Russell Brand
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Posts: 339
Russell Brand
From a face book post by Russell. I thought was quite profound. I know it was true for me.
One day at a time, I surrender to the fact that I am a drug addict. And with the help and support of other drug addicts and the belief in a higher power, I’m able to get daily reprieve from drugs, that is contingent on me being available to help other people with the disease of addiction, taking advice from people that have got more time than me, offering help to those that have got less.
And I think it’s an important issue, because I think that actually drug addiction is people—like, the reason people are addicted to drugs is because there’s sort of a deficit of happiness, a deficit of community, a deficit of connection. Joseph Campbell talked about our problems being due the lack of a communal myth. I think all of us feel a little bit—or a lot of us feel a little adrift, that we don’t know how we’re supposed to live, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do. And in the end, some kind of anesthetic becomes attractive. Certainly that’s my personal experience. I recognize now that the thing that I was chasing after in my years of addiction was probably some sort of sense of communal connection or a connection to a higher thing.
- from an interview with Amy Goodman
One day at a time, I surrender to the fact that I am a drug addict. And with the help and support of other drug addicts and the belief in a higher power, I’m able to get daily reprieve from drugs, that is contingent on me being available to help other people with the disease of addiction, taking advice from people that have got more time than me, offering help to those that have got less.
And I think it’s an important issue, because I think that actually drug addiction is people—like, the reason people are addicted to drugs is because there’s sort of a deficit of happiness, a deficit of community, a deficit of connection. Joseph Campbell talked about our problems being due the lack of a communal myth. I think all of us feel a little bit—or a lot of us feel a little adrift, that we don’t know how we’re supposed to live, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do. And in the end, some kind of anesthetic becomes attractive. Certainly that’s my personal experience. I recognize now that the thing that I was chasing after in my years of addiction was probably some sort of sense of communal connection or a connection to a higher thing.
- from an interview with Amy Goodman
waking down
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 4,641
Yup, contemporary society tends to lack the bonds of the old tribal units of yesteryear, and people tend to flail blindly and unknowingly through storms of existential crisis from the time we separate from our nuclear family units or (as in my case) the unit disintegrates under the weight of our own or our parents' dysfunction until the day we recognize the crisis or die. That was me. I was sober for a month or two before it started sinking in, and before that I would have denied it.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
Great post! You see his movies and hear his interviews and he seems like a flake, but then you hear him talk about addiction and he seems like an old soul. I've read the stories about him taking time to hang out with the homeless; not just for a few minutes, he spends the whole day with them. I'm not an AA type person but maybe it's part of his making amends. Or maybe it's just forging that deeper connection that he was trying to find in a whiskey bottle.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
