My sobriety isn't up for discussion, but as for vices, I seem to hack away at them with my invisible machete from dawn till dusk. The vice of 'more' is an ongoing theme.

I discovered surfing, which I absolutely fell in love with. That feels good and kind of keeps your body aligned, so does the salt water.

There was an uncommon array of people in there [rehab] with me, and I became friends with all of them. You recognize the possibility of your own demise in the lives of these other people. You're doing the same thing they are, but you can't see it in yourself. However, you start seeing all of these tragedies and potential miracles in other people. It's a real eye- and heart-opening situation.

What I've realized over the years is that I have some pretty good friends.

The good news is that by the second year, those cravings were about as half as frequent, and by the third year, half as much again. I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things crooked, I can't complain. After all those years of all kinds of abuse and crashing into trees at eighty miles an hour and jumping off buildings and living through overdoses and liver disease, I feel better now than I did ten years ago. I might have some scar tissue, but that's alright, I'm still making progress.

She wasn't about to go down that road herself, which was a testament to her spiritual awakening and her commitment to sanity. It was a real blessing that she didn't follow me, because oftentimes, people go out together and one comes back and the other doesn't. Or both of them never do.

It seems like the chaos of this world is accelerating, but so is the beauty in the consciousness of more and more people.