is the aliens might go like all this person had a partner now they don't have a partner there and lies the heartbreak in the anguish and then if you told them

I guess well no there's a there's a big sliding scale of heartbreak in anguish within that that's

where they they would get fast. I'm like oh please tell us about why there's different versions of losing a partner. I know I bet even the aliens would get it. I kind of do well I don't know what they're like you know I'm a meta knee but yeah um okay just for that whole thing. No you don't want to not come with because you want to meet aliens. Oh no that was just for all the death and murder. Okay okay um yeah I've no problem meeting aliens as long as they're nice. Yeah they're

gonna probe yeah but you might enjoy. They have to. Yeah that's standard. That's the only consistent thing across all alien contact. What are we trying to see? They got to figure out like what makes you tick. That's not the way for them it is they put that anal probe in they get all the answers. Oh god yeah we had a guest for your courted yesterday that was so fascinating about some murders and we also just want answers so badly when something horrible happens when a horrible

tragedy happens we want answers so badly that we're really willing to overlook a lot of things and

“we feel better with the wrong answer. That's what I'm that's what I'm trying to approach is like we”

have just all these weird built-in biases that don't actually make sense. I know. But if you gave someone that option would you rather think the wrong thing versus not know they would go well not they would say not know but then in the situation they want it. They want to think the wrong they want peace like I get it you want peace but but that's why we're getting somewhere because that's why like Buddhism is a compelling thing. It's like that shouldn't be what gives you peace.

You know but it also in these cases where it's like murders and stuff it is it is like well are they going to murder other people are you know there's that element too like if they're out standing without even heighten the reason to not think it's the wrong person yeah yeah but

“we all would be susceptible to it. Yeah I think so I think that is right okay who's the”

hypnotist who makes people stop smoking carry gainer there are a few of us in online but this is only with a crazy oh with with the two peg. Oh because he had said there is okay that's quote can you tell this is it you pay? So looking more and more like I'm right. Well no. I'm having a wild Wolverine phase. It is. It is. It doesn't weigh you to pay that. There's a mob. No it's just growing. Yeah. DAX quotes Hunter saying you add up all other

drug deaths in the number of alcohol deaths is five times. Drinking deaths versus other drug deaths in the USA alcohol related deaths 178 thousand. All other drug deaths 70 thousand. Not good and we have

Suffer the Middle East. Hunter says he was on the cover the near post more than anyone else in a

“one year period. Uh, couldn't really find that. You didn't go through every single to be fair.”

I'm into this. Okay. And she couldn't find it. Well then I trust that it can't be found. Me too. Yeah. President Donald Trump holds the record for the most appearances on the New York post covers. While Hunter Biden was prominently featured in the late 2020 and 2021 regarding his laptop and legal issues figures like Trump sitting presidents and prominent in New York politicians such as Anthony Weener or make Eric Adams have accumulated vastly more

covers over the decades. That's over a longer period of time. Yeah. Yeah. Ding ding ding ding. Joe Biden had one of the funniest things with Anthony Weener. What did he say? He like I wonder if I can find it. There's me Mr. Vice President is that folks are going to go to the polls or have already gone to the polls. And they don't know what to make of this. They're in the dark. Well, I think it's

“important. I think Hillary, if she said what I'm told she said is correct. This should release”

the e-mail for the whole world of sea. The whole world of sea. They think continued their investigation and will the best of my knowledge. You won't prejudice the investigation.

And but that's that's sort of the the stilled at language, the agency always uses. And it doesn't

mean anything. And so it's it's unfortunate. I'd be remiss if I didn't note that if she had released all the e-mails from the get go, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Well, that's true. But I don't know where this e-mail with as e-mails came from, what apparently Anthony Weener. Well, oh god. Anthony Weener. Oh god. She's not coming at him. Weener. I'm not coming at him.

“There wasn't before he got in trouble. So I shouldn't come at it. I remember.”

So, oh god. Just like that. It's just so rare. It's such a real moment. Oh, really mean that. How old was Hunter when Jill came into the picture? Hunter was seven. When Joe and Jill married. We're married. Yeah. So before she might be in the picture, yeah. For. Yeah. I assume Hunter claims e-bogaine or i-bogaine. Oh, yeah. The drug. Yeah. Yeah. Is the strongest or one of the strongest

hallucinogens on the planet? That drug is not necessarily the strongest hallucinogens in terms of

potency, but it is classified as one of the most uniquely powerful and intense psychoactive substances.

It is highly potent with a deep long lasting dream like experience that fundamentally differs from classically from classical psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin. And that's it. That's it. Well, dude, I'm amazed. He made it out of that hole. I mean, that is many years. This is a second person this year. We've had that spent years smoking crack. I don't know how you come back out of that. Oh, Charlie. Yeah. I know. I mean, it that amazes me. I know. As someone that smoked

it sporadically and I found it to be pretty devastating for the next week. He had, just don't know. How you ever got? Oh my god. All right, love you.