Episode 62: Reclaiming Mind: Consciousness

In Episode 62 of the Reclaiming Man podcast, hosts Preston, Lieutenant Brad Dawson, and Michael delve into several key topics. They begin by discussing the evolving role of THC, sharing personal experiences with its use, and the challenges associated with overcoming addiction. The conversation then shifts to the broader benefits of the 12-step program beyond addiction recovery, emphasizing the importance of honesty, humility, and spiritual growth.

The hosts explore how our limited awareness—processing only 16 bits of information out of 11 million per second—affects relationships, drawing on concepts from Tor Norretranders' "The User Illusion." They reflect on how this limited perception can lead to reduced expectations and misunderstandings in long-term relationships.

Personal and professional growth is another focal point, with reflections on dealing with pride and insecurities. The hosts stress the importance of having a supportive network, especially in the context of the Nashville music scene. They highlight the need for self-awareness, the value of supportive relationships, and the continuous pursuit of personal improvement and alignment with spiritual values.

Transcript

riverside_michael__ may 20, 2024 001_reclaiming_man: 0:05

Episode 62. Welcome to episode 62. I got Preston, the Southern Connecticut Gurdamski, Lieutenant Brad Dawson in the house and Michael, yours truly coming at you live. Maybe it's the morning, maybe it's the evening, whenever you're listening. Hope you enjoy this one. We're on reclaiming mind and what an appropriate way to start it. We were just digging into the. The relationship with THC And how that's changed over the past couple years, lots of different states have legalized it, normalized it in medicinal uses, whether it's a sleep aid or anti nausea I think a lot of very legitimate uses, I'll just put my opinion out there there's many people who can really benefit from it, from a anti anxiety perspective or just a number of other medicinal uses for it. And everyone's relationship, like any drug, I think is different. Myself, I had quit it five years ago when I quit drinking April 1st, 2019 and spent a few years pretty much not touching it. Occasionally would have puff edible, something of that nature. And then a couple of years ago, my wife had been going through some gastrointestinal type of challenges where seemingly nothing in the normal medicinal world with western medicine was is really helping you know going to the specialists trying different medications trying Functional medicine all sorts of things, right? and of course the diet the Longest That I would say of all the solutions, changing your diet has the longest road and just opportunity to see its benefits. But so we tried different diets, elimination of gluten, all sorts of things, but ultimately she was at the point where the only thing that was really touching it was THC was making a little bit better for her. And yeah, got, I would say normalized in our house again with the medicinal effects that it had for her. And so over the past year and a half I'd I've always had, as an adult, struggled sleeping, tried Ambien, Trazodone, all the prescription meds for sleep and never really liked the impact on my dreams, everything like that, all the over the counter ones too, whether it was Z Quil or Melatonin now I'm supplementing Magnesium. But all that to say, I had been, gosh, over the last year anyways, I Nothing, I would say as consistently as I was five, five to 10 years ago, where it was definitely, I would say the true addiction of every day wake up. And it wasn't like, if, but when scenario with it. And then, I was mindful of that to some extent, and so mostly we've had edibles or THC drinks around our house. So I was like, okay, I'm going to use this to try to help me sleep a little bit better. And honestly it did help me fall asleep quite a bit better. But I started to notice again, just over the past few months that I was starting to feel this sort of brain fog and sleepy in the morning still. And I'm not going to fully attribute not being able to wake up on time to it, but I don't think it helped. And so yeah, I had the. Moment of thinking am I lying to myself? We just talked about not worrying. We talked about not lying a couple episodes back and I was like, am I lying to myself? Am I starting to think that I've got more power that I've got this figured out. And, just remembering the 12 step program where you admit that you're powerless and that you need a higher power to help you overcome addictions. And so I was, A couple, a few weeks actually, three weeks ago, I was playing at my home church campus in Anoka, where our family usually will attend if we go together. When we go together I play at our Minneapolis campus more, but there was a couple guys out in front talking about the the 12 step program that we run called Quest 180, which is super good. And I just was like, Just chat with him and I was like, yeah, I think it might start coming again. And I was 50, 50 on it in my head at that time. And then out of nowhere, I had a friend who was called me the next Sunday afternoon, this is two weeks ago now. And he's just Hey, you got some time to talk this afternoon, get together and talk, and I'm not going to go into his whole story because it's not my story to tell, but ultimately we're having this conversation and, he made the comment, he's Oh, I don't know if necessarily you'd be interested in my, my wife said that you might not be the best qualified to help me out. Cause you're like California sober. I was like, I've heard that before rationalize it away. And I was like, but I'm I was like, but I'm not addicted. That's what I said. And, and I mean, I think that's, that is truthful to some extent, but like I said, it's just a slippery slope. And where do you draw the line? And if you have that type of personality why mess with it? And yeah, last Tuesday, me and this guy go to the recovery, the addiction recovery program and I sit in his Cohen, coincidentally the step one night and I'm just like, oh, how opportune, right? And originally I was like, Oh, I'm going to do this to support him. And then I realized I need this just as much as he does. And it's not, guys, ultimately, if, you haven't looked at the 12 step program, it really, it's not just about addiction. It's not just about, Recovery. It's about sin. It's about what you have wrong with you that you need to fix and taking inventory of that and trying to do something about it, but not of your own power leaning into to a higher power. So yeah, I'm two weeks into it now and just wanted to bring that as a starting point for the reclaiming freedom episode that we're on, because, ultimately I do feel this greater clarity of mind as a result of these, first probably I think it's. What, 10 days, 11 days or something like that since I took that last little capsule, because I had these, these 25 milligram capsules I was busting in half. Huh. When you take it that way, it definitely feels like medicine instead of a drug. But as we know, pills can be just as addictive as smoking or drinking. So yeah, I could see that seems more medicinal than when I used to smoke weed out of my homemade eggplant bong in the eighth grade. No, you're right. So just like it has it can trick you into thinking like, Oh, this relationship isn't what it was in the past. And I would say that's, that was true. It's just why dabble with it? Let's just let's just cut this off. Committed to going back through that 12 step program again. And I'm glad that I am. I, as soon as you do, you realize it's not just about the program, but it's also about the people and it's an anonymous program. So again, I'm not going to share too much about other people's stories, but they ultimately. in aggregate help you contextualize and realize that you're not alone. First of all, there's other people who are going through what you're going through. I don't know if anyone listening resonates with something in their life. It doesn't have to be a drug, right? If there's any sort of compulsive behavior that you want to, do something about it's a good program to take a look at. I know Brad seconds, it supports it. And I'm just really, yeah, really glad that I feel like I'm back on that path of integrity to, to staying true to what I said I was going to do five years ago. And, with that, I think there was one topic I was hoping to introduce since it's been a lengthy intro by me, but I was Coming back from the Ragnar trail run and Zion national park, which was absolutely epic last weekend and was listening to a bunch of different podcasts. And one of them had a Danish author and philosopher, Tor Nortranders he published a book in 1991. In Danish called the user illusion, cutting consciousness down to size translated to English in 98. I haven't read it in its entirety yet, but having listened to this interview, there were some things that I thought were worth a quick discussion. And hopefully I'm going to share a concept with you gentlemen and just put you on the spot and see what you think about it. But what he shared was that consciousness is, our ideas of the world are very, limited and very compressed based on our ability to actually process information. So it's been several years since they've quantified this, but obviously, cause he wrote this book in 91 and it's 2024, but 11 million bits of information are processed through our sensory organs every second, our eyes, our taste, our hearing, right? Everything that we touch, it all is translated to 11 million bits of information and our awareness. We compress it down to 16, 16 bits of information. So when you think about that ratio and our ability to, process the world, it's quite limited. And so he is talking a lot about relationships and stories, which we use to perceive the world. And one of the things that he said that I just thought was so fascinating and was quite convincing, he says the longer that you spend with your partner, I actually think I told you guys about this in a polo a couple of days ago. So you're like, this sounds strangely familiar. Maybe I didn't, I don't know. But he says, the longer that you spend with your partner, the more that you start to perceive them as an idea that it's your idea of who they are, but it's compressed down to these really small pieces of what their potential is. And so thinking about it as as I look at my wife, am I looking at 16 out of 11 million? bits of information and just compressing my idea of what her potential is and not letting her surprise me, not letting her be more than my idea of her because I want it to some extent to be predictable and controlled. So that's the idea that I wanted to talk about because I think it's really quite liberating when you realize how little of the world that we actually have awareness of and see if there's any sort of initial reactions that you guys have and It doesn't have to be a super lengthy discussion. I am candidly just fried, allergies, everything like that. But I don't know, Preston, Brad, any thoughts about that? I mean, I definitely do. Preston what do you, got? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you get in here. Oh, okay. I mean, you got something. It's, I mean, it's just a mind blowing thing. I've never heard that. I don't know what you would call it, a statistic. Yeah, number of data. But it's just I mean, before I I guess, tied in with my wife in a way that you did with yours, it's just that idea that our minds or bodies collectively are processing like that much. In a, what you said in a second? Yeah, in a second. Yeah, I mean like I, that's like when I. That's wild. Oh, go ahead. No, it's it's taking that in, but it's not processing it though. We right. Your brain is processing it, but your awareness is simplifying it and compressing it down. And so he's just saying that the vast, and this is resonates with everything else that I've heard, but your unconscious mind is what does the most work. What you're not aware of your brain is in mind is doing the most work to process the environment around you, but your awareness is such a small portion of it. So what it made me think, because I had ideas about, I wanted to talk a little bit about what you opened with the THC, right? I had to talk about that. Yeah. Things that but as I, you went on, I thought this is interesting because if you're only aware of a limited. Yeah. Scope of what is going on within you that makes perfect sense because we're self centered like by actual, reality. We are self centered, right? You only you live your life from your center. You only see what and when we were talking about recovery, you had said something about it not really being so much about drugs and alcohol, which is very true. And I realized that and there's a my favorite line in the big book is that selfishness and self centered that we think is the root of our troubles. The root of our troubles. The root of our troubles is selfishness and self centeredness. 62. If you miss that, you're over here focused on, I need to quit drinking. I need to quit this or I need to quit whatever. And you, and then you start to realize that they have discovered that selfishness, self centered is the root of our trouble. So it's tied to that because what happens is we can't see. We're not capable sometimes to see what is actually happening. And so it really ties together beautifully. And I'm attempting to tie them together more and explain that. But it's, our troubles we think are basically of our own making. It goes on to say, and they arrived from ourselves. And that is because of our limited scope of what is happening. And so it ties into what with your wife or any relationship. It's because we are motivated by fear, which is a reality. Self preservation mechanism, which I think is also closely related to sin, where a lot of times we misplace fears, and these fears become massive when they're actually really based in emotion, they're not actual facts, and we start to try to fix all these other things and to maneuver them and manipulate them. And what we think we have control over so that we can feel good on the inside rather than seeking first on the inside, and getting those things. organized so that everything on the outside can fall into place. So it's interesting you brought this up because of course I have a lot to say on recovery and it is a slippery slope. I mean, I'm a marijuana advocate. Like I think it's great. It just doesn't work for me. And that's the experience because I smoked weed for so long. And then towards the end of my use in my last relapse It was becoming more popular. It was legal in California. It wasn't like it was starting to be viewed less as Oh, look at this guy smoking a blunt. It had this negative kind of connotation where now it's like, Oh, people are taking CBD and there's oil and it's like low key and like successful people are doing it and they're finding there's all these benefits and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like why can't I experience these benefits? Like why, when I smoke weed, is it like fucking party time? Or, I just get anxiety. Like I started getting anxiety from smoking weed. And everyone's you're just smoking the wrong strain of bud, dude. You need to get that. That's right. You need that, sativa dog, and I'm like, everyone's quick to tell you why it's okay. Because in many cases they themselves are having some sort of relationship. Yeah, it makes it harder to get honest with yourself, and it's, some people can manage it. And it's Who cares what other people can do? I had a, it says it somewhere in the big book too, and I had a sponsor that would say, Hey man, if you're questioning whether or not you're an alcoholic or not, he's like, why don't you go out there and try some controlled drinking and then come back and see us after that's done and let us know what happened, and so I would do that I would smoke and try to manage it. And for a while there, I was just smoking and drinking and I made it work. But I had to remember with any drug or anything, you're really only treating the symptom. It's not healing you at the core. Sure, there might be some cellular things happening when you smoke. It could regenerate some things and maybe connect some things in the brain. And I have to also be careful to not demonize anything alcohol and drug related because of my own recovery. It can happen when you're sober a long time, you begin to demonize these things and put yourself on a pedestal and start looking down on everyone who smokes weed or drinks because it doesn't work for you. My, my mom will do that sometimes. I'm like, gosh, it's, she'll just be like, I'll talk to her about somebody and she'd be like, he's probably an alcoholic. And I'm like, everyone's not an alcoholic because you are. Okay. It's like she only sees it through this lens of like her problem. And so now it's and so I hoped when you shared about your THC stuff you've got going on and you're letting it go, I think, okay. I have to be careful about how I come across, but what I realize is not to me and I hope right. None of our listeners feel the same way because again, everyone has different relationships with everything. I mean, let's be honest. There are many prescription drugs out there that a doctor will say, Hey, this is going to help you. And I can give an example with my father in law he was prescribed Klonopin and on the pill bottle, it says take once a day. If you take a benzodiazepine once a day, you're gonna get really addicted to it, you know There's gonna be withdrawal symptoms if you stop doing it even like real bad nasty withdrawal symptoms If you don't like wean your way off of it but when you're when you started to say Like you gave your you answered your own question when you were sharing with us on polo because you're like, you know Am I lying to myself? It's like as soon as you ask that question You've already answered it, right? Because an alcoholic doesn't wonder if he's an alcoholic or not. And we would always say this if you're like, if you're in here, we would say this in a oh, if you're in here wondering if you have a problem with alcohol or not, you do. Because, People who don't have a problem with alcohol. Don't wonder about that. I don't actually agree with that, to be honest with you. Really? Oh, there's so many alcoholics who are complete denial. Absolutely. And they never, they do because they compare themselves. No, I said that wrong. I said that wrong, then I said that wrong. Okay. Yeah. It's not what, I mean what I mean is what I mean is. If you're questioning whether or not you have a problem, you do because you wouldn't be questioning it. If you didn't have a problem. Yeah, possibly. You wouldn't be like, Hey, I wonder if I have a problem with alcohol. It's something prompted you to think that and. What do we define as a problem with alcohol? Oh, maybe it's this DUI. Yeah, it's definitely close to the truth. And where I think it's, so I think it generally is true. Yeah. I think that's generally true. I think there are just a lot of people, including myself who make comparisons. And so let's say we look at somebody next to us at the bar and we're drinking and Make the judgment that, Oh, I'm not that bad, dude. Yeah, it's classic, right? Yeah. And, and, I think there are times where. Maybe what it means is there are more people who have problems with alcohol than, they think. Even. Having that conversation though, I think there's a lot of people, there are many people that have a good relationship with, I know many people that have a good relationship with alcohol. And by that, I mean, they are able to have it occasionally, enjoy it, and then, spend plenty of time not consuming it and not having a true addiction to it in the sense that it becomes habitual, and then. Challenging for them to and so you have to define what is too much? What is a problem? So then it's and I just was just related to what you were saying, because I think you, in the poll you were just like questioning it. And then I didn't see you going the other direction. I didn't see you being like, Oh, you know what? Turns out I evaluated this and I don't have an issue. It's not to say that couldn't happen, but it's I, it's if you're asking yourself that question, you discover. You're already there basically. Yeah. And I think for me, which is different than many people, both alcohol and THC are not the root problems. And that's what I was trying to get at with the whole 12 step program. It's like many people, it is a big part of the problem or a big symptom of the problems that they have in their life. And in and of itself, it becomes a problem and it amplifies other problems, but it's more other things that I realized. And so I would say the underlying problem that I was really exploring when I said do I have issues with THC or am I lying to myself? The real question, which is harder for anybody to admit and I'm okay doing it because I've done it in the context of many groups is am I becoming too prideful and thinking that I have power to control and balance and moderate some of these things and Oh, I've got this under control. Like I've got this period. And I think as soon as I get to that point in life where I'm like, I've got this, then it's time for a good dose of humility. Yeah. Yeah. Are you just at a point to where there's this, point, which I got to, which was like, I knew my drinking and drugging was a problem, but I just enjoyed it too much. Like it was a calculated risk. It was just like, yeah, man you know what? I just like getting stoned and, that's where I say when it got, legalized, I had all these stoner friends that were like, that's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. It was just like, oh yeah. And I'm like, really dude, you're smoking like six blunts a day. It's not. You're, you look like a Rastafarian it's okay if that's your way of life, but don't sit here and tell me that it's because it helps your, whatever, or it's okay you're also destroying your lungs or whatever, and you got all these other things going on, and I feel like there's some other deeper stuff that you're maybe not ready to look at, not you, but this person, so to speak. Yeah, Yeah, it was more, I would say I was. Concerned that I was lying to myself about my pride that I was like overcoming that sin that root cause of maybe why pride and selfishness very closely related certainly so it's just when I Look at the comparison because that's what we do we compare as much as we're not supposed to like I compare myself to my former self This is like Michael, I don't know, three, four, 5. 0. I have no idea how many iterations there's been to me over these past several years, but there've been a lot and much to my wife's frustration, I'm sure. Mostly moving in the right direction, but sometimes too far in the right direction to be tolerable. And, I remember getting finished with the Tony Robbins, Unleash the Power Within conference, and it's four or 10 hour days of self improvement and just. Really intense energy and changing your state and getting into peak state and all these like good things. And then you're on this mountaintop and you come down and your face is glowing. You've had this experience with God, so to speak, and it's alarming to other people. That haven't gone through it with you. And so in this case, I was like comparing myself again. Oh, rationalizing it saying, oh this is nothing like it was in the past and that's true. It, nothing, it is nothing like it was in the past, but is it perhaps the beginning of what led me to the place that I was in the past? I don't know, but I'm never going to find out because I'm done again. And that's, what's cool. What's really cool is that you've are in a place in your life or anyone who's in a place in their life to, to get honest with themselves, right? It doesn't matter what you say to me or to your wife or to anybody it's cause a lot of times people are motivated to get sober for a reason or for another person and they want to look good or they want to fix some things. But then that honesty, that true Honesty about is this the truth? Yeah, it's and it was a fear. So that was like, everything was propagated, I would say, by the conversation that we had about fear and all of a sudden this stuff, all this content that I was consuming and seeing was all about fear. And then I realized like. I'm afraid that I'm going in the wrong direction with this again. I'm afraid that I'm becoming more prideful again. I'm afraid that my wife was making the comment, you're not being as supportive of me as you say that you want to be. Immediately I was like, that's an integrity issue. If I say I want to be supportive of you, And then my actions aren't reflecting that. Again I, honestly can say it probably wasn't THC that was not keeping me from being supportive of her. It was me being prideful and me starting to do all these things, me starting to have some success with trading and be like, Oh, I got this. I've got this, and then when you ask this question real quick about, so then you, make a realization and you ask in any, for anybody listening or any person struggling at all with something. So you make a realization you get honest. Then what and when we take action you take action. But going back to what you said earlier about how being sober is less about the substance is what it actually designed. The 12 step program is designed to primarily give you a relationship with a higher power. So you need that you need to, tap into that power through the action. And so before it, before you, I think even before you act that's, yeah, that's why that living fearlessly book was so great because it goes through this process of identifying the fear. My fear was I'm becoming prideful again, and this is taking me away from the person that I want to be. I'm not being as supportive for my wife. I am starting to believe that I've got the power when I don't, and then it's doing some. Truth speaking to that, confessing like that's even what I'm more or less doing, publicly here to people that I've talked to about it. And it's just one of those things where again, everyone's relationship is different. So there's no condemnation for me coming, going towards my wife, who I absolutely believe it's very, helpful for her and in dealing with a lot of things that she's dealing with and she didn't have the same. Issues and I don't think I'm just rationalizing it for her because I don't think she has a pride issue But so once you get past that confession stage is then you got to ask a higher power You've got a I've got to ask God like who do you want me to be and then you got to wait and you got to listen and that's hard and I've, this is the first time I've said it out loud, but like the words that I've heard lately are relationship, redeemer, caregiver, resource generator, like those five words and I don't know yet if it's am I making that up? Or is that really God telling me? I don't know yet, but relationship, redeemer, caregiver resource, generator, five words. But I'm thinking in my life, what am I being called to do? And then. Yeah. How do I take action on that? And the next step after you get that identity and maybe that's not it, right? I'm just gonna keep on asking and see maybe it's something else, but I think it's close Like I think about my relationship with my wife, you know I think that God can work through me to redeem that relationship and It's not me. It's him. But yeah I think that I think about my brother how much I love him and how much I don't have as much time to It's been with him and he's out in Colorado, but I want to redeem that relationship. I want to get to the point where I have the resources to care for these people in my life, especially like my father in law. He's given me that insight into, the, neurodegenerative diseases that just wreck older people. And very few people, I think, have the resources to, Be able to care for their loved ones when they get to that point. And we had to put them in these memory care facilities and all of them are just highway robbery and they're for profit. And I'm just like, maybe what God's calling me to do is to redeem relationships in people's lives by enabling some sort of facilities. And I don't know big goals, right? I'm just putting it out there. But to build these nonprofit places where. People with dementia can go and, find the level of care that they need and there's no sort of strings attached to it, just pays the people that are employed there really well. And I've got all these ideas with AI. I'm like, what if you had this just wall and had an AI, you guys are like, where are you going? Dude, this was going to be a short one. This AI wall that like listens to all the questions that people with dementia ask, and it starts to say Oh every day they're asking 20 times what time it is. I'm always going to have a big clock. They're always asking how the weather is. I'm going to have the weather. They're always asking how to turn the TV on. So I'm going to have a part of the wall. That's just this sequence of the right buttons to press on the remote. So they know how to turn their TV on. Maybe it's they're asking, Hey, who are you? The person who's walking in there and it's going to recognize, oh that's your son. So it's going to have a picture of you and that person in the context with the label. This is your son now. Yeah, this is your son. And just playback all these, I don't know. Like I, I just have this. It's crazy. But, I don't know, all that's possible, right? It is, All that's possible. But it starts, where does it start, right? It just starts with like Taking some action. And, taking it easy and not overthinking it. And just that one next thing and, that you do and taking action. It's I would have never imagined some of the things that were gonna happen in my life. And I just think, I do thank AA for just reminding me that it's just don't drink today and be spiritual in the morning to take some time. If you, wrong anyone, make it right. Keep your mouth, shut as much as you can. For me, that's a great one. If I have a chance to keep my mouth shut, just do it. Cause I get myself in trouble. Yeah. And it's and I just focus on these I focus on these like basic things and focus on those and then watch what happens there's just who knows what can happen. And you can have dreams and you can have all these goals and all this stuff. And they'll just magically materialize almost once you invite God in and you really just minimize your life down to you know that focus and I get caught up in that because I'm a thinker and I want to I see the world as like everybody is doing all this stuff and how are they doing it and I got to compete with that but I just got to stay out of that stay out of what they look like and just do what I know is right and that's hard you know it's hard it's not easy it can happen once we Take those first step like once we get peel the layers of the onion and out of the way And we get down we get some of this, 16 bits of information. Yeah, we get some of this crap out of the way, then now we have God can work, and then some of this subconscious power can be utilized, right? It's I know that to be true. Like you're going to your subconscious is doing all these things. You're not aware of it, but in your, it's what you're doing 16 bit. Out of those 16 things, make them prayer, meditation family, whatever, focus the 16 on those, and then, guess what, the subconscious is then gonna start doing all these amazing things, because of you, because you did what you actually had control over, and I still struggle with that. Not struggle, but I, just don't, I haven't perfected that by any means. Yeah, that's not the point, right? Progress. But, it's like I don't have problems really in my life. I like to choose what I think I do, but these problems that I have today are so basic. Today, okay, my problem today. was with UPS, Preston. I was like, maybe if it was, I was like, maybe if it was FedEx and I had ordered, I ordered these vapes. And mine's are dying and it's supposed to arrive today between 12 and four and that you have to sign for it because it's a nicotine product. I still have my nicotine product. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to be home. I, my doorbell doesn't work. So I had to put a note on the door because I had missed one of them before they didn't come between 12 and four. I'm like Mom lives with me. I'm like this look out for the door. Like someone has to sign for it. They come two hours after the window. And I was just so frustrated with UPS. I could, you had a four hour window. You couldn't even, those are my problems today. What flavor did you get? What's in your new batch? It's the same one that I get. It's the strawberry cereal donut milk. Oh, okay. But that's my next. I'm gonna be done. I'm gonna be done with vaping here at some point. I'm not 100 percent ready. I need to tell myself I'm ready. I don't know if I'll ever be ready. But, some guy at this gig last time bass player at my gig was like, How old are you, man? And I was like, How old do you think I am? And he's 30 man, I love you. And I was like keep going. And he gets 40, he's 35, 37. I'm like keep going, And 42 I'm like, whoa. So I'm 40 and he goes he goes, and you vape. And I was like, what do you mean? And I vape what do you mean by that? He's wasn't that like what kids do? And I was just like, this dude's like again, I guess that's what I'm like. I was like, I used to smoke. Would that be cooler if I was like 40 smoking cigarettes? Anyway. I'm over here rattling around like trying to figure out how I'm going to quit vaping and this dude just asks me this and it's totally, the universe just sending it's yeah, giving me little signs and it's just he's right. We're reaching that age, Brad, where I think you and I both need to start smoking pipes. Yeah, the old school pipes and stuff and we'll have our little pipe station in our garage where we just Dude, have you ever actually smoked pipe tobacco? Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's so tasty, it's like wet and tasty and like vanilla and it's the most amazing taste. We're not sponsored by Pipe Tobacco yet, but if there's any companies out there, we will on the show sample some warm, wet, honey berry type tobacco. A honey berry backwoods shall suffice. Gandalf. Yeah, that's the age we're at. This episode took a turn, but I, I was I was like, oh, we're gonna keep this one, one short, but. Tangent City Episode 8. Tangent City. Real quick, just to follow up on this Yeah, it talked about selfishness and self centered in the big book and we talked about letting God in, right? We got to give God the power. We've got to turn over our power to Him, right? And so at the end of that page, one of my favorite pages, it says this is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. Yeah. It didn't work. And we decided thereafter in the drama of life that God was going to be our director. He was the principal. We were his agents. He is the father. And we are his children. Most good ideas are simple. And this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom, Cool. That's it, man. You, I mean, that's what this show. Money get outta the way. You get outta the way. You're not God. Like we stop being God. You are not God. You don't have control over these, not you, but you know, in general, like for anyone out there, these decisions are not all for you to make your decisions are that 16 bit of information that you have control over. Dude, that's weird that you say that because I was reading a couple days ago how the ha it was this one was called The Habit of Having No Habits. It was a daily. My daily, daily journal and it's like your God may be your little Christian habit whatever the habit is that you think is great and you focus on it so much that it's like you're focusing on the habit of doing it instead of what you actually should be doing. Oh, yeah. Jordan Peterson said that. He was like, believing in God is not believing in God is not following him. I don't know what he said, but it was like he, what he, he says that I think is really interesting. When people ask him if he believes in God, he's I behave as if I do. Yeah. And I think that's I mean, who care rubbers what you say's, that's where the rubber to say who cares if you, say that you do or don't do you behave as if you do? Yeah. And that's the integrity piece that I think I was just, going a little bit of field from Right. And, that's when you're coming back to that original data point of 16 bits of information and out of 11 million. I think it's very easy for us to focus on what we perceive are like, Oh, these are the good things I'm doing. This is, me. This is what I've got moving in the right direction instead of focusing on all those other things that our unconscious mind, like you said, our subconscious mind is doing, which I think that's a lot where the higher power works and where the supernatural works because, you think about faith, right? And it's what you don't see. You, have to believe in what you don't see, that's what faith is. And so if you're processing 11 million bits of information a second, gosh, you add that up over the course of a day, you don't see any of that. 16 bits of it a second, like this fraction of it, and you have to have faith for sure. Even in that statistic to recognize that like your body is doing some incredible things, your mind's doing some incredible things. And sometimes, and many times I think they're not serving us. Like when we normalize a habit like drinking or vaping or smoking or anything, right? Like we know that they're bad habits at the same time. It's when you say I'm not sure if it's that way for you or not. And by no means, is it a call out against you? It's just like there are certain things that you associate it with subconsciously. For me, when I smoke cigarettes, I was commuting every day minimum 40 minutes in the car, usually 40 to 60 minutes each way. And so it'd be like, I'm gonna smoke one at the beginning and one at the end. And that's what it was like in my head. I never really thought of it that way, though, until I was trying to quit. And I was like, holy cow, I smoked two there, two back every once in a while, be three for a real bad day. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And the problem is subconscious. It's totally for me. It's a subconscious problem. It's like, how do I get in there? I asked God for help. Yeah, but you know, but you got to pick yourself up at some point off the ground. Like you, you do have to pick yourself up off the ground. You have to align, you have to align your will with God's will. Yeah, you got it. That's the tough part, man. That's the bridge is that we do have a will. We do have the power to make decisions right, wrong, good, bad, fearful, loving whatever those are, but we discover what God's will is we begin to align ourselves with God's will and, that's the whole act and that's really what just to go circle back. It's that's what the 12 step program is. I wish more people could stick around long enough. To see that because sometimes I think they get the wrong idea and they don't always understand because they don't stick around long enough to, read the fine print. I mean, that 164 pages takes years to sink into your brain because you're defending your addiction still. That's, yeah, that's what it ultimately, even as I think about it. Did the 12 step program a few times, right? Cause I went for about a year, so that was enough time. I think it was enough to go through it like three and a half or four times that I went through it. I'm getting my medallions, I'm doing it. And at some point I was like, Nope, I got this. I don't need this anymore. And what is that? It's, just pride creeping back in. And even so that's it's really interesting to think about it. And maybe you don't need it from the. quitting drinking perspective, but I think you definitely need the program in some context, whether it's going to a Tuesday meeting or whether it's just simply going through those 12 steps on a regular basis. If you don't continue to go through them, which we both know the 12 step, the 12th step is taking what you've learned. Sharing it and giving back and then so there was this learn, earn, return, model that I heard from Jim Quick and I'm, like that's, basically what this is. I like that, just how it rhymes or whatever, but yeah, and the idea is to practice, it says to, we practice these principles in all our affairs. So the goal is once those Once you do the steps and hopefully they become a working part of your life, right? And we're always doing the steps and I find myself and I remind myself cuz oh, I'm not actively doing the steps right now yes, I am because their work part of my life if I wrong somebody I make an amends immediately. It's that's the, eighth step. If I'm doing a spot check inventory where I'm just like, Hey, what's going on with me? What am I scared of? And that's part of my nightly prayers. Like, where was I selfish, self centered and fearful today? And I go, Oh, wow. I was like, disrespectful to my wife, or I was I didn't say the right thing here. I acted out of fear here. And then I, that's a spot check inventory. So that's a forced, that's a 10th step. I meditate and pray. That's the 11th step. Shoot. Sometimes I'm in the first step. Sometimes I'm like doing so bad that I'm just like, Whoa, God, I'm powerless. I'm powerless over people, places, and things. I'm a powerless over alcohol and drugs. It's not the alcohol and drugs I'm admitting powerlessness to anymore. It's the, emotion that I got that I want to share real quick. I know we're going on here, but I wanted to share something about that happened to me last night. I have been doing this other gig on Tuesday nights to try to prepare this band for the grand opening of Bon Jovi's. So I know what the plan is. My other band got a schedule on Tuesday. I'm like, of course they did. Of course, Tootsies gave us Tuesdays now because I'm trying to do something on Tuesdays and I never usually play Tuesdays. My, my singer's totally fine. I'm the guy, I have the, I have He has no problem subbing me out. They get a sub last night and I wake up this morning. I saw, you saw the post about he was like, it was his first Broadway gig and he fucking slayed it. And that's my gig. Yeah, I thought the same thing when I saw it. I was like, Oh, Brad's probably seeing this thing. I'm like, Oh fuck. I just woke up to them having a blast with some other drummer. And I couldn't help in spite of all of my experience and knowing exactly what this is and how not to behave and how not to take this. I took it to heart, man. I was just like, Oh man. So I, you know what I did was is I let myself feel it. I go, okay go, down that road for a minute. Oh, what, they had more fun with you? Or with him? Oh, what, he's a better drummer than you? Whatever. Go ahead, play the tape through, play the tape through, play the tape through, right? And I'm like, you know what? I just had a great rehearsal with those guys yesterday. We're writing some original music with Hunter. I offer, I bring all these things and I have to go through What I bring to the table and remind myself what I bring to the table. And I even thought about writing something like, Hey guys, I'm so stoked. You guys had a great time, but guess what? I'm back on Friday and Saturday. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that. I mean, the right thing is you say nothing, but you know, and I didn't. Yeah. Yeah. But that's such a takes a lot of willpower not to. Let that just fester and then grow and turn into this resentment. And then all of a sudden, the next time you show up, you're just like, steamed because you haven't dealt with it. You haven't felt it. You haven't spoken to it truthfully and then moved on. So well, where I'm at with it is Brad, just like. If you're not happy, it's because you have some insecurity about your plan, maybe, and so step up your game, get better, work harder, be a better drummer and, they're fine. It's just there's a, degree of variability that everybody likes, right? There's four, four basic needs, right? Some degree of certainty, some degree of uncertainty, some degree of significance and connection. Those are those four base needs that. Everybody feels differently, but generally there's some balance that they feel. And so it's like, whenever you're, I mean, it's the same, to be honest with you, it's the same for me when I play with people and it's somebody who's new and it's just Oh, that feels great. It's like you can create something with somebody different and there's that degree of novelty to it. Yeah. And it feels good. But then there's also that degree of comfort when. When we've got Brad back there that you just have this knowingness of whoa Everything's gonna go like it does when Brad's here because it's Brad. Yeah. Yeah. So then that's that it's It's a certain level of certainty and knowing that oh But it's Brad and I've been that guy, I've been the guy on a few gigs recently where I'm subbing in and I'm subbing in and I can see everyone's lighting up and it's just Oh yeah, this guy does what he's doing. Exactly. And it says hi. And then I subbed in on that next Sunday and it was like a couple less moments, but still some moments of Brad's awesome. And then by the third Sunday I subbed with them. It was like, Oh, it's just Brad again. Yeah, he's just back there crushing it and it's yeah, it's just a trip how that works. And I've been on both sides of that and it was a growing experience this morning for me. And, it's just I S and I saw them when I left my gig last night. It was like, Oh, they're playing HTC. And I walked by that street and I looked, and I think this added to it because I saw miles, who is our bass player. And he's a very, he's an awesome bass player, but he just doesn't jump around a lot. He's not a guy that's really like into it. And man, I look in the window and I see miles just like into it. And I'm like, Oh man, he's having more fun with him than he is with me. And then I wake up to the post and I'm just like, But what's crazy is that I'm sharing this now because this is what I do, whether it's with you guys or I talked to my wife about it and it didn't really bother me that much, but the little bit that it, reared its little head, I have to address that I have to be like what is that? Like what? Oh, like what? Why are you feeling insecure? Like you don't need to these are your boys. They were just at your house yesterday. It's all good. This is fine. Yeah. And then I was like, happy for'em, and I'm like, oh dude, I'm so glad because they've struggled with good drummers. They've struggled to get some, so when they found me, it was like the right way to, the right way to look at it is, it's like a degree of freedom. And with confidence now it's oh, if I need to go do something. I got a guy and so that's how I would approach it and be, like to whoever it is. Be like, dude, sounds like everything went great. If there's something that in the future, I'm going to be out. Let's hit him up. And so it's just it gives you. And I want him. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No, I was just going to say at some point you're going to level up, man. You're going to keep on leveling up because I believe anyways, that, that music is like you can plateau for a while if you're not intentional about it. But then at some point, like there is that next venue, there is that next gig where it's not like you're going to outgrow perhaps that. Maybe that's what it is. Like you, you outgrow that venue or what, whatever it may be. And then it's set up where there's somebody that's going to take your place. But that's the, it's a weird thing, but like our like lead worship pastor or whatever, he's you're replaceable. He's you are replaceable as a musician. You got to know this, but that doesn't mean that you're also not invaluable in what you're doing. And it's just there's a different place that maybe you move into and Like i'll be the same way like I would like to be the guy at Anoka, But now i'm like, I think i'd rather be the guy at minneapolis, you know You just said that tied in I had to say this real quick you sorry the power of to the power of team Yeah, you sent that the other day what you said you're like, oh that's gonna make you go to the next level Why is that gonna make me go to the next level? You It makes you go to the next level because people will do more. For others than they will do for themselves, right? Yeah. Yeah. The secret to wealth and happiness is to become a team player. You can't get mad at the guy. You were, you, a lot of guys are like, don't put a better drummer on your gig because he'll take your gig. Like I never think that way. But when I was like faced with it, I just had to deal with what that actually took. Yeah. I mean, think about it this way too. It's if you're gone, do you want somebody to His body was like weaker than you and then brings everyone down. Or do you want someone who can actually hold their own? And the rest of the band's okay, thankfully Brad's not here, but thankfully we've got someone who can pull their weight because by default and by default, by accident, by complete accident or coincidence, or maybe it's not a coincidence, I'm helping this dude who it was his first. Broadway gig. If I remember back to my first Broadway gig, that was like a big deal. That was like a big deal for me. And by me being out, that's funny how God works by me being out. It gave him the opportunity to play honky tonk main. I mean, what a great experience for your first gig to be. I mean, he's going to have a rude awakening when he goes plays Rippy side room next week, maybe he won't, maybe he'll be a main stage guy for the rest of his life, but probably not. Like you're not going to be on a main stage every single night. Some nights you're going to have to fill your. on Thursday, I'm going to play Rippy side room with Sammy Ray. It's not I love her, but it's not, Tootsie's roof with Hunter and the guys. Like it's just a different gig. It doesn't pay as well. And, it's just different musically. So you're saying all this stuff. It just gets me excited about what you guys got going on. Preston, I feel like I, I don't know if you, we're coming up on an hour here, but, I was anticipating saying a couple things and just shutting up, and then I was like, this feels like it turned into Reclaiming Michael Part 2. But what do you got for us, man? Any thoughts in closing or maybe not in closing? I don't know, depending on what you say. Yeah I'm just almost in lost in thought listening to you guys tonight. I, really don't have much to, add, so to speak, No, it's fine. I just was scariest. I I mean, it was just like, this starts off. I'm just, Preston is be short. Preston is, I'm gonna speak for Preston right now. Okay. Can you speak for me then? No, I'm kidding. Tell me what I'm thinking, but I wanna say, but I wanna say something about, you right now. Preston's I see you growing, like I see you looking better. I feel like you've been like healthier. You've been looking better. Obviously what you've been doing is working. You may not see it. So I want to tell you, I see it and you're playing and you're just, you're confidence on stage and stuff. I felt like we had an energy on Sunday. Yeah, that we had not had yet. It felt like this is the rodeo like we've been trying to cultivate the rodeo for so long and we had never really achieved it. And a lot of that just comes down to what I don't know, whatever part we all bring to the table. But I think you brought a lot to that when I was in the beginning, I was like, hey, Go outside because that band I was with did it and work you guys were outside. We drew a crowd in there I mean it was just I see you growing And I see you getting a beat you're knowing songs better and like songs that you maybe didn't know before and I just I feel more comfortable, playing with you, you feel more solid. And Michael Austin asked, cause you were saying, Hey, could I Hey, maybe I could play with you guys one more time. Or that'd be cool. I brought you up in a conversation to him and I was just like, yeah. And he goes, how's his guitar playing? Is he is he, I said, man, he's way better than he used to be. Like he's growing. And so maybe there'll be a shot at some point to come play with us. I told him, I go just for fun. If one of these Gillies gigs, if Wes is out and we have a backup guy, but. I was like, even if we had two guitars it might be super cool to just free Wes up a little bit to play more. Anyways. Oh, yeah. Just good stuff, man. I see you growing and my mom said something about you the other day, just Preston's one of your good friends, huh? I was like, yeah, he's probably one of my best friends at this point. He's always here for me. I can always talk to him. And I love that we have just different personalities and sometimes I'm a little self conscious about being the talker all the time, but you're there for me and you're a good listener. And I just can't tell you how much I appreciate having you in my life, and thank you, buddy. Yeah, I, agree. I feel the exact same way about you. I mean, Not to be all gay and sappy at the end of this, but you know, it's it just is, it's like as we get older just, you get those friends and stuff that it's I don't know how to explain it. It's I've been talking with this guy, I'm going to tie this into the not so lame thing and into Nashville in general instead, because I've been, I met this guy Forrest at one of the meetups or whatever that they do on Tuesdays. And like I met him that night. I think I know Forrest. He's like new to town. He like does guitar teaching and stuff. And a couple, remember that weekend when I had the guys all over and I invited you? It was like a couple weeks back. I told him, I was like, Hey, if you want to come on, I'm having a bunch of dads over. Come on out. And he came out and hung out till two in the morning. He's a sober guy too. That's cool. And he's just like real sweet. He's like a phenomenal guitar player, but he's like trying to get into the Broadway thing like I am. And he is, I guess, had a couple gigs and had a he was playing with Ali the other day. Ali Sealey. Yes. And I guess the one that I had on my yes, and I guess he got to the gig and he's very upfront from what he tells me he's going to be very, upfront about saying these are the songs I know I'm green. And I guess halfway through the gig, they had to call another guitar player to come in and just help hold it down because he was struggling. And then, this Who's the girl Cindy that runs the Not So Lame page with Sarah? I don't know. Cindy Sands. Yeah. Yeah, she's really in the back back now, but we can go into a whole conversation about that off the show, but yeah. But there was this big post on, that they were putting in like, all these people were like talking shit about Forrest, like indirectly, and it was just like, it was just like, I'm like, what are you fucking people doing? Like this, what is this? This town is and I think about people like you that I have in my corner, that it's just there's. When you find people that like really have your backs and I've been talking to four sounds like dude Like do not worry about any of this shit Like it'll all blow over like you're a good guy and a good guitar player like don't worry about this and it's like There's these people in life that are just wanting to like bowl people over because they feel like shit I guess I don't and I don't understand any of it, but I'm tying it back to the fact that it's like I love that you have my back and that you think I'm growing and I have yours too. And it's same with you, Michael. I mean, I know we don't play music together and we don't live anywhere near each other, but it's yeah, the fact that we have each other to lean on, to talk to, to. Boost each other up. It's we're very fortunate all of us to have each other. You see now Why I've tried so hard to protect you. Yes, it was I was doing everything I could to protect you from that experience Yes, having you as ready as you possibly could be to avoid that. Yes, and that's that not that was You're right with Forrest. It's he needs to go through that, and it's gonna be his way of being humbled. But I wanted you to avoid that if you could, because it's a pitfall that's gonna slow you down. Logan Hatcher went through it. Logan will tell you about his first experience. That's something everyone who probably is talking smack had that same situation. Cause you can't prepare enough for your first Broadway gig. To some extent. Some people are just naturally good at that, I guess, to some extent. But it's there takes some times where you're just fucking falling on your face. And it's Remember that you guys were all there at one point as well. And that's what was very frustrating to see. We're just, I just wanted to get out. They knew who they hired. Okay. I don't know if you saw a post that I answered. I rarely chime in on stuff, but I chimed in on Vicky Nova's post. And, she was like, I had this person. And if you don't know the songs, maybe that was. No, that was probably a different gig. I don't, and I said, you know who you hire. I was like you hired, I said, this is why you don't hire people directly off of not so lame gig finder. I'm like, if you do know what you're hiring, if you're in a pinch and you hire somebody, you can't expect them to know everything. It's like it, the get referrals and recommendations for somebody and put in the work it takes to get a good player. Don't take the easy road, put a post on not selling gift gig finder, and then go crying about it when they're not exactly what you wanted. Yeah, it's come on and so I get real riled up about this So anyway, we could have a whole nother podcast on that. Yeah, we should start one, dude it sounds yeah, I'd be like because when you think about it like when you think about it a lot of what's happening you know, it sounds like it's just expectations management, right? And it's nearly impossible when you are playing with the new, like a musician that you've never played with, there's never going to be like perfect chemistry. You can be master your craft. At least I believe you can be master of your craft, but like not having played and you could have all played the same songs, but just not played them together. And not have that sort of tightness and cohesion that makes you feel good about it. You couple that with some anxiety, like someone who's relatively newer. And yeah no spirituality. I don't think a lot of these people really even have God in their life. You're going to crumble is what I mean. Because you're going to be relying on what you're my guys. I have to go pretty soon. You're my, I'm dying. But you only have that context, that same limited context of It comes back to the exact same thing. It's you have an idea of what you want in a guitar player. And that idea is based on somebody else that you've played with a million times. And you're like this person doesn't line up to that. This person doesn't play the lick that way. They don't start the song like as confidently, or they didn't nail that transition, or they're not as good in front of people. Whatever it is, right? It's just judge, But you compress things down to. An idea of what you want. And then when it doesn't meet that, like expectation or predicted outcome, let down, yeah, you're let down. And it's okay this causes chaos and the outcome of, and that's another one of the, one of the main concepts of that book user illusion is that when we're compressing things down, we're trying to reduce entropy. We're trying to reduce chaos, but in doing so, Sometimes we create it and that's, yeah. And you know what you do in that situation? I just thought, okay, so what is the solution? If you, if this person has, you play the songs that he knows, exactly. I was just going to say, look over at him and go, Hey man what do you know? Yeah, what are you good at? Let's let's do that. Yeah What are you good at probably gonna be a rough one like that was a rough song man, what are you good at? I just heard a guy tell me a story the other night my bass player miles He's I remember we were talking about some of our first gigs that like went really bad and he was saying that Nobody knew any of the songs they were all like pretty new to broadway and they all were just on they all happened to Not know a lot And somehow they all ended up inexperienced on a Rippy's main gig on the same gig. Typical thing that can happen at Tootsies because they throw bands together and they don't always know. And people will talk a game and say they know things. You do have to stretch the Yes. You do, not lie, but you gotta embellish a little bit how much or else no one's gonna hire you. So you kinda You get into this thing. And so they were like, yeah, we ended up just doing a blues jam for three hours. And it's can you imagine a blues jam on Broadway? Everyone wants to hear what they want to hear. And they're just playing like 12 bar blues for three hours. Fucking, yeah. Oh no. Just mumbling. People would leave. Yeah. If a jam band goes there I saw a band the other night. It was just like, yeah, like a jam band. Can't like, just, they're awesome, but they're just, it's just not the right fit. Like crowd's gonna be like. What? I want to hear Chattahoochee. You don't know Chattahoochee? Yes, exactly. So it's not quite, I know what you mean. It's a trip, man. I want to do I think in hindsight, Preston and Michael I want to do my own music podcast. Yeah. 62. Episode 62. This was a bit of a tangent city. We were all over the place, but find some good friends that you can chat with that have your back always. And your life will be pretty goddamn good. That's about all I have to say, boys. We'll see you guys next time. For a.