S136: The battle within. Delirium Tremens or demonic possession?

Participant #1:
You are listening to the Kentucky XFiles with hosts Dennis mays, Tyler Stewart and Josh Gibbs. Don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Now on to our show,

Participant #1:
something that would be in the context of the superior. You described as being a great silver looking, upright body of creatures dragging a deer out of that cave. Going up the hill, room goes, hey, we got a question for him. He's, do you believe in demons? And it takes one big step and vanishes. I'm like, oh, my God, that was a big fan. Look at these pictures of this white creature sucking seven foot, three to eight foot tall. This bear was standing on his hind legs and he was running like a hangout. Now, when it stood up, that's when I knew it was a dog in.

Participant #1:
Welcome back, guys, to the Kentucky X Files. Today we got a big one for you. This one is a story that probably will send chills down your spine even if you don't believe it. Like you don't believe in this stuff. We got another friend of Denny here, eric, I think I consider you probably the oldest friend that I have that I can remember having. Right. Or maybe you were just such a good friend that all those other ones before you didn't matter anymore. Right. I can't remember who my friends were in grade school, but middle school I met Eric in music class and yeah, man's class. We started goofing off together and then trying to kill the teacher with our words. Yeah. Got separated lots. We weren't allowed to be in classes to each other. They literally changed our schedule. So we were not in the same class ever. We would see each other only by being in the being sent out in front of the principal's office at the same time. Maybe sometimes premeditated. So old friend and he's got a tale to tell, which we're going to listen to, which I'm hoping it strikes a lot of chords out there for you guys listening. And maybe this will help you. And if you struggle with this, and I do believe that addiction is at the heart of this 01:00 A.m. I right? Sure. Yeah. Okay. So if you guys, anybody out there, you're struggling with any kind of addiction and you need help, I will put every link that I can find for you out there and you can always reach out to us at any time for anything. And the one other thing I wanted to bring up before we get into this is on my way over here, I found a quote that I really like and two parts, I'm going to read it to you and then I'm going to challenge you afterwards. So here's what I'm going to say. Say what you will to the forces that govern the universe. Perhaps we'll call it into being and it will yet love us as we love it. And I think that one will strike a chord for sure. The other part is I want you guys out there to find out where that came from. And if you do, send me an email. And if you're the right answer, we're going to get you on the phone and you can be our fourth host one night. How does that sound? Is it going to be the first person that gets the right answer or the second or the 7th? I don't know, we'll just put them all in a hat. So, yeah, if you find out, you figure it out, let us know. We'll take it from there and get you on here to talk and experience. But I don't want to clog us up. I got emails and stuff for the show, but honestly, let's hold them off to the next episode. And I'd like to dive into Eric's, what happened to you? Okay before thank you for joining us. No problem. Thanks for having me. So I don't really know, I guess we'll just start from the problem and go from there. When you're dealing with addiction, you don't view it as a problem, right? Because otherwise you probably wouldn't have got there to begin with. And I never thought of myself as a person that would become addicted to anything other than cigarettes, I guess. But I never even liked to drink until I realized that I could deal with my anxiety by drinking. So it was more of like I probably could at some point saw a doctor and got put on medicine or something along those lines and never had this whole story to tell. With that being said, it's like the best thing that's ever happened to me other than kids and things of that nature. But what did I do to my kids? I don't even maybe help them to know what it's like to go through the shit and hell of addiction hoping that my mistakes and regrets would benefit them. I tell them all the time that if my regrets and the things that I just could take back, if they're not something to be learned from, then what good are they? And so with that or are they really regrets? I mean, are they really things that you would take back? But I can save you a lot of fucking time if you just take my shit, my story, and just be like, okay, yeah, I don't have to go that route. So that's the positive side to addiction, is that if you get through the shit, it's just like anything, it's an experience and then you can learn from it. The first time that I really realized that I had to stop what I'm doing to myself and I'm talking about alcohol. I mean, I've never even seen like, heroin or anything like that. No. And I probably did a little bit of coke and things like that, but that's about the extent access to that was good and that was fun, but nothing grabbed me like alcohol did. So one day I'm at work and I'm having to drink so that I can get through the day. And the crazy thing is it was a driving job. That's like the worst thing you can possibly do. And I don't even know how I got through all the days that I did. But this particular day I was about to go on vacation and my vacation was going to be for a week and I was going to take my kids camping. And I was all excited about that. But I had nothing set up or planned because I spent any of my free time just keeping a slight buzz throughout the day until 09:00. And then I just put myself to sleep and was just drinking hard. It was a functional alcoholic, but that only goes so far. And so your body is just like, yeah, you're shutting down all your organs or something. I don't know. Your mind's taking it in, realizing that

Participant #1:
first you're trying to fix yourself and then you're destroying yourself. It's a hard line to play. You're dancing online of like good and bad, which is ultimately what it all came down to. Your heaven and hell situation is where I found myself at the end of the story. So this day I'm at work and I couldn't tell you what happened between a certain set of maybe 2 hours or something. I just remember coming out of this building and I had a guy and escort with me into these properties. And I remember saying to him like, is this it? And he's like, yeah, I was surprised. I was shocked because I didn't even I'm like, wait a minute. I don't even remember what just happened. And so I'm imagined, I guess, what happened. And I never found out because his dude wouldn't answer my calls. He just wanted to be he had nothing to do with it because he probably routed me out and thought that my calls were coming at him and vengeance. But I just wanted to know what happened. He literally lost time. Lost time just gone. I don't even know. I guess I woke up and he determined that I was good to go. And I said, yeah, I'm going to go on vacation. It was a Friday. And I'm going to get my camping stuff together. I'm going to go camping. I was all excited and I get home and I realized like, oh man, I'm incomplete. I'm completely just out of control. This is controlling me. There's no way that I can get in a car, take my kids to the campground, start a fire, be around a fire, be with my kids and not be just passed out. There's no way that I could do this. And my kids were all looking forward to it and everything. And I was like, felt like complete shit because I'm basically strapped down to my house, only being able to maintain, not getting sick by drinking. I just felt weak as fuck. I don't know. I just felt so shitty. So I just said, you know what? This is it. And I'm on vacation. I'm going to take this week, and I'm just going to not drink anymore. And so I knew because I've done this before, just to try to stop. I knew it was going to be terrible, but I had something was telling me, like, this is going to be the worst thing you've ever done, more than the other times I was in. It deep and hard.

Participant #1:
It's got me. And

Participant #1:
it's hard to just make that decision. You're like, okay, well, I'm going to just quit feeling of dread. Yeah. And I know that if I drink, it's just going to restart the whole thing all over again. So I know there's just you have to make that decision finally. And it's definitely a hard thing to do. So I start detoxing, and it's, you know, go through a whole week, and it's basically just being sick. Your heart rates went through the roof. Your skin is crawling. Your complete misery. Right? You feel like it's worse than the flu. It's worse than I can't imagine anything that it's worse than. I mean, I would probably put it up to, like, gosh, you went through something very similar, didn't you think? Absolutely. Yeah, it's identical. The only thing I could keep down with super. Yeah. Middle of summertime, freezing to death. Yeah, absolutely. I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay, cool. Well, then you have to try to get your mind off of what's going on. So basically what I came up with was throughout all of my trial and errors with having been in the situation was like, I need to feel something different. And the only thing that I could come up with is to turn the shower on, get in there, and just hot as it could possibly be, and then switch to cold, as cold as it could be. And I would do this all night long. And I was at this time, I'm living in a condo, so there's a guy below me that in the bathrooms were like, I guess the installation or whatever, the separated bathrooms was just not there. So it's the worst place that they could not sound proof or whatever. Because, I mean, you could hear the dude downstairs going through a hard shit. If he was doing that

Participant #1:
for a week, he's hearing basically me throwing up in the bathroom. And if the downstairs matched the layout, which I'm pretty sure it did, it was the bathroom inside of the bedroom. So he's in bed. He could hear me upstairs puking, turning the shower on at all hours of the night. And this time, my wife, she's sleeping in the other room with our daughter because I just didn't want anybody near me, right? I mean, the door from the outside looking in. My whole family is out here in this one floor living space, right? We're in a condo, so they're out there in the living room, and all they see for me is a door that's shut, and they just know that I'm in there, like, going through a hell. And I don't know for sure if my kids were completely aware. It was usually like, hey, Dad's sick. I even thought that a lot of times because I was in denial, like, oh, yeah, I got a stomach bug. Well, this time I knew, like, I'm doing this for sure, and I'm putting myself in this position. It's amazing, too, that kids will say that, but it's amazing how accurate they are. All they know, they get sick. Yeah, he really is right. They're so to the point and don't even realize it. Right? I don't know. Depending on their I have a lot of kids, so depending on the age group, I have seven. So it's not like I have, like, 20 kids, so like that, but seven. There's a lot in the condo, and they're just like, dad's in there. And I know I'm probably sick from drinking, but who wants to think about that, about your dad? So you kind of maybe are in denial, too. Your whole family is in denial because you are. So they're trying to like, yeah, he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, I'm going through this shit, and this dude downstairs has got to hear me puking. He hears me turn the shower on. I'm doing this all night, off and on for, like I said, a week. And I get through it to the point where I'm not getting sick anymore. But then that's when the real shit starts, right? I don't feel like I'm crawling out of my skin anymore. That's kind of subsided. The addiction is starting to no longer be a physical addiction. It's switching from my body to my mind. And that's like when the hallucinations and just weird trippy shit starts. And I think the first hallucination was not even a visual one. It was sound. And this is super weird, but my week is almost up, and I know I got to get back to work, so I'm kind of, like, starting to get some anxiety. Like, I can't keep this shit going. I got to be back at work. So there's anxiety there from that, right? At this point, I know I can't sit in a car. When you're switching from being a drunk to being sober, you feel drunk now that you're sober because everything's new again, like, you're getting your feelings and senses back, and

Participant #1:
I see what I'm kind of blank telling that. So the sound hallucination, I kept hearing a couple. It sounded like girls, and they were out in the porch below me, and the dude that was below was a single dude maybe had a daughter that would stop every once in a while, but she certainly wouldn't have had a friend over or anything. So I'm like, hearing two girls in a vibrator is just like, loud. I was actually kind of getting excited as I'm sitting there in misery. Like, I can hear these girls. They're like giggling and shit. And they got a vibrator kicking. Like and I can for some reason, I could hear a vibrator just through the walls, like, what the hell are you doing? But then it got to the point where every time I close my eyes, your body jerks. You can't sleep. I mean, I haven't slept in a week at this point, which is probably part of why the hallucinations start. Your mind is just deprived of sleep cycles, nutrients, sleep, and your body is wigging out. People die from doing what I'm doing, so I don't recommend it. Delirium Trimmings is no joke

Participant #1:
for me, though. It was like, if I didn't make this hard on myself, then there's a good chance I would just get through this and go back to it. So I'm like, this is the only way to do it. You're going to remember how much this sucks, and you're going to remember it so much that you don't want to go back to this place again. So that was my thought there. But like I said, I don't recommend it at all because I don't know how the fuck I'm alive, honestly. Because it just keeps going and getting crazier from this point. So it starts with my ears. I'm hearing this vibrator. And that just was just a weird thing. And I even came out does anybody hear vibrating? I'm sorry if you hear this, son, but I was like, do one of my kids. One of my kids in his fucking room with a vibrator. I was convinced that I'm like, look, I've been trying to rationalize with them. I'm like, okay, I need you to tell me that you have a vibrator in your room. Because at that point, it would be the best scenario. Yes. Because then I could just like berry so he's doing his thing. I'm going to go to sleep now because I'm not going crazy. And that wasn't obviously wasn't the case. He didn't have a vibrator. And it was just all these my mind trying to keep me try to make me drink, trying to make myself go to sleep. My brain was telling me, I need sleep. I need you to sleep. And if you drink, you will go to sleep. It'll make things quiet. Yeah. And this is like a subconscious it's like it's trying to find any way that it can to feed the addiction or maybe your body or your mind. It says do whatever it is that will make all these other things stop. And it wants what it wants. All right. I just basically touched on this beginning stage of the addiction and the hallucinations with this, hearing things and speed for it. I go back to work and I go through a day, I feel great. And I was all worried about being able to get through a day, and I felt really weird. It was like time was super slow. Everything was kind of, like, too bright, too loud. My senses were completely heightened. And then I'm going through my day doing my job, and I keep hearing this weird, like, audible jingle, almost from, like, a video game. And I've gone to it. There's so many different places, like, miles apart, that it couldn't have been anything other than inside my head. So I'm trying my hardest to ignore this and get through the day. This is a week of it was like music you were hearing. Yeah. It started out with just a little jingle. Right? Your hallucinations started a week after you started the detox. That's weird, because when I detoxed, my hallucinations were almost immediately yeah, it was like, now, really? I was a super heavy drinker for a long time. I was a drunk. I was five fifth of whiskey a week and then some beer on top of it. Thankfully, because I do enjoy wine and stuff now, I've been able to control all that, and I don't go back to that dark place anymore. But at one point in time, I'd actually drink myself into pleurisy, if you don't know what that is. I remember that. That's when the fluid inside your lungs I came to see you at the hospital don't exist anymore. And every time you take an inhale, it's the front back lining of your lungs peeling apart. Okay. The nurse told me it was the equivalent of giving birth to 20s as far as the pain went with it. But all of my hallucinations were in that first week, like, the first two or three days of detoxing from the alcohol. So was it audible? Like what he's saying was it wasn't mine was like stuff out of the corner of my eye climbing up the wall. It was almost like train spotting, right? Yeah, I guess looking back at that, the edges would start to slide to the right or left. There was that. But I knew that my eyes hadn't closed for a week, so I'm like, that didn't bother me. Like, okay, that's edges creeping over this way, something kind of went up the wall. It startled me. I could place that with you're fucking tired. Instead of doing what he did with the shower, what I did to try to keep myself focused, to try to wear myself out, to go to sleep, is I wrote. I bought a notebook and a pen and I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and it would get to the point that it was like in The Butterfly Effect, where the pages start twisting and the words start spinning. And that's the kind of stuff that would happen to me and I would just lay back, try to close my eyes and try to ignore the stuff climbing the walls. But again, that was in the first week that I experienced. So your hallucination started way after, which is alcohol should have been gone from your system at that point. So I'm really intrigued by that. Yeah, you're talking about there was days where I would pull out a bottle out of my hiding spot and I look at the bottle on the light and see how much I had before the next day. Well, that's how the other times I got through getting sick. It's like, okay, just take a little bit of drink. That was the very beginning of that was just taking sips. But I knew I couldn't do that this time.

Participant #1:
I still have a bottle that I keep of the last, like, liquor I bought. Like I don't know, it's like a trophy or something, I don't know, but right,

Participant #1:
yeah. So, yeah, it was weird because I know what you're talking about. Other times that I've tried to quit drinking, each time is different, but they all suck. That was for sure going to happen. So I didn't expect it to go beyond this week. I'm back at work. I've done this before. I'm like, I should be good to go. Well, it's a Friday. I think I came back on a work on a Thursday. And so I just had to come back for one day. And that was what I thought would be beneficial because I have the weekend to continue a little bit of test the waters at work and then take a little breather. I can't say that with all of my pushing myself to get through this, that when you're on your way home from work and you're drunk, the first thing you're like, it's the weekend, I am going to get fucked up. And that was crossed in my mind and I was thinking about it. I was thinking about what kind of if I just stick with beer, right? Like alcohols will do as long as I don't go. It was true. But eventually those beers aren't enough. And if you don't have enough money, you got to go with the alcohol or the liquor. Bargaining. I was just thinking about my drive home and then can we talk about specific? I mean, musicians, I guess, like Andrew CWK. I don't even know at this point. If anybody sues, it'll make us more famous. Well, Rosa, it was Andrew CK. CK or wk. Wk. Wk. Yeah, well, anyway, so play that song, right? Throw it in here real quick. I don't know if you can just put a snippet in or something. I think we can do like two or 3 seconds, right? So everybody knows the party hard song but if you don't know it, if you heard it, you would. So that song is playing as they would play on EBN, I guess, every Friday. And it just played for, like, I caught the end of it. And that

Participant #1:
becomes very weird because I get home, I'm piecing together my day and all these sounds that I'm hearing, and I get in the shower after work, and then it just starts, like getting crazy from here. This song that I don't know. Really? I've heard it. Yeah. I don't know the words, but it's playing from somewhere. And I'm in the shower. It sounds like it's coming from behind the toilet. It's loud. I can make out each note. I can make out the vocals. And I'm convinced that the dude downstairs is, like, fucking with me. He's went through a week of listening to me go through hell. He's like, he's playing this Party Hard song, and he's just putting on a loop. And maybe he's left, but he's just fucking with me because if you're listening to the lyrics, I'm picking him up certain things, like kind of like he's making fun of me or something. And then I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to finish my shower. And I'm like, this is weird. So I get out and now it's in the living room. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And so it sounds like I'm like, pinpointing it's coming out of the outlets. I'm trying to think. Well, that makes sense. It's like climbing maybe it's climbing up through the walls, up the electrical, and maybe he's got speakers all over his it's been a week of listening to me puke and shit. This dude is coming at me hard. So I'm imagining this dude's downstairs and he's like, just conspiring to mess with my life. Got the bat cave of speakers everywhere. Yeah. And that's what I'm seeing. Now, this dude is a drinker too. And I know this because I would always see him at the bar at the bottom of my street. So before I accept that I'm hallucinating, I'm like, I'm just going to go down to this bar and say this dude. So I drive down there and I'm like, dude, you got to level with me. Are you fucking with me? I come up to him and ask me, I don't know what you're talking about. I just know that I went through a week of withdrawals. And I'm just going to be honest with you. I'm sure that was probably horrible to listen to for a week. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I know getting you what I was talking about. He definitely did. But he basically convinced me, like, no, I'm not fucking with you. And at that point, I knew, this is going to be interesting. It's going to be crazy. I can imagine that would have been a fucking crazy feeling. Like, okay, this is coming from my head. So I get back home and I'm like, all right, this is coming from my head. So let's test this. So I start writing down the words of what I'm hearing and I don't know the song, right? And I write them down and like I'm saying it's playing in a loop. So I get the whole song written down, the lyrics, and I think I have a paper of this somewhere. And I was I was writing I would write a lot too, to distract myself. So I had all this other shit that I was writing and it's all in this book and I wish I could have found it before I came over. So I write this lyrics down and then I get on YouTube and I play it and I get the lyric version. And I'm like they're like identical

Participant #1:
somehow. You had the song in my head. Yeah. Now I'm like, okay, what the hell? So I'm like, no, now it's not this dude from downstairs messing with me. It's the voices in my head, which some people might attribute to God, right? Is like coming at me like he's making fun of me. That's what's happened. Somebody's tapped into my subconscious something. And it's like you were thinking about drinking after all that. And this is party hard. Party hard. I'm making fun of you. It was weird because in my mind, that's kind of like, I don't know that songs. I just don't like the dude. It's not my favorite song. That's cheesy in my mind. So it was a joke. I'm starting to develop this idea that I have a God. That is not nice. He's making fun of me. Then this begins of communication between a higher power and it started with the song and then the night progresses. It's voices. It's me talking, right? And I'm just talking to myself. I'm walking around, just talking to myself and but it's it's coming into into my head and then it's out of my mouth and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it from until I try because I just want to sleep. And I'm pacing around. I'm pacing around and my wife is starting to get concerned. She's like, you need to go to a hospital. She's a nurse. And she's like, I'm afraid you're going to hurt the baby. At that time, we had a baby and I was just like, yeah, that's a horrible thing. Like I have something tapping into my controlling me. Maybe she's right. So I'm staying away. I don't want to leave the comfortability of my house to deal with this shit. I want to stay in my security of my home. Because it's terrifying at this point. And it seems like kind of little like it's just all you're hearing is a song, but it will drive you nuts when it's going over and over and over. And the only thing you can stop it is by talking over it. And it was like the connection that was tapped into me couldn't say the words and then also play the song. So anytime I would stop letting these words come out of my mouth, this song would continue to play like it was like torture. What was the words? The Andrew CK stuff. And it was the song, right? And the words were just me rationalizing things. It was like, well, this is why this person this is how they think of you. It was perceptions of myself. Not necessarily now, but if I continued so it was like, if I continued the path that I was on, these are where the people would think of me, or do think of me. Like, if I was like a town drunk to the point where I'm yellow, right? And I'm like, my liver is shutting down, but I refuse to stop. I don't have a place to live. I'm like this guy that just wanders around that everybody used to know is this person that was their friend, but now this guy is just controlled by alcohol. It was perceptions for the future and it just couldn't stop. It's gotten dark now. And that's always the scariest part when you're dealing with addiction, with alcohol, is that now

Participant #1:
you might have some alcohol, but you certainly don't have enough. And you couldn't get more if you needed it because everything's closed. So that heightens everything up. And I remember finally getting like a minute of rest

Participant #1:
before I started losing my complete shit. And I wake up. I kind of wake up for a second, or I fell asleep for a second and I wake up and it's just loud, all this chatter. I can't even make it out, but it's like my mouth is moving while I'm doing it. And as if it was saying all these different things. Now there's a second entity to this, and it's like two voices going on. And I keep seeing this. It's like behind my eyes, this flip, flipping. It would flip from good to evil. Now, when I say good, it was good in the sense that it had my interest at heart, but it wasn't being nice. It had my best interest. And then the bad side was just like it was hard to distinguish between the two because when something has your best interests at heart, but it's putting a message out there that like, you're a piece of shit. But then the bad side is just being straightforward without any kind of ulterior motive. I don't know, I started leaning towards this other straightforward voice that was just telling me, like, just fucking kill yourself, right? Well,

Participant #1:
you're going to end up drinking again, so just kill yourself. So I'm like, all right. I don't know how to go about that. And then I'm thinking about this thought and this other voice that has my interest. The heart is continuing to just go through all these perceptions that people have of me from the future, that are in the future. And I just got to get out. I got to go. My wife's brought up the fact that I might hurt the baby or something weird like that. And so everybody's sleeping. I just start getting my shit together to never come back home. And I'm ready to leave. I got my phone sitting there. I have nothing on me at all. I'm like, Well, I can't just leave. I got to say bye. And my son, for whatever reason, my son at the time was my youngest son, and he was in my bed. I guess he was hanging out with me, and he fell asleep, but he's sleeping. And I'm telling him by and we're communicating telepathically. His mouse moving. I'm like, you are the closest to God. And I'm telling him, like, I need you to take care of your brothers, because when they find out that I'm no longer here, you're your younger brother, but you're going to be their support system and things like that. He's like, green. Like, I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go. And the weird thing about all this is, like, I talked to my son about that, and he remembers it vividly, but is like the idea of the conversation. Anyway, I go into the other room, and my other boys are there, and it's kind of the same thing. Everybody's sleeping, but I'm like having conversations with them. And then I walk out the door. I live off the Double A highway, which I thought was funny in hindsight. It's like AA. And I'm like, I'm walking up the highway, and I don't know where I'm going, but I felt like I was being controlled through my thoughts, through my movement. So I'm like, something's taking me somewhere. So I'm walking, and I know that the idea, right, was to just end this shit. So I'm like, well, I'm on the highway, and there's these trucks that just keep blowing by. I'm like, okay, well, then there's the answer to that. So now I'm walking, and I'm trying to get the courage to just run in from one of these trucks. That takes a while, like your truck just like, damn it, that was my chance, and I'm trying to psych myself up. Next one. Next one. Well, anyway, I get to the point where it's I guess at some point, right, the trucks, wherever they're coming from, has closed. They're on the Double A, so they're probably coming from some area within where there would be a time and then night, early morning, where they just stop. There's less of them. So now I'm out of trucks. And I realized and this voice is telling me, like, you fucked up. You're out of trucks. There's not going to be any more trucks. And that was true. It was like, there wasn't any more trucks, and

Participant #1:
I don't even know how much time is going through with this. So then I was, like, at an on ramp, and my wife's work is up on the hill. And so I knew I wasn't that far away because probably just a mile or two down the road. And I'm like, well, I'm out of truck, so I just got to do this with a car. So finally I just ran out right in front of this car. And I don't know how it hit me. I know it hit me. I felt like I was like putting my head down to just ram this car head first. And I remember just picking up my flip flops off of the concrete. And my back felt like, jello, actually, I was laying there first before I picked my flip flows when I felt like I couldn't move. But then it was like the voices in my head were like, get up, get up. You can't be here. Your family is going to find you here, and you don't deserve that. Meanwhile, I see the tail lights of this car for like a second and it just peels out left. Like I would too. Some dude just like, deliberately ran in front of the car. And they were probably drinking at this point. So that's on him. So that car took out. I wish I had that person. I kind of do wish that person would stop because that's one part of this story that it's weird. They're physically how am I here if I went headfirst into a car? Like, I should have had broken something or other, right? Right. And like I said, I was laying on the ground. I felt like my back was broke. But like I said, the voice was like, get the fuck up. You don't deserve to die where your family can find you. So I have to crawl, pick myself up, grab my flip flops. Why? I don't know why I needed them, but get them back on. I figured I guess I have to walk through these woods on the side of the road. I needed them. So my back just feels like I'm kind of like hanging to the side or something and dragging myself. It wasn't even like I was doing my own power, really. And so I started crawling into these woods. And I guess all the light that was there would be the moonlight. So there must have been a full moon. I don't know. It's definitely a clear night with the moonlights kind of penetrating through the woods. And I find a spot that I'm sitting there. And now this voice presents itself in an image. And it's this dark blob that has a spinning head. And the voice has just kept corresponding with the face.

Participant #1:
I don't know. I mean, it was almost faceless because maybe light and then dark. I think the image that I was giving the face was me controlling that it had to be. This is like I'm hallucinating is what I'm thinking. And I'm looking at this thing and it's telling me like, it was before, but now it stops coming out in my mouth and I can see it and it's talking to me. You're face to face with it now. Face to face with like it felt like if you had cancer or something and they removed it from you and it was like you're like, face to face with it. It felt like that it came out of me, which was really fucked up because it kind of made me nauseous looking at it and regardless of whether it was the good side or the bad side or whatever,

Participant #1:
and then I don't even remember which side was telling me this, but it was like, smell your shirt. And I smell my shirt and it's just like this nasty smell and it was like, there's your future. This is how you smell to people because your liver is rotting inside of you. And it's like I'm like, what the fuck? Now that's all I can smell is just like, rotting liver. So now I'm hallucinating through my senses, smell, sight, ears and I'm like, still like, this is just the worst withdrawal ever. Okay, you know I respect what you're saying, right? And to put yourself out here to tell this, it's immeasurable what kind of guts it takes to just say all this. I mean, at what point at what point could we let go of the hallucination and entertain the idea that something interjected into your life? Right? At this point, what I'm hearing sounds so far beyond hallucination. I mean, I can see withdrawals. I can see I mean, man, I can't even have a normal day without smoking caffeine. So I can't even imagine the amount of what it takes for you and you to deal with an alcohol addiction. But I still can't help but wonder. I mean, you got a week and then a day back at work and then it just starts over. But this time it's like it just came at you so much harder. And I'm like when I hear the story, running into a car, getting hit. And I know you, so I know that this happened. I haven't doubt in my mind anything. As far as I'm concerned, your word is solid gold with me. You should know that we have a long history. But to me, when I think of the old Eric that I knew, all I can think of is to me, it wouldn't have been like the Eric I knew wasn't trying to kill himself. No, he was trying to kill whatever this is because I can never imagine you losing to anything. No, I couldn't imagine it. Your family is basically on the line. Your well being is on the line and your sanity is on the line. And I've never known you to back down from anything. So all I could think of when I'm hearing this and like I said, I'm not trying to alter your narrative, anything like that, sure, but to me it just sounds like the old Eric was literally saying, like, all right, motherfucker, I'm going to take you out with me then, or I'm taking you out. Fuck you. Right? And I haven't come to this realization yet that you're talking about I'm still trying to understand it, right? Because to me, I'm like, I'm rationalizing, this is not happening. Right? It was like I didn't have control, so it was all very weird. Did it feel like you were experiencing it in first person or maybe third person? Every different perspective, man. I was looking at it from every angle I possibly could. I'm realizing in this moment, this time, right now, as I'm talking, but in this situation where this head spinning and I just got hit by a car, my back feels like a jelly, and then I'm basically there's a what are we what's where are we getting at? What's the point here? And basically, it was a decision. It's like, all right, you can decide that you're going to burn in hell for all eternity, which is what I was taught as a kid. So that's what it was, basically, kel's fire and heaven's. Nice. And you know, and so that's what I'm thinking is about to happen in this the I guess we'll call it the devil was like, just come to me, right? I'll make sure your family is good. You're just going to have to go through this pain that you're feeling now, that you've been feeling for this week, and you're going to have to feel it for eternity. Plus a little bit of ripping from the inside, burning flame, and you're just going to have to deal with that for ever. Okay? Come to terms with that and this will be over. And then the god side is like, all you have to do is make the decision and everything will be okay. But it might take a while. And I just wanted it to end at that point. So I'm like, all right, well, I'll just go to hell, and I will hold my family up from hell and take all this pain as long as they're good, and they'll probably better off without me. I came to that. Agreeance. And so when I finally made that decision, it felt like that flipping head didn't flip anymore. And the figures from the flipping side, the images were the same, right? And so I just agreed to myself or to the one thing that creates us. It's one thing, and it's up to you on what way it is, good or bad. But the idea was good in one way because I was willing to sacrifice myself forever to take all the pain on and just to give up for my family, as opposed to just possibly continuing on the path that I have by starting drinking again. So that's the last thought that I had before I finally just fell backwards. And I remember my head hitting the man. It wasn't a hard hit, but hitting the mud and dirt. And I feel like I'm just kind of like sinking into the mother nature. The fact that there's spiders or anything wasn't even of concern. My heart was supposed to stop, right? That was a part of the words. I was just going to explode. And that was it. I was like, all right, let's go. I'm cool with it. And the next thing I know is I'm in the same I don't know, what do you call the side of the road? Ditch. Or there's a word for it that I like, but I can't drink of it right now. Anyway. Yeah, I'm in a ditch. And then there's off that ditch is another ditch. And I'm at the bottom of this ditch. And it's like freshly cut grass. When I wake up, I'm like, what the fuck? And it's daytime, and grass is just like, perfect, like golf course grass. So you were there for the night. I was there for the night, yeah. And I wake up and I'm like, this is not over. Because I can still feel this inside the addiction. I can still feel that tightness in your in my chest. I can feel like it's like claws. I'm like, this shit. This is not over. So I'm like I just start running. I don't know what day it is. I don't know how long I've been there. I just start running. And I'm like, I'm just going to run so hard that my heart just blows up. And that was my plan at that point. And then so I run all the way up to around this embankment. And I'm on the highway and I see my wife's work. And for whatever reason, I thought, well, she could be at work. So I go in there and it's like a nursing home. And people recognize me, I'm sure, and that's probably how I got through the building. But I mean, I can't imagine that I looked very well, and I'm bleeding from various places. I look like I got hit by a car, probably. And I find somebody. I'm like, I asked from Melissa. So they call her, and she's calling me, but I don't have my phone. I guess she's trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And so basically, I'm like, oh, shit. I just realized I just came in this place looking like this. She's not there at work yet. She's probably not even supposed to be there that day. She's off. They're like they're thinking I'm crazy. So I just, like, bail. I get out there and I just start running again while I get to just right back to the highway 27. And there's the cops. I'm like, shit. So they're asking me questions, and I'm like, trying to tell them what happened, trying to explain what I'm telling you right now as fast as you can before you're on the way to the loony bin or whatever. I don't know what happened. I know this sounds crazy, but some shit happened with God. I made a stupid mistake and went into this old people who might realize that, but I know this is not what it looks like. And I'm like, I told them, like, I'm detoxing and some profound shit just happened to me. I was like, I kind of just want to figure out what this shit is and go about my day where like, yeah, that's not going to happen. So I'm like, all right, well, then what's happening? And then there comes the ambulance. So this ambulance is like they're talking to me. At no point did I really agree to go to the hospital, but now I'm in an ambulance on my way to the hospital, and everybody check me in, and they're talking to me. They're asking me all this, and the nurse is like, I'm trying to explain it to them because I want someone to understand what I'm saying and be like, I'm just so bad that I can stop feeling like I needed someone to have pure faith and a higher power at that moment. And nobody fucking did. You're just right when you hallucinated them, you're just hallucinating. So I came to the conclusion right there, everybody says they believe they believe in something, and everybody says that they have a religion, which in my opinion, worst was the worst thing ever, is to attach it to some shit that was just a way to make money. I mean, that's my perspective. Whatever is good for you is what you need to do. But for me, I need no ulterior motives. I just need this God and me straight communication back and forth is what I'm wanting to know that it exists so that I don't feel crazy. And everybody's like, that's not happening. There's no way you got hit by a car and got up again. You look like you got hit by a car, but there's no way that you could have got hit by a car and not have broken bones or anything like this, because I explained to them where I got ran to this car and the speed that I would have been going out there wouldn't have been I would have had a broken something. So they're not believing that, and they're just, you know, really they just want to, like, make my blood pressure go down and my heart rate to go down, and that's all that really matters to them. So there's maybe they're just trying to have a little conversation with me as possible because they don't want to excite me in any way or change something. I don't know how it goes. I just know that all I wanted was someone like, yeah, God came into your life and saved you from dying from alcohol withdrawal, as many people do when they're not hospitalized. Like, that's what happened. Okay, cool. I would have been fine, but what bothered me most at that point now is that what the fuck are we here for if you can't truly believe in these things that you think you believe in? Right. It sounds good on paper, but saying it out loud, okay. So you'll believe just enough that gets you through your shitty situations. Like, if I get through this day, I'll never do this again, or whatever it is. And I made special points in my life never to ask God for anything because I didn't believe that there was a God. And if there was, I never asked him for anything. So I never said, Get me through this. I never asked for any help. I wasn't asking for help. Then he came to me and it came to me at this time, I remember being young and me and you having discussions about God and all that. No chance. Yeah. Literally my own atheism coming up. I can literally say that just listening to your logical explanations of it helped me to go, okay, yeah, okay, well, maybe yeah, it doesn't make sense. You're right. I dove further into that from there until, like I said, until recently, over the last few years, something's kind of thrown that atheism into the grinder a little bit. But that's why, to me, hearing this, it's like, wow. Because out of everybody I know, tyler, would you call yourself an atheist? I guess I would say that I do have some doubt. I guess I do. The cop out thing, I just don't know. That's agnostic. Yeah. I just feel like even if he is there, I don't care. Like he says, I don't ask for anything, I don't need him. Like, kudos on you to creating this place if you are there. But I feel like you did your part and I don't need you anymore. Josh, what about you? Would you consider yourself, like, an atheist or? Yeah, I would say so, for the most part. For the most part? Yeah. I don't buy into the idea of gods at all. I can understand the universe in nature, like we've talked in the past. To me, that's more probable, plausible, realistic for me. But that not to say that weird things don't happen. In all honesty, all I was getting to getting trying to get around to is, like, to hear that, all of that and these are conversations that come up often, you know, about, you know, whether these things are are there or not. And then since the start of the show, I have a little trouble because I'm like, you know, we just spent, you know, 20 episodes looking into a possible rela commoned in North America. You know, these folks have spent 2000 years searching for a creator. I can't say anymore. I don't know. But to hear it from you is mind blowing to me because I'm like, Something happened. Because if it didn't, I don't think we'd be having this conversation no. And I tried to discredit the idea that there was a God involved in this.

Participant #1:
I don't want to have been wrong all these years. When you said that we would talk about it, I hated the fact that people couldn't just do things for themselves and just be okay with the fact that you don't have to have a God and you can get through shit on your own and you're just being weak because you're afraid of dying. That was just like just evolve and accept the fact that you just happened. And that made the most sense to me. Right. Were you afraid of dying that night? Absolutely. Other points I was just like at some points, my I don't even want to atheism. I just know what I felt. There are times in your life where something might go wrong and somehow you came out in the end, and you want to believe that somebody was looking out for you, a loved one that's passed away or whatever. But all I know up at this point is that I can digest the fact that the brain is powerful and that ghosts and people who pass can be stuck in this realm. That was the closest I got to having the idea that there's an afterlife, I guess. What was that the whole third eye thing, too? Yeah. You said there were pineal gland. Yeah, the pineal gland. So there could have been that. It's not that saying that you had hallucinations, but you did see something that was on another I didn't really think of that. Yeah, and that's 100% where I'm heading here is that while all my senses are heightened now because I'm clear, there's this third eye that just is opened up. Everything is heightened. I'm hearing things, right. My senses are so heightened that I'm in touch with this other place where these things can come into my existence. Yeah, it's not like heaven or hell or any of that. I feel like that's something that we've talked about on this show a lot, is that there's something on the other side. We're not saying that it's a god or anything, but there's something that could be in another dimension that's like, literally right on the side of us. The world next door. Yeah, the world next door and stuff. I will say this, okay? I'm just going to chalk this up because I did have one of those little raps from fucking UDF. But the whole time he was telling the story, I started to get sick to my stomach. And I am such a skeptic. I'm letting you know. I don't know why I felt so drained. I don't know why in a way, I felt like I was detoxing as I was listening to you. I can't say I was doing it as severely as you guys went through, but I don't know where. I just started to feel so trained because of my voice. It was weird. I was just like for sitting in the air, I was like, okay, get a little uneasy. But then after a while, I'm just like, the fuck is going on? See, I was feeling uneasy with it, but just because I experienced it. Yeah. There was things you're talking about that brought me right back to it. Like when you said when you laid down or fell backwards into the mud. I remember at one point when I was detoxing, laying there and feeling like I was sinking into the mattress, like the mattress was coming around me. And that's what I was picturing, was you laying in the dirt and feeling the earth come up around you. And it was giving me the willies because it was taking me back to when it happened to me. Yeah. And in that moment, that's where I'm sinking into dirt. That's where my bones were never going to be found. And I was happy about that to some degree, because my kids could at least be like, he couldn't get himself right, so he just left us so that we could just live our life. When it happened to me, it wasn't even just like the feeling of it wrapping around. It was a visual thing, too. Like the ceiling was physically getting further and further away from me. Was it like, with the trees and stuff getting further and further away from you? Well, so once I laid back, I closed my eyes and I was waiting for my heart to stop, and then it just went black. Yeah, I do remember what you're saying. I felt very small. Yes. And it was like, zooming out. I felt like that was me leaving my body or trying to, and then kept snapping back in. I don't know if anybody has ever detoxed when you're just all you want to do is sleep, and you start falling asleep. You start falling into the sleep. It's something you do every night when you take it for granted. Right, but this was for that whole week. It was so difficult. As soon as you close your eyes, you start drifting in. It's like it feels so amazing. And then you're jerked back out, and it's like sleep is very much like death in the sense that you'll slip away. We die every day, almost. And so that's like what I was feeling was that I just wanted to die, like, associated with that. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted this to shut off. I just wanted to stop. And it wasn't like I really thought about, like, what is this going to do to other people around me, other than if I'm not drunk anymore, that maybe they'll stop having to deal with seeing their dad, their husband kill himself with alcohol. It was so embarrassing, I guess, to me,

Participant #1:
finally I'm at the hospital, and I'm coming to these decisions that this is third eye. Like, you're saying this is right. About them, where I'm like, okay, I don't need anybody else's approval of this shit. I'm just going to take what I know and just wrap my mind around it. But then at the same time, also, there's the atheism. There's this it's like just science, just your bodies and then this god idea. Okay? So if a person can exist in energy and be a ghost, then maybe there's something more to the word subconscious, right? Because this is where all this shit feels like it's coming from. It's like my dreams. It's like, you know, you don't that's where your dreams come from. You're not thinking on your own. It's your subconscious. So what is it about subconscious? Obviously, our brains are what make us different than other species, right? Animals. Our brains are advanced. They've evolved to an extent that we think we're up here on this pedestal, right? But I mean, how much don't we know? How much once we tap into that? How much bigger can we be? Will we even need our bodies at that point? Is that what full evolution is? And then even beyond that, is there going to be more evolution? So these are the beginnings of my idea of the third eye subconscious just realizing that I am this big. I'm nothing. I'm a grain of rice. I'm just here. But I'm here, and I'm fucking happy about it. I made it through this shit, and I'm going to change my life. And while I'm going through all this shit, I'm still in the hospital. They're trying to give me stuff to make me not feel like I'm feeling. And I'm just like, I don't want that. I got to feel all of this. If I don't feel all of this, then my chances of being back here again for this reason, it's going to be a really good chance that's not happening. So I'm still really dealing with it all, but I'm not feeling like the physical. It's more of like a subconscious mind situation. You're just I don't know where to what to do with this. I guess, like, in a way, like the way you're making it sound is that you stepped into something and you got out of it, but something still of you is behind. So you can still feel it, but you're not feeling the intensity that you did that night or the nights going through it. So you're still kind of peering into, I guess you would say, the veil piercing in through the veil and stuff like you saying, like, you still hear stuff every once in a while. No? I think what happened was that my mind became used to the absence of alcohol, so my senses started to level out, right? And so I was no longer tapped into it. And the crazy thing is that every once in a while, I don't want to drink again because I'm escaping my anxiety or anything like that. Like I used to but I kind of want to be tapped back into that third eye again. I want to know what's inside there and so I try. I've heard the third eye thing. I think you discussed it a while back ago with it. Joe Rogan said something about that with mushrooms and psychedelics. He thinks that eating those literally shoots us through to see these things that we can't see in the normal sense. There was a theory that our ancient ancestors, little fellows up in the tree, might have gotten hold of some magic mushrooms and that's what started all of our evolution. Exactly. Me personally, man, I can't help it. I've always had kind of whatever you call the hopeless romanticism of things and hearing the bigger lesson of the whole thing. Inferno keeps coming to my mind. Dante's descent into hell. That was you. You went into hell. You didn't have to go anywhere to get there. It was here. It was right there beneath the surface and going through your withdrawal. To me, it was like he said, it opened up that door and it let you go in a little bit, but it let something come out a little bit. I hate to sound so sure, but my gut feeling is that night I believe you were face to face with it and I believe it was a battle of wills at that point. It's been three years since I drank and there's not a day that doesn't go by where I'm not like sitting in the woods in my head and just thinking about that. It's not a day. Yeah, it's real. If it wasn't, I wouldn't it would just be gone to me, I guess from my this is one thing I love about this podcast is that we always have three different ideas of whatever's going on. And we may not agree, we may agree, but it's never anything negative to me. There's no unfriending on Facebook, right. If I may speculate wildly as I do, please. To me, when I was listening to your story, it felt like it was you versus you. It was a yen and you situation, like the amorphous black Bob Blob that you saw, the stench that you smelled, that was bad you and good you communicating. It was basically a battle of yourself. I feel like in a way it might have been something that the way you perceived yourself. Exactly. You said you couldn't figure out the faces, but one was in your best interest. But the other it might have been a distortion of your own face that you just couldn't. This is what you like. You wanted the best interest for yourself. But then on the other hand, the path you were going down and just kept going. And that's why I asked if you were seeing it in first person or third person. Because that's where everything was going in my head as I was listening to this, was maybe you were in third person, but when you're in third person, you feel like you're yourself anyways. But you were seeing and hearing and experiencing the darkness and the lightness of yourself basically battling through this. We're 100%. So what's cool about this is that as I was in those various perspectives, right, I'm you and I'm you, your version of what you just said and your version, these are things that I've looked at it through those perspectives, and I still do every day. So that brings us back to the point of subconscious and the strength of it somewhere. And if we tapped into that, we're all going to be on the same page, right? Because that's where it all is. Everything is inside this one perspective because

Participant #1:
it's hard. I still am working it out all the time. And like, talking about it definitely helps. And I always take a new there's always a new take from it that helps. There's no bad outcome to this other than that I could have died. Not by running in front of a car or just by the medical effects of taking alcohol away from your body. Delirium determinants can absolutely kill you. I wanted to ask, so given the whole circumstances of it, I'm truly glad that you're okay, but would you change anything because of this experience? It seemed like it really gave you no matter if you feel that it was a spiritual, supernatural, whatever or hallucinations, but do you feel like everything that went down that path, do you feel like if it was changed in any way, do you think you would fall back? Or do you feel like this is what made you help you to stay on the path that you're going on? Everything that's happened pretty much to me since then has fallen into my lab. Like, just amazing things, things that I couldn't even imagine myself being at. Had I continued to go back, it would just all fall apart. So that's the one kind of kicker where you associate that idea that somebody is looking out for you. There's a higher power, basically, I come to that. Or if I just keep tapping into this, it's almost like a level with a bubble where it veers to the right or veers to the left. If I just keep it right in the middle, that's my subconscious, and it might go right or left, depending on my day. But if I just keep it right in the middle, I'm like, channeled in. And that channel that I'm into is my subconscious. That's just me just doing what's best for me and living my life based on the idea that the ideas that I got from being in that experience. So if I were to take those out of the equation yeah, then I don't know. You don't know. I get that because even if when people have something traumatic happen, it really changes them. Because in the human condition, we do not change unless something bad is happening. Check out all those alien movies. We will never come together as a globe or one being as human beings unless an alien attacks or something of that nature. We self destruct no matter what. Everybody has those demons that they battle on a day to day basis. I think destruction, self destruction is key to our evolution. I mean, for Eric to be sitting here, he had to destroy himself and survive. It my opinion. Here's a wild thing I just thought of. Suppose there's a guy listening to this right now, hopefully, and he's hearing the music coming from the walls. That's what it's all about. What would you say to him? Go to the hospital? I feel obligated to say that. Don't ride it out like you. How close was I to my heart exploding? I don't know. It didn't yeah, but if I could have this all figured out, how do I know that this particular individual is going to be able to keep his mind on this certain point to keep everything else from falling apart? And then his heart I was fighting is what it felt like. I was fighting every thought. I remember checking my pulse and just breathing and just trying to keep my heart from exploding to the point where until I was like, running to like just want it to pop.

Participant #1:
Do you feel like it's better to deal with this type of thing by yourself? Because I hate to say it, but even if you did have help, would you be in the mind state at the time to accept help? Can they understand where you're coming from? That's the problem with addiction, too, is that unless you want it, there's no help out there that's going to help you. You have to be on that mindset. And it's actually sometimes dangerous to try to do something when you're not ready, because then you come back tenfold worse than you were. But you have to want it. You have to do it for you. You can't do it for your family, you can't do it for your kids, you can't do it for your work. It has to be for you, otherwise you'll never get to that point. You have to be selfish. And to recover from something like that, it's an unfortunate thing to say and it sounds really crass, but it's true. You have to be selfish. It makes sense. It's a fight for you to keep you sustained. Yeah, and that was the twist that I kind of struggle with because I'm like I'm 100% I'll be thinking right or along those lines of what you're saying. But then that one point where I was completely unselfish to just letting go. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't let go at that time. Would I gotten back up and went back out into the road? I don't know. But it was for me that it's extremely hard to let go of the point that I had to just give up and stop fighting, like checking my pulse before I just let myself sink into the soil. And that was only for everyone else that cared about me so that they didn't have to watch me kill myself with alcohol. And that's the one thing I will say, Dennis, that you brought up, is we're all going to die either way. If you want to die being controlled and addicted to something, it's like the worst way to die. And that was the thing that kept me through all of it. Going through all this is like, if I die from this, at least I will have died sober and without alcohol. And that made me feel like I accomplished something out of it. That's the Eric that I remember right

Participant #1:
earlier. He was saying as he heard your story, he felt uneasy. Josh definitely was empathetic because he'd been through similar to me. Listening to his story was a sadness, a missed opportunity in my life. I've known you for a long time and I never knew. That's why I feel famous. I'm glad you won. I would have never doubted you for a second, but it was amazing to have been I definitely think, without a doubt, yes, there's no UFOs in that story. There's no Bigfoot, there's no creatures, but I think the story needed to be told, and I'm glad that was good to let you get that. I know you said that you had trouble trying to figure out a way to get this out somehow, like, you felt that you needed to get it out. So I'm glad that we were able to help you. Honestly, I feel privileged. I appreciate that. There's always details right, left out on something like this, and that's why you give up on trying to just put it on paper or to eventually, I think I will tempt that. But the important part about all this is that someone relates to it. And if you do, then you can get all the other holes and parts that were missed. If you want to talk to me, so I'm completely open to anybody contacting me. That was actually going to be another question. If I could get an email for you from you, where if someone reaches out to the show, they need help. If someone reaches out to the show and they need help, you can give them my number and I'll give you that. They can call me directly, text me anytime. This is an agreement that I made with myself. The subconscious universe, okay? This is something I got through that I need to help other people get through to uphold my end of the thing. The deal, the fact that everything just can fall into place. You just need to get through the shit first. I can help you get through the shit just by being able to have someone to level with. I think that helps out a lot, because if I had that, it was after all of it, I started looking through different channels and being able to connect with someone who was like, damn, I wish I would have done that while I was going through it all. But I guess you don't have times when there's a life going on. No. Like the door to the demon and shit coming out of the walls. That was actually something from months ago you guys were discussing. I was trying not to be rude, but I was literally looking for my own saved research from after we talked the first time. And Hebrews had a list of demons, and the interesting one was a many face demon that they considered the demon of reformation. That's interesting. And that this demon was basically kind of a free agent. He wasn't exactly I guess he's like a disgruntled employee of hell. I don't really know all the details. I'm sure someone out there will know and chime in. That'd be awesome. I think you just gave that thing a name. Yeah, that's just free agent. That term esmodias keeps coming to mind, but that's probably not it. There's a lot the list, they have them listed, all their jobs and stuff. And I find it interesting because that one, the demon of reformation. His job is to basically torment you into doing something really bad, and I think that's very possible. The interesting part about this is I don't think that tapping into your subconscious, looking within, okay? That's not something that you have to do if you have an addiction. It's something that we should all do anyway. So that's where this kind of relates to everyone, is that you should be looking deeper inside your mind. Because, I mean, we just visual people like UFOs. We have to see that, right? Well, there's a pandemic going around right now. If we saw a UFO and we'd all become Will Smith and we'd fight these aliens, right? But now there's, like, a pandemic going on, and we're not even banded together. That green shit at me or COVID was the secret weapon. It's like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, right? And we just take the mask off, let the aliens land. A couple of months later, they're all sick. Isn't that the entire basis to a world war? They got the Covenants, the bid, but I appreciate the opportunity. And like I said, some people a and that stuff just doesn't you have a support system that's great. It works for a lot of people. I can't find my place in that because to me, it's an open door for failure. That's just for me. I got to do this for myself. And to do that, I don't need any points for me. I don't need anybody to help me right now. But I would like to talk to other people who are taking that same approach, because you kind of feel hopeless and getting through that stuff. Sometimes when you can't jump on the bandwagon of the AA. Thing, I just feel like AA. Is just smothering. I feel like they call. They get too sorry. They just get too much with people, and I feel like it stresses people out, and then they go right back to what they were doing. Yeah. And I really apologize when I say in the call it is, we make it like we change everything. We all take an idea of a religion and flip flop it to benefit us.

Participant #1:
AA. To me, is great for the people that it works for, but like I said, if you find yourself in a room and everybody talking about their drinking days and laughing about it and thinking it's funny

Participant #1:
and then saying it's okay if you go out and drink, just come back to us. We'll start all over again. If you feel like that makes you uneasy, then hit me up, because I can let you know that you can definitely do it on your own if you want to. Absolutely. You guys out there listening, if you're struggling, if you got be going through something just like this, reach out. Eric's put himself out there for you. He'll talk to you. You know, we'll put you in touch. If you need an ear, all of us are here. If you're not comfortable talking to us, there are hundreds of secular and non secular absolutely. Programs out there. I will be digging up a major list to provide with this episode. If you're ready and you're in the mindset and it's time to get help and you need help, get help. Absolutely. And one benefit of COVID is that there's a lot of places that you can go to now that are easy to find on the Internet to have that kind of experience without putting yourself completely out there so you can jump around and go in and out of rooms and light speed for that support. Definitely take advantage of that opportunity. All right, guys. Well, Eric, again, appreciate you telling this man. Amazing. I know what the story means, and I know the hardship involved, but always have tremendous respect for you, man. I always looked up to you. So amazing. Thank you. And like I said, anybody else, man, I'd be like, I don't know. But I wouldn't have doubted you for a second that you would have come through it. I mean, that's just knowing you guys out there, you don't know him like I do. I've known him a long time. If anybody could go to war with the demon or the devil or God or whatever, it would be this man. So it's pretty amazing. But you guys out there, hopefully you learned something here. I did. And I think we'll see you guys next week.

Participant #1:
Thank you.