Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope your cat didn't run away, get eaten by a dog. That would be a bad one. I hope everyone's doing awesome. I got an incredible show for you today. I call this one In the Valley of the Shadows. And my guest today is Adam Butler. And you may know him from his book, Butler's DMT Field Guide. He's been on quite a few podcasts lately. He's got an incredible story, and he's a really fun person to talk to. And I'm going to start off a little poem here for everybody. In the silent chambers of the soul's abode, Adam Butler, seeker of the cosmic code, unveils the secrets of the sacred vine from shadowed depths to realms divine. Adam, thanks for being here, my friend. How are you? I'm wonderful. Even better now after hearing that. That was beautiful. Thanks, man. Yeah, of course, man. Of course. I'm stoked you're here. Prior to starting up, you and I were just talking about the way in which sometimes tragedy happens to you, and the only thing you can do with it is kind of polish it up, make it a diamond, and start showing it to people, man. Maybe you can expand on that a little bit. Yeah, I think that's what both of our calling ended up being in life after a bunch of turmoil. And mine was kind of more self-imposed and self-inflicted than some of your history and trauma. But yeah, now it's just a matter of trying to do the best that I can with the information that I received. And ultimately now that's helping people as opposed to making money and buying shit and having more houses and being in that rat race because that just drives me and most people right into the ground. So that's definitely not it. Are you trying to tell me money can't buy happiness, Adam? Oh, absolutely. I can also tell you being broke, working for $20 an hour and living in your parents' basement, that's not necessarily happiness. But that's ultimately where there has to be a balance. But a balance doesn't mean all good, all light, all positive. It comes with the darkness and the heaviness. And I think that's partly why you wrote your book. That's why you have this podcast, is really to, one, integrate the suffering. But before you can do that, you have to acknowledge the suffering first. make peace with the suffering and understand that it's part of your story and part of your narrative. And it can be a beautiful part, but until you recognize that you need to embrace that to make yourself whole. And I love the title, you know, saying that the valley of darkness or the valley of suffering, and it's because you do need to wallow in the depths of that, that area to really get the confidence and the tools that you need to not only live a happy life, but then share that, message with others but yeah I wanted some dark for quite some time of course I mean it's where you you know on some level how can you not when society has conditioned you to find happiness only in external validation because after a while it just becomes so empty you start looking around and you're like I'm just pretending man I'm just, what am I doing? I'm running away from everything that I love and doing this other thing because I think it'll make me happy. And other people seem to be happy when they have it and they treat me nice when I have it. But secretly, you know, it's that, whether you're talking about Carl Jung or whether you're reading scriptures like, I was born with a thorn in my side, a messenger from Satan to torment. I prayed to the Lord to take the thorn away from me and in his infinite wisdom, I heard his voice saying to me, my grace is, is sufficient for you, for in weakness my power is made perfect. It's in that weakness. It's in that valley of darkness that you're made perfect, man, to come out of there and realize I'm a pretty amazing person. That is where the strength comes from. You have to sit in that darkness and hold it for a while, man. What do you think? And then learn to lean into it. not that you're looking for bullshit for things to go wrong, but it's a whole different dynamic shift on perspective. How do you deal with major adversities? Like we've both had major life-changing events to just the minor things like a flat tire. Well, maybe that saved you from getting into an accident or there's a long line at the supermarket. Well, maybe you can spark up an interesting conversation or, or, a small child walks by and tells you a joke and it just makes your whole day where it's looking for that opportunity as opposed to just being miserable. And I think two of the biggest lessons that I learned with psychedelic use, and I know it's true that you married, is just that to be present, to be here now, to understand that you have to take the good with the bad. And really just not run from it, turn it into something good. But like I said, it changes how you do everything because there is no bad. There may be some upsetting things and there may be some pain in your life, but it's only opportunity to grow, only opportunity to learn. You know, I use the analogy of getting, like, Boy Scout or Girl Scout badges on your sash. I want more of those badges, knowing that someone wouldn't take some bullshit to get. But I want a life full of challenges and scars that showed what I can do. Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of a great quote that, show of stances don't make a man, they reveal him. Or a woman, for that matter. But, you know, it's these things that you go through. And I like what you said. When you... When you change one thing, you change everything. Like we start thinking about the, and psychedelics do this for me, is this idea, like it helps you understand a little bit more about the idea of complexity. Changing one thing changes everything. And it's both powerful. It's powerful because you can begin to get yourself out of this narrow vision of your world, or maybe you live in like one dimension, like the book Flatland. You know, if you only live in this one small dimension, just being aware that there's something going on over there and then beginning to explore it allows you to understand that we're all connected. It's fascinating to me to see how psychedelics can help you begin your journey into this idea of awareness. I want to jump real fast to this. In your book, Adam, everyone should check out Adam Butler's book, DMT Field Guide. It's full of incredible, not only an incredible personal story, but recipes and just all kinds of cool stuff. You should check it out. In your story, Adam, you talk about this death journey. For like a year, you're thinking about killing yourself. Can you just color that in for me? I have some following up questions, but I would just love the opportunity for you to hear in your own words what was going on there. Explain to the audience, please. It was a long and winding story. But like I said, it was self-inflicted and way different from... A lot of people that grew up with some trauma, and I know your personal story is littered with that. I was literally raised with a silver spoon in my life. I had absolutely everything. I had the high-paying jobs, the college education, great, awesome parents, awesome friends. I had owned 15 houses at that point. I was making $180,000 a year. Not huge money, but things were good. But I was – the biggest probably change in shift was getting rid of alcohol. So I'm now three years and three months being sober, and that's something I'll never touch again. So getting that cloud and running from my shit, that was huge. So getting that out of my life. But prior to that happening, I had lost – multiple long-term relationships. I had a restraining order put up against me where I actually lost my house. I threatened to kill a man, which, and I'm not saying any of this lightly and I can get into more of the details, but over the course of like a year and a half, all of this shit happened. And I just, I had checked out. I was done with society. I was done with myself. And I didn't it wasn't like a rash decision, like, oh, I'm going to go kill myself. It was something where I had the right to do this as any human I think has. I'm able to weigh the options. I was going to do it in a way where I had a life insurance policy. I had kind of things lined up where I was going to leave people with enough money to party with. And but. the the culmination of my my journey was on a sunday night uh I had found out that some guy screwed me over 900 bucks and in the cost of my life and at that point it was absolutely nothing but it was a matter of principle and integrity and it didn't get resolved the way that I thought it should be I did get my 900 bucks it was proven that that you know this guy was wrong but he looked at me like like I was the asshole for calling him out on it and it got really serious, really quick. And like I said, that was a Sunday night and we lived probably like a quarter mile from one another. So I knew it wasn't going to end well with both of our tempers. And yeah, that Monday morning I, I was like, I'm going to leave and drive to California to hug a Redwood tree. And I literally left, drove 60, uh, 26 miles, got to Kansas city, Missouri. And then from there, I was like, I'm just going to go. I had probably like 70, 80 grand that I could spend that. I was like, fuck, I'm just going to piss away this money. I'm going to live what I want to do. And, um, Now, I did kind of go back and forth to home base, but I pretty much spent a year and a half. I went to like 40 states, traveled to, I think, like 260 new cities, lived on the beach, lived in Vegas, and did all this exploration of myself while being quiet, meditating in the desert, doing all that. All the while doing shrooms and ultimately DMT and I started with shrooms and started getting really good therapeutic value and insight where I was holding up the true mirror to myself. And that's really, that's when I saw, and this is where I wanted to make that point about the first thing about looking for external validation. So I finally realized that I was looking for all of these external validations for my internal problems. And as soon as I realized, well, no, you're the drunk, you're the narcissistic, you're the mean belligerent person, you're the, you know, and all of these, these horrible things that I was running from, as soon as I saw that, that this is where I need to work on, it was inside, it wasn't anything outside, then I could kind of start working on the solutions. But it was a long, a long journey. And then And within that psychedelic space, you really go through some dark conversations with your psyche. But it's what I needed. And I came out a completely changed man. I've never been happier. I've never been more content. And I still have a bunch of shit in my life I've got to work through. But now it's really just a matter of sharing my love with myself and seeing the beauty in myself. And then sharing that with others and letting other people that may look as weird as I do... feel that same love and beauty. I think you did kill yourself. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that literally. Obviously, you're still here. But I think you did get rid of the person that you were like there's a real that's like a spiritual suicide in some way but not as a pejorative like a spiritual suicide and I'm going to kill these bad habits I'm going to cut off this part of myself that is killing itself like the like the same symbolic picture of the of the dragon eating its tail or the you know the serpent eating its tail on some level the habits that we have these negative things that we're running from are actually killing us So it's like you're killing the thing that is killing you. And I just – I mean – It's taking back the power. And it's they, whatever type of energy suck entities you want to call them or whether it's your demons, your devils. Yeah. Whatever is draining you or that plaque that's hanging on you or the monster on your back. they know you have the power. And it instantly not only shifts in you, but when you turn that spotlight on them or they, whatever the issues are, the power dissipates. And that power you can then take on to any challenge that you have in life because you know that it's kind of like a parasite. A parasite, if it kills its host, it's screwed. So why is it, it can't, I don't know. You are the one that holds the power. You're the energy source. You're the one of all the being. And maybe in that analogy, you can literally just pluck that parasite and throw it off, and it will die. Without your nourishment and your attention and your care, it will die. So don't nourish the darkness that's holding you back. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about what we give our energy to and what that does to our awareness of life. I'm curious. what is it you think about psychedelics that allows you to approach these things about yourself that you previously ran from because it's I know for me the same way it's people I talk to these things that we run from like we've been running from them and it causes destructive habits but all of a sudden you know you build up a relationship with psychedelics like why does it in your opinion what's the change how come this particular substance allows you to see things in a certain way or feel things well maybe you can describe what it is that allowed you to change and what you think about that relationship I think it allows a true and genuine and authentic connection with yourself. And ultimately, no one knows you and your issues better than yourself. And I know with my personal story, I went to college for almost eight years. I was well-read. I've read probably 10,000 books. I owned multiple businesses, had the houses and all that. So I always kind of came off as this condescending, really I can talk my way out of anything and I can manipulate anybody and everybody to somehow whatever. And it sucks to say it like that, but that's how I did go through the world. And Um, you know, so I could lie to my parents. I could lie to my friends and my girlfriend. Uh, I actually paid a high end therapist, 240 bucks an hour. And I had multiple sessions with this guy, but I was still going in there trying to mind fuck him. Like I was telling him truthful statements, but I was doing it in a way that I knew I could lead him down the direction that I wanted to lead him to, but I could somehow think. He would confirm my intelligence and that my brain was just so beyond whatever. And it was it was fucked. I wasn't really going there trying to get help. I was going there just. All right, fine. I'll go see a therapist. But I'm going to I'm I went in there thinking I'm smarter than this guy, too. So how the hell is he going to help me? He doesn't really know me. He's only known me for for what I tell him. The therapy. that I had was just holding that mirror up to myself. And I mentioned a quote in my book, something to the effect of, you know, it was like having a conversation with God, excuse me, in yourself and everybody's on truth serum and there's no ulterior motives. Everybody's there just to have a true, honest discussion. And I found that I couldn't run from myself. So that ability to not bullshit myself and to be like, well, no, you're 40 pounds overweight because you're fucking drinking 10 beers a day. And then you're eating fast food to hide the bear breath. So that way you go home smelling like fast food instead of beer. And then you're not, it's like, or, or, you know, you're losing all these relationships because you're a mean belligerent, nasty person. I wouldn't want to be your friend either. Um, and then, like I said, it was just a matter of, of seeing that and, and then now acting on it. Um, That that that's what psychedelics psychedelics did for me. And I think it's the exact opposite what most people in society do, which is combine a bunch of alcohol with prescription pills. It's everything zombied out. There's no highs. There's no lows. Everything's just you're never crying. You're never you're never doing anything. And you're just sweeping under the rug for 15, 20 years. And then you realize and you get a divorce that slaps you in the face or you lose everything or you realize your kids don't want to talk to you anymore or whatever. I mean, any myriad of things that can shake you out of it, where psychedelics, I think you shake yourself out of something as opposed to some traumatic event doing it for you. Yeah. What's your take on the, I know some people that have given up alcohol, they go through like the 12-step program, but there seems to be a divide in that particular group of people using drugs afterwards. Some people say, oh, you've done mushrooms, you've done drugs, you slip back. Do you have any opinion on that particular fight? for somebody that's been in the trenches for a very long time. So I started drinking alcohol when I was 12 and drank it literally every day, pretty much till I was 39. I come from a family of alcoholics. It's something that that's near and dear to me. Completely, completely different. So when I say I'm sober, when I say that, that I, you know, I don't think that I'm cheating by saying I'm doing DMT classrooms because, because one, you know, with alcohol, it was just always a way to dull, to mask, to try to, instead of having intellectual deep conversations with people in social settings, you would just drink to kind of have surface conversations. You would never, it was just always a way of dulling and getting less information and projecting less of your true authentic self. I think with shrooms and DMT, I know in my case, I don't ever really use them to party or to go to clubs or concerts. I'm only using them in a meditative, spiritual setting. I'm only doing them with the intent of learning or having some sort of therapeutic value. So it's a completely different dynamic on everything. And the reason why you're doing it is huge. One is to run away, and the other is to really seek the deep truth. And I question anybody who maybe uses alcohol to actually do a DMTS shroom session and say it's anything similar. One, you lose all of your abilities, and the other, you gain access to unknown abilities that you've never even experienced before. Yeah, I'm hopeful that in this shift that we're going through, we'll begin to see... You know, I think some of the ways in which we've tried to heal people is sick. You know, and I think telling people that you're an addict, like you on some level, you abolish them forever to this place of addiction. Like you are this forever. Like what a horrible label to put on someone instead of like, look, man, you went through this spell right here. There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. And I realized that maybe that there's people that need this particular method in order to solve this problem. Maybe it's all they have, but I think that we're moving towards a strategy for life, not only in doing meaningful things with our life, but approaching healthcare and approaching addiction and approaching these social ills in a new way. Do you think that this whole thing is moving in that direction as we are, you and I, and people like us, and hopefully people younger than us are starting to find ways to live a more meaningful life, that we're also trying to find ways to approach addiction and all these social ills another way? I think it's starting to move, but there's a large mass that has to build up momentum. But I have a perfect story about how it's fucked how the system works because I wouldn't have two of the most beautiful beings in my life if I didn't. If the medical system got the way they wanted. And I have this woman in my life. Her name is Sam. She's the wife slash girlfriend of one of my best friends. And she went through some bullshit growing up where she, you know, she got addicted to drugs and she was into some pretty hard things and she got pregnant. And she got pregnant with, once again, one of my best friends, my little mentor, Sean Jr. And when she was pregnant with him, right from the bat, the doctors were like, all right, we're gonna have a plan to take the baby from you. We're gonna put you on a different drug, but you're still gonna be on these drugs. And there was never any discussion about, all right, well, this would be the perfect opportunity to have your body's physiologically is gonna change. This is a great option. Let's kick the drugs. They never even had that discussion. And they went to several doctors and it was the same conversation. They were just like, oh, that's great. Well, we'll figure out a way to take the baby and sign these papers here. And they were just like, no, we're dedicated. She quit smoking cigarettes. She quit drinking alcohol. She quit smoking marijuana. She quit all of her drugs. And beat it. And then so several months into it, they started doing the drug test and the blood work. And they were like, wow, they really couldn't believe that she was actually doing this. And up until the very last moment, they still thought that she was going to do some kind of relapse and not continue through with it. And now to this day, three years later, there's two kids involved. They're both beautifully healthy. She's never gone back to anything. She's happy and healthy. And it's just. Could you imagine if you just listen to them? And then just another quick story. I was just on a podcast where these guys were in Germany, but I guess one of his buddies broke his leg and the doctor was just like, you know, stay off your leg for six, four to six weeks and hopefully it'll heal. And yeah, know he's like well what am I getting for pills and like nothing stay off it for four to six weeks and he's like well if I stand up it hurts he's like well don't stand up you know you gotta lay down and let it where over here they would just give you a huge bottle of oxycontins or some some drug that now You're dulling your senses. It's like having a new modern car with all these indicator lights. You know exactly what's going on. And if you need transmission fluid or if a tire is low or any of these things, and instead of using those indicator lights to help you fix your car or address the issue, you're just shutting them off or blocking them. And I think that's what most people do today, especially in the United States, where it's just drug everybody up. don't stay off your leg for four to six weeks. No, but take a bunch of numbing pills. So that way you think you're okay. Well, no, you're not okay. You just broke your fucking leg. Like, you know, you gotta, you gotta rest up, but people don't, don't want to do the hard work. They certainly don't want to do that. The deep psychological shadow work, like we were discussing to, to solve their issues. They would rather just You know, laugh off, drink two bottles of wine, snap a picture for social media, act like everything's cool. Meanwhile, it's all going to shit. Yeah. People just dying inside. And on some level, I think that that is. you know, when you just pan back and for me, when I look at my life and I see this change that I'm going through that I've been going through and what it took to get here, like I see it as a part of society because I still see so many of my friends that I love that are, that are doing, doing what they were doing, you know, prior a year ago or two years ago or five years ago, a family member doing the same thing. And it's, I started thinking to myself, like, it's so different. easy to lie to yourself You know what I mean by that? It's so easy to say, okay, I'm going to do this for my family. I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to this job for my family because I got to pay this bill. I'm going to do this. We come up with these ideas, but when you start uncovering that, it's like, are you really doing that for your family? Because you're fucking gone all day, man. Are you really doing that for your family? Because you're telling your daughter about integrity and morality, and yet you're doing something you don't like to do. You're trading it all in for like a handful of dimes, man. Like, are you really doing that for your family? Are you doing it because you're afraid? When I hear these stories, it sounds to me like so much of our modern systems, whether it's a company you work for or the Medicare system, it's this sort of perverse relationship between certainty and fear. Like, oh, we've got to be certain about this thing. But the truth is, and I think psychedelics play a huge role in this, you can't be certain about anything now. And uncertainty brings with it fear. And so people try to mask the problem with pills, or they get up and they do this thing every day, not realizing they're taking one step further away from the things that they love. It's like, we're trying to be certain about things, because we're fearful. But if you can just think about those two subjects, uncertainty and fear and the relationship between them, I really think you can take steps in becoming a better person and doing what's right for you. And I think psychedelics play a huge part in that. Another thing that it sounds to me when I look at your book and when I'm listening to your conversations, some of the previous podcasts, It seems like you've gone through this giant rite of passage, you know, and maybe it's the age you are. Maybe it's all the trauma that you went through. But what is your take on this instance in your life as a rite of passage, a passing of the baton? And perhaps you could talk about an absence of these rites of passage in our culture. So now I sit here as the gray beard bald guy. Yeah. But I say that honestly, and I'm 43 years old, so hopefully I have many more years to live and share this story. But ultimately, that is why I'm here, because I do have younger friends. I do have several younger nieces. I do want the best for humankind in general. I mean, it sounds corny, but through all this, that is what I want. So it's not so much a matter of don't go through any any trauma or you're not going to have suffering or adversity. That's going to happen, but it's a matter of how you deal with it. So it's not try to come up with some sort of method or lifestyle plan where you're going to avoid all of it. It's no, life is going to be tough, but how do you share it? And I think what I'm hoping to share with my story and my kind of not exposing psychedelics from a personal raw state, because there are a lot of people doing that, but it's more trying to understand people on the fringes. I think with psychedelics, my empathy and sympathy and connection to, to being, to self, to source has, has grown a million fold. And I like talking to the people that, and I don't want to make judgment calls of whether it's the homeless guy that smells like piss or the eccentric person with the, you know, the Mohawk and the tattoos and all the piercings or the, you know, what I just, I tend to gravitate towards the, the, the people that express themselves in unique ways. And I, and I just want to keep sharing that where it's like, no, it's okay to shine your own light. It's okay to be beautifully unique and to do your own thing. Um, and you know, you, you bring up fear and uncertainty, and I think that's tied a lot into living too much, either in the past or the future, either you're so caught up about what's going to happen or you're so worried about you already did. And just, Quickly, to sum up my kind of breakthrough DMT session, and I had a lot of, like I said, prior to that, I had a lot of shroom sessions where I did hours and hours of contemplative thinking of what I saw and reliving past life regressions and all of this. But that one pivotal moment at the end of that first day, it was learning to be present and to be here and to be now. And how that kind of visualized or how that was exposed to me was that I had all of these proverbial dots in my life. And my, my way, my mind worked. I was always trying to connect them. And I was trying to see how the past was connected to the future and what story is going to happen now and all of this shit. And I can never really just be there. Um, in that state it was all right you want to have these thousand dots connected boom they all connected then those blew up and then it was a million dots and then those were connected and then a trillion dots and those those blew up and then it was just this infinite number of dots and it was like this this laughable energy being like the job is not to connect the dots the the job is to have the space between the dots but the space between the dots is where all the information is and The game is to be enjoyed, not to be won. And that really, sitting there with all of my proverbial dots surrounding me, I realized that the best place to be is just right here and to be present. So I came out of that. I've never had a cup of coffee the same since. I've never seen a sunrise the same since. I've never smoked a good joint the same since. I've never made love to a beautiful woman in the same way. Everything just completely changed and shifted because I saw everything in a completely different way. And I could really just be here that very second. And then, yes, I still have the bills and the debt and fucking threatened to kill a guy. And I had all the crap that I still needed to deal with. But it was... I can't deal with it in the past or the future. I can only deal with it now. And it starts with being the best man I can be being that the model, you know, person to my nieces. And, and, uh, yeah, it was, it was being here today. Like you just asked, you know, what my timeline is for this interview. It's however, however long it needs, because I'll never be restrained or constricted with myself or my time or my being by anything or anybody ever again. Um, That doesn't mean you don't have to work or you don't have to be obligated to be some places. But I know I'm the master of what I do with my body and mind now. And psychedelics really gave me that power. It's interesting to think about awareness and what you're aware of now. I mean, you can look back on things and... Oftentimes you'll hear people say something like, I wish I knew then what I know now. Obviously you can't know that, but I heard you in a previous podcast talk about senses and awareness and sometimes in a heightened state, be it DMT or mushrooms, that we have more awareness or more senses. Do you remember talking about that? I was hoping you could flesh that out a little bit more. Oh, I'd love to. I feel like the last few podcast interviews have been more about the, not the down or the dark side, but the valley and the tragedy and all of that. Beauty in the light though. And I think that's where, and hopefully the last half of the conversation, we can share more of the beauty. Of course. And the heightened senses, I think is fantastic. So people typically ask, are you just having hallucinations? Is it in your brain? Is it just something that you are thinking? And they kind of dismiss it as, well, it's on drugs, so it can't be real. It's not reality. The way I look at that is we typically have our five senses. In our normal waking state, say that they're turned up to a dial of 10. In a psychedelic state, you not only have those five senses dialed up from 10 to 100 or 1,000, but you have then an additional 5, 10, 15, 20 other senses. And that's where I'm struggling to come up with names or how do you say you're getting information conveyed to your body by what source? I don't know. It's not hearing, it's not touch, it's not sight, it's not sound. But if you have 100 data points as opposed to 10, how can it not be more real? How can it not be more profound? How can these experiences not be more real than real? And I think that's where you've the study in the 90s where Strassman had all these volunteers going under, and that was a common thread was they came out with a sense of, no, that's reality. That's the real sense. Because you still have your original five senses, but then you have all these other ways that your body and being can receive energy and information. And it's enlightening. You can't unsee that. Once you've seen the proverbial ghost, you know where to look for it. And now I feel like I walk around in my, my walking state with heightened senses that are, that can be kind of tapped into, like not necessarily like superpowers have been unlocked, but I know they're there. So now I know I can feel vibrations. I know I can sense emotions. I know, I know that my body has the ability to do that because I've experienced it. And then from there you can stop practicing it. But that's where, you know, I have a chapter about, Transcendental sex research and art where I really think psychedelics can be used in all of those fields where the artist in any media can just that much more authentically express themselves because they now have that much more information to hone in on. With science, it just takes one different way of thinking about autism or Alzheimer's disease or one different thing about end-of-life treatment where just takes one one tweak uh and I think psychedelics can kind of remove that brain clog and whether it be in a person personal sense or in a collective sense um but yeah that that's that's where the fun is now exploring these these different like what's the potential of your body my body your body and it's amazing it's unlimited yeah um if you know and talk about some of the the good ways, how it can rearrange the brain. Uh, if I could, I want to touch on your story because it ties into a lot of stories that, that I've share, but I feel like yours is my stories times times a hundred, uh, where, how can you take adversity? How can you take suffering and, and have a new way of looking at it where, uh, It's meaningful and helpful, not only for you, but for others. And I said, obviously, I was doing some research on you, listening to some of your podcast. But what really, in my introductory to you, I guess it was on Susan Gunner's podcast. You detailed the story about you and your wife losing your son and that whole lengthy process. And at the end of it, she paused. And there was a pause for a good minute, minute and a half. And I remember when I was listening to that, I was crying my eyes out. And I was wiping my tears and my snot. And I was thinking, oh, shit, did my radio skip? Did something happen? And I'm looking at it. I'm like, no, it's still running. And then she came back on. You could tell she was visibly choked up. And it was just like such a powerful story. And then you're saying it with a smile on your face being like, yeah, but he taught me this. And I was able to – his memory and his – The energy that I connected allows me to not look at every child like that in my own. And I'll never look at another being. And I heard that story and it gave me goosebumps because it's like, if this gentleman can switch a tragedy like that. And granted, it's a tragedy and you can't sugarcoat that. But it really is the most beautiful thing. It really is a blessing. And I remember telling my parents that story. And I was like, oh, it turned into the best thing that's ever happened to him. They're like, what the fuck are you talking about? There's no way that you can twist this. And then when I said how you did change it, they were like, oh, I get it. And for somebody that's 43, I don't have my own children. But I look at every children kind of the same way. They are mine. And it is a cool way of interacting with a child. But to be able to just have a mental shift to put some type of adversity like that. And what more? So if somebody loses their family in a car accident or, God forbid, something happens where you have a major loss in your life, there is a way of... putting it in the right compartment in your brain. And I think that's what psychedelics do is a lot of time you just don't have that compartment in your brain because you've never experienced that. And unless you have a place to put it, it's going to keep rattling around and it's going to drive you nuts. And it's not going to allow you to live your authentic self until you find a spot to put it. And then once you do, it can be fertile ground for everything. Now look what it's done. How many thousands, hundreds, I mean, I don't know what your scope really is, but you've changed my life. You've written books to help change other people's lives. You've given me ammo for my story to be like, no, this is, it may not work for you, but look what it did for George. Look what it did for me. Look what it did for my friends. And now I've got stories and stories about similar things like that, how it just changed and tweaked a perspective. And we all have our own, tweaking that needs to happen. And I'd like to say that that's one thing I found DMT is different from a lot of psychedelics. I shouldn't say different. It seemed to pinpoint the exact crack in one psyche that needs filling. Whether it be insecurity, whether it be being molested as a kid, whether it be a sense of money, whatever it is, it'll find exactly what needs to be worked on. And not that it fixes it instantly, but it shows you hey, stop treating the cut on your fingernail when you're really bleeding out through your gut. You've got to put the energy here. That's what psychedelics allow for, that quiet state of mind. I think you can get that through maybe breathing, meditation, exercise, prayer. There's other ways of getting that clarity, but for me, I needed that full shaking out, and psychedelics did that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the kind words, man. I appreciate it. Well, I'm being honest with you. I was crying right before we started recording again because I was listening to it. Because that's not something you just forget. That shades everything you do for the rest of your life. And if you can do it with a sense that empowers you and others around you, man, that's such a blessing. And the story I was going to share was because I feel like, why not? Let's spread his name around. And I've never met the gentleman, but his name is Drew. He passed away a couple of years ago. He was a close friend of these couple of guys that I just met. And for like two years, it was always just thinking about all the suffering that this guy went through. And the last couple of years of his life, how he was just not the man that he was because he was dying of, I believe, cancer and just they had all of this, this negative part of his life that was just at the forefront where it was like, well, no, for 30 plus years of his life, he was this vibrant source of energy, beautiful light and love and all of this. And this guy found a bag of shrooms in his freezer that was given to him by this friend, ironically on his birthday that fell out after like two or three years after his passing. And this guy did a really big shroom session and he did this, you know, purged all the tears, purged all the bullshit, remembered that the pain and suffering that this gentleman drew went through. But then started remembering his favorite movies, his favorite music, started remembering the quotes that he used to say. And now when he brings up his name, it's only of positive. It's only of light. And so not only does this gentleman have his best friend's memory and all of his positive attributes back in his life that he can use, but now he can properly share this guy's memory and insight. He can now share the story with me that I'm sharing with you that we can share to our other guests about life. this gentleman who passed that had this amazing light and this ability to bring the light into a room and was everybody's best hype man. And that story about him was tucked away and clouded away under this darkness about, well, yeah, he got sick and he died. Yeah. And that's part of the story, but that's, but let's don't negate the light. You know, let's, let's, let's, let's talk about the good part of it. And, uh, people that walk around in that dark space for so long sometimes need that blast. And whether it be mechanical, chemical, a combination of a bunch of things, whatever it takes to shake people out of that. And psychedelics seems to do it for quite a few people. Yeah, I agree. In today's environment with psychedelics, it seems to be at least on some level, quarantine to a container of medicine or a container of helping people solve emotional problems. And it's good for that. It's helped me. It's helped you. And it helped a lot of other people. But I think that's just like, that's like the come up. You know, if we're looking at our relationships with psychedelics, like a psychedelic trip, I think that the first wave is a healing wave. And then the next wave that comes is more of like an optimization wave. You know, like for so many of us, like we've like collectively we're on this new we've all been introduced again in the West to like a giant mushroom trip. And we've collectively taken it in the first wave. Oh, shit. We're coming up a little bit. That's like a healing wave. And everyone's like, oh, God, you know what? I've been a total dummy. I've been talking to this person. I love like a piece like I'm a real asshole. I got to fix this. Like that's the first wave and it'll subside. And then the next wave is going to be like this optimization wave. Like, you know what? Why are we all afraid of death? I see this as the next wave beginning to crest. It's like this, man, we have been in this weird mindset. Our entire lives is a race from the hospital to the graveyard. What are we doing? That's dumb. There's so much more shit we can do. Yeah, we're going to die, but let's have some fun along the way. Let's try to make other people's lives better along the way. Instead of gathering around this morbid place and crying all in black about this person that died because we're sad. Like maybe we should be celebrating. Like that person was fucking awesome. We don't have the swing come in. The guy's going to do a backflip off the swing with like a bud light. They kind of, I don't even know what to say. You know, there's a goddamn party happening here. Like that's the way I want to be remembered, man. I want there to be a party. Like, yeah, that guy was so awesome, dude. Did you check out this? You should have like, That is the celebration of life. And what that does is that brings us to the idea of like, look, time is ticking. You know, whatever the hell this thing time is, let's make the most of it, man. Let's make sure that your kid, you give that kid a hug every day and kiss them and tell them how much you love them. Let's make sure you go out and talk to your neighbor for a minute. Hey, the neighbor that's having a little tough time, go over there and be like, hey, man, I noticed you're walking a little fun and everything okay. You know, I need to get you a cane. What's going on here? But Being aware of what's happening around you is the wave that comes after being aware of what's happening inside of you. And I see that with your book. Adam, you've probably been on like 40 podcasts in the last year, maybe more, like maybe 40 in the last three months. Everywhere I look, I'm like, I'm on another podcast. I'm on another podcast. He's got this book. He's got another book coming out. But I see it happening. I want to talk about psychedelics beyond the medical container. And I'm glad that you're bringing it up because I think there is a lot of good coming our way. whether it's through rites of passage or celebrating life or, you know, just understanding the awareness of these different, this different sense ratio that people are beginning to navigate. Like, what do you see looking forward into the future a little bit? You know, and I know no one can tell the future, but as you speculate on what works happening in this wave of psychedelics, what do you see happening that you, that you're really stoked on for psychedelics in the next year or two years or five or 10? I think there is this consciousness shift that that's happening. And I think I don't, not necessarily the two to five year plan. I think my, my goals may be a little, it's going to take a little bit more time, but when, when you meet somebody like myself or like you, or somebody that has a similar story with you, not only going through their bullshit, but then finding themselves, there is a connection and ability to see the beauty in yourself. But then now you are able to see that in other people. And I think that the status quo that we're going, that we're currently in now where it's blue team, red team, it's, it's, oh, it's, you know, resources are limited. Um, It's try to bring everybody down in order to get you up. That is not sustainable. So something really has to be this big shift. And I think that's a natural part of evolution. So we've been around as humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Only up until very recently have we been inundated with computers and computers. You know, smartphones and things like that, where I think we do need to go back to meditation, to being connected to energy, to the earth, to source. And I think there'll be enough people where... If you invited me into your home, you never have to worry if I'm going to steal anything. That's not even an option. Or if I ever see an old lady that needs a door open, of course you're going to open it. To your point, if you see an old neighbor that needs a hand, of course you're going to do it. And I jokingly say in my book, too, about how you know, I'll happily share my stash with any politicians and that, you know, how great would it be that you go, you wouldn't have all this bickering if people went on a three or four day ayahuasca retreat, because yes, there'll be differing opinions. And yes, there's other ways of approaching a solution, but you realize very quickly that we're all, we're all humans and we all should be kind of doing this together. So to your point, something has to give. And I think psychedelics allow He said that the bullshit filter to be taken off when you look in the mirror and you can see with all your flaws and all of your scars, just how perfectly beautiful you are. And then that allows you to see that in other people. And then so the judgment goes away. The fear goes away. it's just, it's a way of living that. And then that's why I say I'm trying to find like my island of misfit fucking psychonauts bullshit because what a happy community it will be because it is what's, what's best for the greater good, uh, not selfish hoarding of material goods and manipulation of people. Yeah. Um, Yeah, so it's going to take probably more than two to five years, but I do see the younger generation having less hate, less racism, less homophobia, less just... Hopefully those are things that aren't even part of the conversation 50 years from now. It's more... How do we be good just resonances of this planet and stop killing everything, including ourselves? Yeah. Yeah, I see the... You know, I love the wave metaphor. And I just think that, like, that's how, like, you know, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. And I think it moves in, like, this helical pattern where it's always rising up. And, like, when I see the world of psychedelics today in a medical container and then I realize, son of a bitch, that's what happened in the late 50s. And I go, uh-oh. come the 60s at Mac, like soon to be school buses, maybe Tesla school buses touring the country with some good music that, you know, arguably the 60s gave us the Doors and Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix, like, and, and all, and like, There's all kinds of characters that showed themselves. And it was springtime. And the world was this abundance of talent. And I see that. And I realize, and I always laugh because I'm like, we're going to look back on these days, like the early, early 60s and late 50s. And I'm like, what a glorious role we get to play. Adam Butler's book is going to be a book that maybe, you know, Turns into some guy from Stanford holding it up at some bus. Listen to this, man. I got Adam's new book right here. But I see that wave coming. And it stems from people coming to terms with the pain and the sorrow. But after the pain and the sorrow comes this next wave of, okay, how do we make things better? And that comes with the – embracing togetherness, embracing all the differences. And if you look at the wedge of division that's been placed among us between black and white and gay and straight and red and fucking blue, it's so stupid. It's so dumb to go, that person thinks exactly the same thing as me, just wearing a different color. You can barely tell the difference. If I got... Like my dad and my uncle in a room, one of them like a Biden supporter and one of them a Trump supporter. If I didn't tell him who we were talking about, the arguments would be almost the exact same. This guy's old. This guy's dumb. This guy's corrupt. Yep. Yep. You're right. They both are. You know what I mean? Like it's so silly to me. So I see this next wave coming up and I think that's part of it. And I think that... People who have lived up to this point can play a huge role in creating the best lives for themselves. Getting through your own trauma and becoming the best version of yourselves is going to inspire people that you don't even know. It's going to be like that stone that flows into the pond and creates ripples outward. You're affecting your neighbors. You're affecting the people around you right now by the language you use. And I know my friend Garrett Smith is like, George, that's way too optimistic, man. But when I look at Garrett's picture and I see him smiling, I think he's on board with me, man. As you laugh like that with your giggle. So I've been putting in a hardwood floor the last week at a buddy's house and listening to you. And the world needs more laughter. The world needs more people to say, hey, you're beautiful. You're wonderful. And that's probably been the most rewarding part of my journey and story so far is hearing the stories of other people. once once they hear my rawness where I'll what do you want to know I lost all my money I lost all my houses I got kicked out of my house I got a restraining I'm fucking you know like all so there's nothing that you can tell me that's going to make you feel less than or feel like you have to be on the defensive uh I'm sharing my rawness with you and as soon as that happens and then like then they can stop peeling back. And it's just knowing it's exposing yourself to yourself. And if it's a conversation, if it takes a book, if it takes a podcast to start that conversation, that's, that's what I'm hoping to do. And it's left with me hugging a bunch of grown men, you know, with tears in our eyes being like, Oh, I love you, brother. And it's like, fuck, man, I wish, man, I wish we could have done that 510 years ago. But then more importantly, We know there's other people that need that. And I ended my book with the last chapter saying, love thy neighbor. And it's kind of coming full circle when I started the book, hating myself and everybody in it and being this huge destructive force to coming to be like, no, you have to. Love yourself and love everybody. Now, it doesn't mean there's not assholes and there aren't people that aren't deserving of it. And by all means, you get to have that filter. And if so, tell them to get the hell off your path. But to look at another individual with empathetic and sympathetic eyes and ears and embrace them in their story. can literally save, save a life. And I, I, I know the people in my life, um, my mom probably being at the top of them, my niece being one of them, uh, my beautiful girlfriend, Alicia, who wrote in that book, these people literally save my life by just being there for me to hold me, to listen to me cry, to say it's okay. Uh, And that's really the message I want to share with people. And you mirror that in a lot of your messages where it's just, hey, man, it's all right. I'm here for you. And I know both me personally and you personally would be there for anybody. If you're really in that type of dark space, man, email us, call us. There is a way out of it. And don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to say, hey, I need 20 bucks because I can't buy a sandwich. Fuck, man. Like I've been there and it sucks. But you say that and you'll see five friends come out and give you that 20 bucks and you know who your friends are. And it just it leads to leads to healing, leads to proper healing. And I'm hoping people can hear my destructive story and either not go through that same destruction or be like, oh, yeah, like we can use those lessons and get a clarity of mind. Be here now. Be present. Don't look for external solutions to your internal self. And, you know, that's another thing, too. I'm not saying anything new or novel. These are all things that have mirrored and inherited through all the greatest knowledge for thousands of years. But it came through very clearly in all my crazy psychedelic states. Yeah, we have that power. Yeah, I agree. We do have that power. I agree. I want to touch on that, but let's talk to our friend Garrett here for a minute. What do you think about this one particularly, Adam? Let's begin again by championing the world's most efficient ways to create pure energy, food, air, and water from everyday foals and wastes so that we can get on to building real lasting quality of life. everywhere because humanity's gravest challenges are borderless hunger dehydration poverty pollution disease and climate and since real proven and practical solutions really do exist right now let's synchronize and resonance with complete success consensus in navajo it's called hose haas it's fascinating like I i I do I think that the way we move through this is what you were just talking about is by understanding that everybody you see is going through a giant tragedy in their life. They're either going through one, they're about to go in one, or they're coming out of one. And as you as an individual, when you can look at somebody and see something that they're going through, that's usually a sign that you have been through something similar. And if, when you look at someone like that person's a fucking asshole, how do you know that? Like you ever, like some people are really good at like, that guy's a real asshole and they're really good at figuring that out. You know, they know they're good at figuring out cause they're an asshole. Right. You know what I mean? Like, would you, and like, there's nothing left to do, but start laughing when you figure that out. Like, you know what I hate about this guy? He's fucking arrogant. And you go, damn it. I'm arrogant. That's the world showing you who you are. That's why it's so funny. Being an alcoholic for 20 plus years, I feel like I can speak very confidently about being an alcoholic and seeing both sides. Where before, when I wasn't sober, I would hear the arguments of the people that were sober and, you know, it would be the best thing you ever did and you'll feel so healthy. But until you experience both sides, you know, you can't speak educatedly about both. Where on that topic, I can't. Same thing about the success. You know, I know a lot of people would go through all this and be like, well, if you had all the money, if you had houses, if you had the beautiful girlfriends and you had the fancy cars and that, well, then it would be all good. And I'm telling you, no, it's not. So I've seen all that too, where, and I've lost a lot of friends or not necessarily lost friends, but people think I'm nuts. When I say I went from all of these high paying jobs and all the responsibilities and all these things, and I don't ever want them again. I, I will only do what I, that I, things of a higher good, whatever, whatever the pay is, it's not about making more money. Um, But I can speak with certainty that that's not the ultimate goal. More money isn't going to help. More houses aren't going to help. More vacations aren't going to help. I mean, they'll add to quality of life if all your other shit is in line. But that's not. Now there has to be a balance. Now I'm kind of on that upswing, but I guess for me, part of the thing that I think I can maybe add is that I know some people haven't had that downswing yet. So up until a couple of years ago, if somebody would have come to approach me with my story, I'd be like, well, you're a fucking idiot. You shouldn't have lost everything. You shouldn't have quit your job. You shouldn't have killed anybody. You shouldn't have, how would you lose your what? Like until you do. And maybe like, I know as much as I'm on a, I'm down now that I'll be on an upswing. Once I get that upswing again, that that pendulum will potentially swing back again to the other side. And that's a natural and normal part of life where some people haven't been exposed to that, that pendulum swim swing concept. And if you can open someone's eyes prior to everything imploding or destructing and kind of not like say avoid the pendulum swing, but at least know when it's going to come or how it can come or be in control of it at least and know how to manage that. Once again, it's you lean into every scenario. there's not one thing that, that potentially throw you off course, because there is no course that the, the course is wherever the fuck it takes you. And that's how, that's exactly where you're supposed to be. And that's the beauty of living in, in that now. I'm kind of, I'm not trying to steal like Ron Dawson is great, but it really, you know, I kept saying that in my DMT states, it's like, ah, just be here now, just be here now. And it's, and it's, it's powerful because, there's like even once again prior prior to this I was and I always try to do like a moment of meditation I said well why why are we doing this why am I having a podcast with you why am I reaching out to you then hearing your story narrative again and then what what can I share and teach and it's not just all right take half a day of work get home do another podcast hopefully that sells some books do another no man like you get a every fucking moment And if you do that, all of your relationships, including with what yourself, will be that much better. Because when you're talking to the small child, you're not just, oh, he's a kid. He's not telling me anything important. No, you're engaged with him fully. To your point, when you see somebody needing help, you're there because you're looking for it. You're looking for that opportunity. It's a cool way to go through life. Because every day you can be that proverbial Drew, that guy that we mentioned that just makes everybody feel good and is the hype man and like I said, your smile and your laughter, I guarantee you, there are fucking work people working all day just being like, this guy's a whack job. And I say that in the nicest way, but I was even telling my girlfriend, this conversation is going to be fun because he's just... What's going to break you down? What is anybody going to say that's going to fucking destroy you? Nothing. The world has already tried to prove that it's going to bring down George, and it's not going to happen. So you laugh at it, and you laugh at the circumstances, and you laugh at the the craziness of trying to control something that can't be controlled. And it's a beautiful power because you don't have to, you know, try to prove it to me. You, you know it and people instantly see it in you. And I, and I think that's, if enough people walk around with, with the veil lifted of just, yeah, there's, there's, there's a better way of interacting with other fellow humans, with our planet, with our resources, with all of that. And, it can lead to a really good life. I don't know if we'll see it in our lifetime. Be perfectly honest with you, but I'm going to do my best to at least plant that small seed and be the small voice that I can be to champion that message because it can save lives. It saved my life and it saved people that I love their lives. So it's real shit. Now, Maybe we should have started the podcast an hour ago with this. Well, the disclaimer, um, I don't think everybody, you know, certainly not everybody should be doing psychedelics. I don't think, you know, probably a majority of people should probably stay away from something as strong as DMT until you're truly ready or you've done your research, uh, know read my book is is a small field guide uh it should be and be perfectly honest with you it wouldn't be my first one or two or three books if I was actually trying to learn all I can about dmt it's one to add to your library but you really have to do as much research as you possibly can answer all of your own questions uh get other points of view um but it can really it can really help and I i As much as I have to be careful and cautious of saying, oh, this is a cure-all because it's certainly not. But it will shake your brain or whatever. It needs to get shaken loose. Yeah. For better or for worse. I've got a buddy who's like, oh, what if I take it and I realize I don't want to fucking own my company. I don't want to be married anymore. I realize I want to do what you did and travel the world and say, fuck it. I'm like, oh, very well may tell you that. But don't you want to know? That will come up with some challenging things in your life, and I get it. Most people wouldn't be like, oh, so you're telling him to get a divorce and sell his company? No. But if that's what his heart is telling him, if that's what his true calling is, what's he going to do, be miserable for 20 years? And to your point earlier, being present and being here mindful allows you to be the good dad, the good husband, the good friend, the good father, all of those things where if you're just someplace else all the time, You may still be in a marriage or you may still own that home. But if you're not mentally present in there, what the fuck good is it? So that marriage will reflect things that may be challenging to see. But it's your reflection. And that's the beauty of psychedelics. It's not imposed by society. It's not what you think. It's your true actual self. And you can't run from it. Good or bad. Yeah. And like you said, don't you want to see it? Don't you want to look in the mirror one time and see what it looks like? See what you look like? Yeah. You know, one time somebody asked me, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? I thought to myself, you know what a cool superpower would be? Would be to get to see yourself the way others see you. In a weird sort of way, psychedelics provide you with a third person perspective about your actions. I'm like, that is powerful because it really allows you to make the necessary changes. Like, you know what? It's like, look, I'm like painting my wall. And I'm like, you know what? Now that I stand back from it, I think I could do like a, maybe like an off-white would be better than this one. But the same thing with your actions. Like it's really hard to see what's happening when you're in it. Like all of us know people who've been in a relationship and you're like, that shit's never going to work. You know it. They don't know it. They're like, yeah, I fucking love this person. And you're like, no, you don't. You love her because she does it. You love him because of this. That's all. But it's really hard when you're in it to get it. It's like the old joke, like the fish, an older fish swims by two young fish and he goes, hey boys, how's the water? And he swims by and the other fish is like, what the fuck is water? You don't know. But when you get a perspective of it, sometimes, and that's why tragedy can be that thing that reflects you because it pushes you into another state. Oh, shit. Snaps you out of it for a minute and you realize, whoa, what am I doing? Psychedelics do that on some level. Like you said, so does breath work, so does prayer. But psychedelics is a way that can do it for you and it's guaranteed to happen. You may not like what you see. I think that that is one of the... the problems, why people, why my, you know, one reason why everyone shouldn't do psychedelics, it's going to show you some things about yourself that you might not be proud of. And I don't know if you're ready for that, but it doesn't mean it's not showing you something that's not true. You know, it doesn't mean that it's not showing you a reflection. Reflections can be distorted, but look, man, you may not, when you look in the mirror, you may not like what you see. What are you going to do with that knowledge? You're going to change it. You're going to just continue to turn away from it. You know what I mean? Like, that's you. Look at it. Like, somebody's going to be forced to look at it. Like, that is you. Knock it off. And like, what better gift in the world to show you that? Like, stop doing that thing. You're ruining everything. You're so much better than that. It's interesting. It's great to have that. And I like that analogy of that third person perspective. Yeah. Because... One, I think you gain it and you certainly have it enhanced when you're in a deep shroom, a DMT session. But it also is there when you're not. It's something that you can take into your everyday life. And just a two kind of common example, two examples that just happened to me recently. One, I got pulled over by a police officer and I was speeding, but it was just a... like put myself in the third. All right. So there was a speed trap from 35 to 45. He got me right there. It was Saturday night. He was probably just checking. I drive a spancy sports car with tinted windows. I was probably driving a little fast. Like, and it's like, I could get mad at him or I could shut my car off, put the windows down, put my hands on the wheel, address him as yes, sir. He was a very polite young guy. Let me go. But it was just, well, don't get all bitchy. And then who the fuck are you pulling me over? Yeah. But it allows you an actual – and then a kind of funny one. But I never – up until this – and the book's only been out for less than a year now. And prior to that, I had no social media. I wanted to have nobody have anything to do with me. I didn't want anybody to know what I looked like. So I don't really have many pictures. So for all of these podcasts I'm going on, I have – like this cartoony picture, but it's with me with my shirt off. So you can see some of my tattoos, but I gave this guy an unclipped one. So it was like, you could see like a lot of my tattoos. And I'm looking at this being like, what a fucking corn ball. This is 43 year old guy, like on TV with his shirt off with his tattoos, with his cartoon thing. And like, and not in a make fun of yourself type of way, but really just be like, no, just take a step back. Like, how is this going to look now? I'm, I'm comfortable with it. I'm very, you know, I can, I can tell you why I did it and all that shit, but just to have the ability to take a step back and be, Hey, or no, maybe simple example, but I was on a new date the other day. And, uh, this woman was a beautiful woman, significantly younger than me. And, you know, we were hitting it off really good. And I was just like, listen, I'm going to here's the, here's my hand. I'm telling you, you've got all the fucking cards in your hand. Like you tell me what the hell you want to do. Like, I'm not trying to come off with some, you know, like act like I'm some God or something like that. And you'd be on it to date with me. And it's like, no, listen, If you call me at any point, I'll be happy to have coffee with you. But it's like, just take a step back and be where you are in every situation. And I think the humility of that for better or for worse, whether it be making fun of a picture of yourself or, you know, knowing actually, Hey, maybe I don't need to run my mouth here, or maybe this isn't the time for me to express myself. Uh, or maybe let me check my tone of voice before I say what I'm going to say. And that's, that's huge to have that self-awareness, uh, especially dealing with little kids or, you know, people that are sensitive or have triggers that could set them off. And that's where I think somebody like, like you and I can both be really helpful to where you can, you can truly feel people's story and not some fake bullshit way. Like you're going to get paid an hourly rate to do it, but in a genuine, like, Hey, I'm interested in your human story. And man, I really want to, connect with you and help you in any way that I can. And that, that genuineness really comes off. And most people that I've come across that have psychedelics, uh, do that now very, maybe very clearly distinctly. I don't like that personality. And I think like, I, and I won't say the name, but I saw some women the other day and I very rarely get rubbed the wrong way, especially by an attractive woman. And this woman just fucking like visually made me like, Oh man, And like I was thinking about reaching out, do I reach out to her and try to get on a podcast? I'm like, no. Because I know in my gut, my gut is telling me exactly what to do. And it's no. For some reason, stay away from that energy. And you learn to trust your gut instinctively and intuitively, but then also without question or without trying to give an excuse to somebody else why you're listening to your gut. You're just, you're very comfortable with being who you are, which if you're constantly chasing outside validation, you'll never be that. So that comes back to that take-home message. Just be within yourself. I'm curious. When you talk about the way in which you can react, whether it's a cop or whether it's a date or whether a lot of times you'll just see someone fly off the handle or maybe someone's always like that. And specifically in your case, did you find that the way you talk to yourself inside your head is the same way you talk to people outside? An example would be like prior to maybe your use in psychedelics or maybe now, I don't know. Like, were you... Would you talk to yourself in the same manner you would talk to someone else? Like, God, I'm such a fucking bitch. Why the fuck would I do that? Hey, fucker, why did you do that? You know what I mean? Like, do you find there's a pattern with the way you communicate and talk to yourself and treat yourself and the way you treat other people? Oh, 100%. And it's a correlation that's undeniable. And that's why... Well, you have, you know, like the... neuro linguistic programming from back in the day. And my, my father's an example of this. He wakes up and he says it jokingly, but he always calls himself a loser and he always wakes up and he's like, I'm a loser. I'm a loser. And I would do, and it's almost just becomes part of his, his vocabulary. And I try to check them. So I'm like, dad, stop, stop saying that. Like you're not a loser. And, and, but every day, if you keep saying that to yourself, um, But, yeah, to my – to your point, excuse me, I always looked at myself with, yeah, you're a fuck-up. How are you doing this? And now you're not making money, so you're not a man. You're not producing. You're overweight. You're not – like all of this shit. And then I – once again, once I properly put the negative stuff that I needed working on in the right compartment in my brain, put the right spotlight on it so that way I could put the right energy on it, then I could really see, wow, I am a beautiful, artistic, creative person. I really do inherently and innately love people. I really do have a lot to give back. And then, yeah, it was, you do deserve to go to the gym. You do deserve to go to yoga. You do deserve to have a gourmet coffee if that's what you choose, if you don't drink anymore. You do deserve to have proper relationships where people understand you and love you for who you are. Yeah, you stop compromising with yourself and then you, you, you extend that to, in my case, every interaction that I've, that I have now, um, I'm super, super conscious of, of tone. That used to be a big, and not that I'm some big, you know, tough guy, but I could come off puffing up my chest and put the right pose being an intimidating person. And I used to kind of use that to my advantage and, never again. If, if, if anything, I'll purposely look, try to be less intimidating or, or if it's a small child or, you know, I'll get down on one knee to talk to them or just to be fully conscious of how you're moving your energy through the world and how that interacts with other people's energies, where before I would just like a, you know, a shock driving a straight line, swimming in a straight line, there would be nothing in my path. I would just blast it away where now I I'm looking for those beings to interact with to, to, swirl and dance and have a conversation and appreciate that. Once again, that beautiful moment now. So if somebody is at any point, but then you, including in, in my life at that moment, then I, that's exactly where I need to be. Want to be. And, uh, I really look for those moments. And my life since this has just been this amazing unfolding of it's like a truly a movie from moving benches to great vacation to high chases, speed chases on the highway to beautiful women, to great jobs, to meeting eccentric old people, to. all sorts of shit, including the conversations with demons, ghosts, angels, and DMT entities, and all the crazy stuff that I see in that DMT space. Every day now is an exploration of beauty and wonder. And I get asked the question the other day, like, you know, when was the last time something amazing or profound happened? And I'm like, every day, all day, because you can see the beauty in the pattern of the wood and the piece of plywood. You can see the, the, the beautiful symmetry in the flower petal. You can, you know, the high resolution picture of the dragonflies eyeball. You can see, holy shit. So the, the giggle of a small kid, you see it throughout the entire day and it just becomes a great way to interact with, with everything. Like when we get off the podcast now, it's I'm going to see my buddy. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to do that. And who knows what's going to come with all of those. But I'm happy as fuck to know it's going to be something beautiful and wonderful where before it would be, oh, I'm thinking about work or I'm thinking about a bill. I'm thinking about this or it's no way to live. And it's certainly no way if you're doing it with alcohol and pills and just banging your head against the wall over the same shit. Yeah. yeah it's well said it and it's helpful to know that you can find beauty in your immediate environment when old patterns find themselves working their way back into you you know for me sometimes I I'll find myself like being going down like a negative pattern of thought like I don't know that But then I'm able to pull myself out of it by especially the act of creation like this. One way that I'm able to help navigate the perilous path that is negative thought is by understanding the power of creation. And you can do that. by making a paper airplane, by sitting down and having a conversation like this with someone and genuinely listening and caring and trying to add value to a conversation and learning and being the student that you get to be when you have a, whatever it is, it can be talking to a kid, talking to your wife, talking to your friend. But I believe that the act of creation is, an altered state of consciousness, because you don't have time to think about the past. You're not worried about the future. You're in the moment, like you said, the power of now, whether it's Eckhart Tolle or whether it's any of these particular philosophies that anchor you to this moment where you're sharing this thing with someone. You and I are creating this awesome podcast right now. We're learning from each other. traveling down the road together and talking and thinking about it but it's a different stream of it's a it's an alternate state of awareness and when you can find yourself in that state everything else falls away and you become you know just become part of it man it's it's I think it's beautiful it's like a flow state for any artist or musician or like I, I carve wood. I haven't in a while, but I used to carve wood where there'd be times where I would sit at, you know, stare at the log or the tree for, for days and not be able to do anything. Cause it just wasn't there. And then there'd be a day where for 10 hours in a row, the chainsaw and the drills would just be going. You wouldn't even stop to go to the bathroom when to eat lunch. And it would just be like, Oh shit, where did the day go? Because you were just in that, that state where it transcends time. It transcends everything. And it is very similar to a psychedelic state. Um, I had somebody the other day say that, um, meditation is their favorite psychedelic. And I love that because it, it, It's that similar flow state. It's that connection to your mind, your body. There's that coherence. You can feel your heartbeat, your everything. And it is very psychedelic in the fact that maybe it's because you're getting more senses. And back to what we were saying before, it's when you're in a deep meditative state, you try to block out what you normally are interacting with. and then you're trying to get all this other extra sensory input or this, or even if you avoid of extra sensory input, you're still getting something in that moment of silence. There's still energy vibrations going through you. And to try to pick those up, um, to give yourself the time and space to do that is, is half the battle. This is, you know, you can combine that with, with the proper shroom or DMT or, you know, whatever your, your choice is, uh, It's profound. And maybe that's a big thing too, is most people don't take the hour of the day to do those things for themselves. So if you're going to trip on shrooms, you're going to take six to eight hours. Or if you're doing an ayahuasca retreat, you're planning for months and you're going on a fast for days and you're spending thousands of bucks on it. But you're doing it for yourself with the intent of doing it for yourself. And most people don't take the time to do that. Um, most people don't have the time to have an honest discussion with yourself about what you need and then act through on it, uh, is huge. And typically like I said, when most people are like, Oh, I'm going to go buy an eighth of shrooms, they know why they're buying it or getting it or growing it. And they know what the, what the intention is. And, uh, most people just walk around with no intention or just that, that same monotonous rat race where they're not really thinking about doing anything, including unfortunately, uh, going to their kid's baseball game or basketball game, including making love to their spouse, including running a company. You do all these things in kind of pilot mode, and you're never there, as opposed to now I do everything from literally grounding coffee to making a cup. There's not one thing I don't do that I'm fully, fully, fully engaged in. And hopefully you see that as I do a podcast interview with you. But I extend that not to make the other person feel important, but I do it because – it makes me feel important. Like it makes me feel alive and vibrant. And this, this is, I'm not fucking dead. Like I'm still lucky. And I know that I was 99% there. And that's a touchy topic too, but you don't really try to commit suicide either. You do, you don't. But man, I was like, I was really, really, I was there. I was really leaning towards not coming back. And now to, to know that, that I have a second chance at everything. I will never spawn to that ever again. So if I'm on this planet for five more days or for another 40, I'm going to kick every day's ass and I'm going to do it in a genuine, authentic way. And money will come. I'm sure houses will come. I'm sure all of that shit will figure its way out, but I'll do it on my terms and not because of somebody else's construct. And like you said in another podcast, man, you wish somebody told you that you could retire at 33 or whatever. But maybe somebody just needs to hear it before you and I just be yourself and fuck it. If you want to do shrooms and go travel the world and find yourself because you hear stories like you, I, and other people's where it actually does benefit. If that's calling to you, then do it because you got one shot at this. Yeah. We get old quick. Fuck. We get old quick. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you don't, I was talking a while back with the death doula in, in, you know, One thing she had mentioned to me is that no one ever wishes they would have spent more time in the office. No one ever wishes, you know what? I wish I would have worked a lot harder at this other job. I wish I would have spent more time away from my family. Everybody wishes like, man, I wish I would have been a better husband. I wish I would have been a better dad. I wish I would have been a better mom. I wish I would have been a better brother. I wish I would have been a better person. I wish I would have spent more time with my family. I wish I would have taken more vacations. And, like, if we know that, if you can talk to someone who sits with people who take their last breaths and we can get to hear what they are sad about, man, how can you not incorporate that into your life right now? It's like, yeah, we're all ancestors in training right now. And if you can take the wishes of someone who is sitting on their deathbed, fuck, I wish I would have been a better husband. Like, just the fact that I heard that. means I need to be a better husband. The fact that your friend is like, what if I don't want to have this job and be in this place? Maybe that's a sign, man. Maybe the fact that you're saying it out loud has to do with something that's inside of you, man. Everything that you hear can be a sign for you to live the best possible life, man. If you're tuning into this and you're like, man, maybe I should travel a little bit. Yeah, maybe you should. Maybe you should be serious about it. When you talk about it, it's a dream. When you envision it, it's possible. When you schedule it, when you write that thing down, guess what? You've just translated vision into reality. Boom, it's moving forward. And I do think that as long as you're here and you're healthy, man, you got everything. You may not have everything you want, but you have an opportunity to live a more meaningful life. And if you're here and you're healthy, Man, you have so much more than so many other people. And it's so easy to get caught up in all the shit you don't have, man. Everybody does it. Like, ah, if I just had that, you'd be like, no, you wouldn't. You already have everything you need right now in order to begin on the path that is more beautiful than you could possibly imagine. And when you do that, when you start just – when you just shift your focus like that, you will attract people into your life that – Man, that want to be around you. It's like a magnet. It's like you're tapping into a magnet and you're like, all of a sudden you start radiating this stuff outwards and it draws people to you, man. Like it's there. And I want everyone to feel it because everyone deserves to feel it, man. Everyone deserves it. to just take a load of shit off your plate for a minute and just sit there and be like, you know what? I worked really hard on this thing and I fucking, I care enough about myself to start living a better life. Like you can, it just takes that first step forward, man. And I think that's why, that's one reason why your book is so awesome. Like you, you really are vulnerable and talk about the things in your life that you did that you're not proud of, you know? And, and what that meant. And I think that the icing on the cake is to get to sit here and talk to you today and be like, look, man, here's, here's a person that did it. Like, Why not? There's a better way. There is a better way. Because you can live more happy and content. And that effect radiates so – I mean I lost all of that. And I destroyed families and brought down a bunch of people with me. We're now just the opposite. I've got little kids waiting to play Monopoly with me. And I have friends inviting me over for dinner. And it's like – yeah, it's – be the person – That you want to be and don't cloud it by all the crap that gets clouded down on you. Yeah. I did want to, if I could, you were talking about the knowledge that can be gleaned from people that are close to death. I think that we can talk about some of the exciting potentials of psychedelics. I know most people, especially with DMT, when they do it, they have a complete lack affair of death. Like you really... You know that there's something more, that there's different, that time is kind of an illusion, that your energy does pass on. I think that's a common occurrence when people do psychedelics. And I just think the power of that knowledge for people towards end of life, whether it be elderly or whether you're just terminally sick, to take a couple hits of DMT and then to be calm with that. So now it's not solving anything. You still have the cancer. You're still probably going to pass. But you're comfortable with that passing because you know how your energy is going to be transmuted into something better and greater, not lesser than. And same thing with the prescription pills and how it's easily just pushed on everybody's throat and people take it without even questioning it. You imagine these – people sitting there in the hospice getting pumped up with morphine and all of these drugs and making them scared. Where am I? I'm losing control of my body, all of that, as opposed to some micro dosing of shrooms or even a full dose of shrooms or a couple hits of a vape pen of DMT. And just to be able to put that in perspective, I think the therapeutic value of end of life use of psychedelics to calm that transition is huge because It's very empowering to once again walk around with knowing that you're not afraid of dying because it's my experiences and talk about hours about that is really I'm very comfortable that my energy is not just contained to this body. And if and when this biological body does deceased, you know, it will move on. And that allows me comfort to do traveling and to go out and to live a full life because I'm not worried about The ramifications of death, which that doesn't mean you go out and just live like a fucking rock star every day, but you live not like a rat in a freaking treadmill. That's for damn sure. You find the balance at least or try to. See, I think that this brings up an interesting point as to conditioning the revolution of the 60s psychedelics in the medical container. I think it is the fear of death that keeps people docile. And if you look at the way in which we treat our elders, like they're just sort of a cash crop for the medical industry. Let's hook them up to this machine and put on these pills and like... we'll just charge the insurance company hundreds of thousands of dollars and we'll take their, all the retirement money. We'll make them set. Like what happens when people put on the armor of God, whether that's psychedelics or whether that's just not being afraid of death and they start standing up like that, that to me is another part of the psychedelic revolution that's coming. And I think that that is why so many people probably get pissed off as David, but you know that's coming like psychedelics comes with an awakening and with an awakening comes a revolution and we're going to see what happens when when the the medical industry and the governments what are they going to do with the youth that are furious about the way their parents are treated about the way they're treated about the way the monetary system because that is coming and I think psychedelics are going to play a huge part in that and I'm for that I think that on some level, the idea of authority needs to be challenged at a level that it hasn't been challenged in a long time. And that's what I think that that is where the tough guy guys like that have that have gone full circle and been like, you know what? I was this I was this guy that was that came off as a tough guy or I did all this the wrong way. We need every one of those guys to go through their own revolution because those are going to be the mentors to the young kids coming up that need to understand what authority and power is. Like, I think that is common. And what's your take on that? All right. I agree. You have comfortable throwing your fingers up saying, fuck you. I'm not, well, yeah, you had, uh, I've, I've been watching so many podcasts. You had Adam, um, tap on, right? We were talking about his father. Love that guy, man. Had dementia and using 5-MeO DMT, I believe. So it's something like that where, so you're going to tell me what's best for my father. I'm just, I'm supposed to sit back and watch this man disintegrate because of you said so. When you know, especially someone like him that has medical training and he sees what happens, there is a better unique way. And he'll be the, listen to this, the story on your podcast. It didn't completely solve him. He's still an old man. He's still at the, you know, At the end of his life, that's fine. But there's a healthier way, and especially a lot of these plant-based medicines. And not that just because it's plant-based means it's good, but you can't tell me that some DMT or 5-MeO DMT isn't going to be. it should at least be on the table of discussion as opposed to all these other synthetic pharmaceutical drugs that, you know, are being pushed for profit. And, you know, we talk about like that third person perspective and awareness of oneself and how you can apply that as you're talking with you and other people. Well, you can apply that to corporations as well. These people aren't hiding anything. They're for-profit organizations. They have lobbyists that have paid millions and millions of dollars to promote their views. They've explicitly stated that they're trying to get you to be on a prescription and continue using their pills. They're telling you what the fuck they are or what they grew from. So it's just being able to call bullshit on that. I know when it comes to my loved ones, I'm like a super mama's boy. When she starts getting into needing care like that, I pity the person that gets between me and her and some shroom tea on a Friday night so we can watch a movie together. If you're going to tell me that that can't happen, then, you know, but that's where personalities and personas like myself where I'm not intimidated by any man or woman I'm not intimidated by any person and I like kind of going into a room and calling out the elephant in the room I'd like having awkward conversations I feel like if a conversation is somewhat awkward to bring up or it's challenging to have that means it really needs to happen and I'm I'm that guy that will walk into a room and just be like yeah you you know um or hey this isn't this isn't right uh the plan isn't just to drug everybody up with a bunch of stuff. The plan isn't to tell a young woman who's just recently pregnant, well, keep doing drugs and we'll take the baby. No, how about let's come up with a game plan of weaning off the drugs and then you can start a family and a life together. And I kiss these little kids a couple of times a week. But talking about, and this is where I do get emotional because I don't have my own kids and I do really love their energy. And to think That they could have been snuffed out of my life because of the medical community or because of just not giving a person, this beautiful woman, the benefit of the doubt. Because what? Because she didn't have the money that some other woman had or wasn't wearing a fancy purse or didn't come with a fancy car. You're going to judge her and be like, oh, you're just going to lose your kid? Fuck that. And that's where... And luckily, her and her boyfriend, my friend, stood up and said that to the doctors. Like, you're fucking nuts. Like, we're going to take this life and we're going to do what we want with it. And if more people do that to authority, to teachers, to doctors, to even eventually their parents. I hate to say it, not every parent's a good parent. You need to stand up and, yeah. And that's where, if I can be the initial voice to start somebody else to have their own voice and knowing that, if nothing I could do or nothing, you could, it's the power of the plant to see yourself as you truly are. And, uh, it's a narrative that's been, you know, going on now for thousands of years and it, it, it works because you take the power back and then you, all those bullies, whether they be real or fake in your life, just, just bow down. Yeah. Go down like I do and look at butterflies and pieces of wood and eat ice cream and coffee and laugh all day. Yeah. way better than being the stressed out prick that I used to be. Yeah, but it was necessary. Like you have to go through it. Like the only way out is through. And I don't know why different people have different paths, whether they chose them or whether it's just a test that they have to go through, but You know, it's necessary. And that's something that I think can be transformational for people that are in a mess right now is just to chant the mantra to yourself, it's necessary. And just let that roll around in your head for a little bit. You'll figure it out. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but what can I learn from this? What else can this mean for me? What is this teaching me? You know, is there any possible way I can come out of this better? You start asking those kind of questions in a deep tragedy. Watch out, because that is the mind of someone who is seriously doing the work. And the answer to a lot of those questions is yes. You know, it's just, it's fucking so hard to find the answer sometime, but you know, where you stumble is where you find the gold where you, like you said, with an uncomfortable feeling about a conversation is a conversation that needs to be had. An uncomfortable feeling about being stuck somewhere is a, is a feeling that needs to be addressed, you know, and it doesn't mean to be addressed by you to drown that one in alcohol. There's no pill big enough to take that thing away, man. It's just, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah. And so the physical stresses that our body shows us, you know, back to that kind of car analogy with the indicator lights, it's, if you have high blood pressure, if you're overweight, if you're not sleeping right, if you, I mean, all of the issues that people have, and I had several of them. Yeah. You don't, you have to address the reason why they're happening, not just try to cover them up. And like I said, I keep going back to the word empowering because once you realize that The stresses in your life. So in my case, right now, probably the only thing I have is financial stress. So I'm not making the money that I used to. I had this debt now that I got to kind of come back with. But what opportunity can I have? So now I've met three or four new people as far as employment opportunities. I have several cool new jobs where I've met a bunch of awesome people. I've been to the mansions in Newport. I've been to these awesome buildings in Boston doing a cool job. I just met somebody that's going to teach me how to build little mini houses and then run a sawmill. like being an author being going on podcasts now like there's just so much awesome things that that can come about and yeah do I still have issues with my money yep am I still back on my taxes that I got to figure out when this was never an issue prior but there's so many opportunities for growth so many opportunities for me to better myself and I'm very comfortable and confident that in two to three to four or five years I'll be fine I'll make I've made a shit ton of money before in multiple ways I'm sure I'll do it again I know that the experiences that I've had, the fact that I can look through my phone and be like, Oh, I went to Zion. I went to Bryce. I went to Northern California. I went to this cave. I went to the drum circle in Asheville, North Carolina on Friday nights, which if anybody is in there on that area, you definitely have to do that. But like, these are all these things now that I will, I will have with me for the rest of my life. And it's, it's not the value of those are priceless. Um, Because I'll always be able to make more money. I won't always be in my 40s where I can go hiking for eight hours or that I can do these massive hikes or I can even be on the road without eating for two days and not give a fuck. Do it now while you can. And that's whether you're 20 or you're 80. You have the opportunity, and you've said it multiple times, just to create your own beautiful destiny and not follow some path that somebody else thinks you should go down. Yeah, that's a pathway that leads to disaster, external validation. Look, my wife's dad said it really good. He said, you know, money doesn't make you better, but enough money makes your life easier. And it's true. It does make it easier. You don't have to worry about your fucking taxes, or you don't have to worry about... do I have enough money to buy my kid milk for this week? These are real struggles that people have. And everybody battles with a monetary, at least everybody I know battles with money on some level. But the truth is relationships are the true currency. Relationships are the true currency. Relationships are the true currency. Because like you said, if you need 20 bucks for a sandwich and you have some really close friends, you're probably going to get it. But more than that, you can sit down with someone and be like, I am fucking losing my mind about this thing. Can I talk to you for a minute? And that removing that barrier will allow the money to flow in, you know, and maybe it's money. Maybe it's, I don't know what it will allow abundance to flow into your life, but you have to get rid of the blockages and relationships. Ladies and gentlemen are the new currency. And I see it happening in my life and the story that you've written in this, our conversation today and our new found relationship. Like that's a currency, man. I can call you from now on and be like, Adam, what's up? What do you think about this? Like, That's building something, man. And so many of us are in this rebuilding phase where we're building a foundation on which we can all move forward. And I think that the movement right now of psychedelics, even though you've been in this game for a long time, it's just beginning to be rolled out to the masses. It's still the early days. And what we're building right now, I think we're going to look back on these days out with fond memories. I hope so. Well, like, you know, hopefully we'll be the Terrence McKenna's of, you know, the rest of the year or, you know, even just these foundational people like the Rick Strassmans that have been, you know, studying DMT or even right now that there's a lot of awesome minds that are working at Imperial College and, you know, things like that. Yeah. where will we be in five, 10, 15 years? And I know some obscure kid from new England that just wrote a book that had, I know right now it's, it's minor and it's a tiny little pebble rolling down the hill, but so were all those other people, 15, 20, 30 years ago. And it started with one book. It started with, you know, like I'm a big fan of Alan Watts. And I think I love his, I love his, his speaking voice. And you watch some of his old videos and he was like this young man as, as a lecturer. And it's like, Yeah, at some point he was just – and I know he died young too. But at some point he was just this young guy with the balls to stand up in front of an audience and be like, yeah, no, I have the knowledge of Eastern religions and mysticism and all this shit. And I can speak in an intelligent way. And he had the balls to do that. And now years after his death, there's so many people that have benefited from his words. And I'd like to think, yeah – These stories will help. I'm not going to be producing any scientific data. I'm not going to be writing any of these crazy papers, but I can hopefully share my experience and give people just another data point to say, hey, this is another guy that helped out and use it to hopefully their advantage. Want to either go towards my path or want to run as far the fuck away from it as possible, but either way. Once again, shake you out of your rut. Or you know what? If things are really beautiful and things are great, psychedelics can make them even that much more beautiful and that much more wonderful. If you already think you have a great job and great wife and great kids, then you're going to see them that much more truly and beautifully. Yeah. We can't always use DePato. We all can't. He's an awesome dude. I've reached out to him. He's got my book actually. I'd love to. He's doing all sorts of cool work with VR and headsets and like how awesome it, and not with really any intent of medical or therapeutic. So you're saying like putting this medical box, they're doing it really for like pleasure and what's, how far can the mind go? And it's, it's, it's awesome. But yeah. So we're like, where is he as a young man going to be when he's bald and gray and old, and he's been doing this for 20 years. It's going to be, it's going to be awesome. I know I want to be part of those studies. That's for sure. Hopefully I just got to make some money to get out there now. I don't know. Maybe, maybe your book getting there at the beginning of the bridge to get out there. Like there's something going on at, at, in the Netherlands over there where they, they don't have the boundaries of like, they can work with human subjects. You know, they don't have that. They don't have so much of like all this red tape where they can't do anything, but. And Abigail Calder is working on LSD. There's so many people at Imperial College London that are doing some cool stuff. And there's people right here in the United States that are working on awesome things. The science that's happening right now is explosion. It wasn't too long ago that you would be laughed out of school and never be given a grant if you said that you took psychedelics seriously. There's another great company called Moksha Journeys. And they're out of Oregon and Denver. Rose, an incredible woman, great story. The whole team over there, from Prema to just the whole team is amazing. And they are using particularly psilocybin as an addiction model. And they've had people come through, like their first cohort went through, and the people that went in there with like an addiction score of 12 in the first week after going through the therapy of like – you know, psychedelics and sitting down with their nutrition list and sitting down with the people that understand NLP the first week, these people scoring from like a 10 down to a two, you know, like they're doing incredible work. And like, that's undeniable. This is the kind of thing that science loves is this, this tangible thing that we can measure. Okay. Well, here they are. And here they are now. Like you can't get away from that. And even as much as some pharmaceuticals don't want there to be, you know, a competition to their model, like it's beginning to get to the place where it's undeniable. And like, I see that future emerging. It's so thankful for it, man. It's, it's, it's beautiful. There's a guy, Joe Dispenza. So he's a book soup becoming supernatural. And that's, I like his approach because he is a medically trained doctor that does use brain scans to prove that In deep meditation, your brain and heart do lower rates and become coherently connected. Your body does endogenously produce DMT when you get into these states. You read this book and like you said, it's undeniable. The story of the meditative monk sitting on a mountaintop a thousand years ago in this state of elated bliss is now proven that this can happen in Northern California by some guy drinking a latte because it's in His brain scan is proving that it went from this to this and his breath is strong. And then they said to naturally pulse DMT through your body. Those are the studies that I'm I'm super interested in because now I want to try to not take it out of the experimental realm, but I know what I can do. in the comforts of my own space. And I know how far I can push it. But there are places like the Monroe Institute where they're working on the brain hemispheres, working in coherence together by different vibrations or different frequencies. So I've been reaching out to them to hopefully start some of their programs. And anybody can go. It's just a matter of signing up for them. But how cool would that be? Because one of their programs is after you've gone through some of their classes and you've kind of getting a little bit advanced, you do those same techniques while being monitored. And then you get to see how your body is physiologically changing. And I'd love to talk about it. So this would be like self-validation, not external validation. But how cool would it be just in your own to be like, oh, no, in five minutes of meditation, I can do this or whatever. Yeah. I know I can produce DMT by breathing watch. And then to be like, Oh fuck. Like, or whatever I, I, you know, your body astral projected for an hour and it's proven like, yeah, for that hour, your body was just beating at whatever, you know, 30 beats or whatever. Like that's the stuff that interests me because it's not, I can tell stories to my parents and my friends and be like, Oh, you should see the shit that I see. You should see the vibrations. But until, you know, maybe if I come home with some, brain scans and data to be like, yeah, no, look, like it really, this really does happen. So. Yeah. Yeah. I know for the rest of my life, I'm going to be dedicated to exploring my intellectual curiosity about my brain, consciousness, reality, how psychedelics work with that. But then the big picture, and I know this is we're on common ground. How do you tie that into helping others and letting your story grow? help others process their own. And if you can do it with the loss and experience that you've had and do it with a smile, and if I can do it with the horseshit and trauma that I've been through and self-destruction that I caused myself and others and come out of it, hopefully it'll give people confidence to go through that battle themselves and to know you're going to walk through some shit, but you will come out with that sash full of badges that show you what a badass you are and With those badges, you know that. Like I said, I'm not afraid of any individual or any circumstance bringing me down. I'm very comfortable with what the world's going to bring me. And I think you are as well. And that's a great position to be in. Whether you're walking into a new room at a party where you don't know anybody, or you're starting a new business, or you're just walking through the woods by yourself. It's great to know that sense of self. Man, I think that's a great spot to leave it for today. Adam, beautiful, man. I just, I can't get over the... the shawl of patches on my belt, man. I feel like we've covered a bunch of them today. Dude, this is so awesome. But before I let you go, man, where can people find you? Where can people get the book at? What do you got coming up? What are you excited about? Uh, so the, the books everywhere. So, I mean, Amazon's obviously the easiest way, but, um, bonds and noble sells at Walmart sells it. Uh, if you're in new England, um, Newberry comics is this really cool store. They've got like 20 different locations. Uh, it's in, I think like 15 of their stores. So it was in a couple of cool shops. Um, I just recently put out the audio book. So that was like four weeks ago. So I recorded that with the two other people that wrote in the book. So that was a fun experience. Um, But I'm, I'm, this is all relatively new to me. So I just started kind of my Instagram account and Twitter or ex Twitter account. Uh, everything's at either books by Adam Butler or Adam Butler books. But if you, you know, you search YouTube, search me now, there'll be a couple of things that come up, but, um, I'm interested in collecting stories. If anybody has any cool stories, then please share my email, adambutlerbooks at gmail.com. I'd love to hear your story and other people's just to add it to my data points of that this is the right path. I am writing another book. kind of to do with with the integration of all this information because that first book was like holy shit this is me I just blew up fucking everything like fucking destruction story but now I kind of want to make the next one a little bit how do you put this all into place and but also with the same you know there's some really good books out there by medical professionals that are three four five hundred pages thick I want to make this one an approachable field guide that's fun that speaks like I do uh that makes it kind of accessible and approachable but Man, so now you broke your fucking mold. Now you're going to fix it. It's kind of the next one. But yeah, I'm excited to learn from the people in this space. As much as I feel as though my story can potentially add a small data point, I am a very, very happy student in this space. And I look forward to sitting around and listening to other conversations. So thank you. Thank you for being part of that. And I'm sure we'll connect. Yeah, man. I'll buy you a sandwich if I go to Hawaii. Maybe you'll buy me one. Of course, man. Of course, man. I can't wait to connect further and have more conversations. And maybe next time we'll bring some more people into the tent and try to make it a little more harmonious. The more voices out there, the better. Well, ladies and gentlemen, go down to the show notes. Check out Adam Butler's book. Go down and reach out to him if you want to share a story with him. Reach out. Got a new book coming out. Last book you can buy with the link at the show notes. That's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Hold on briefly afterwards, Adam. Everyone else, I love you. I hope you have a beautiful day. Aloha.