Tonight, Sleepy, we begin with seagulls, of course. The old fish-gulls of Stockholm, one of them swallowing a whole pizza with the quiet dignity of a fallen emperor.
From there we drift into walnuts, childhood, the strange power of being the only one who has ever seen a particular thing, and then somehow, quite naturally, into alcohol, acting school, red wine, Sambuca on fire, shame, freedom, loneliness, sobriety, and the small child in the backseat who still wants to come along.
This is an episode about staying with yourself. About the wild Henrik and the quiet Henrik, both real, both asking for something. A sleepy, introspective journey to sleep through seagulls, old parties, strange memories, and the rainy grey field where life continues without needing to be solved.
It is what it is. What happens, happens. And right now, there is nothing we can do about it.
Sleep Tight!
More about Henrik, click here: https://linktr.ee/Henrikstahl
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[00:00:00] Hi, and very welcome to Fall asleep with Henrik. I'm Henrik and you're sleepy. And it is what it is, what happens happens. And right now there is nothing we can do. Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hi, sleepy. And welcome back to my humble abode. Hi. I am at the moment. I was just out on my balcony. And spring has really taken off here in Stockholm.
[00:01:03] There is seagulls like all over the place. You'd think that I'm at sea somewhere, which I'm not. Although the sea, it's here. It's right by. But it's not an immediate ocean experience where I live.
[00:01:28] The word seagull is weird. In Swedish, the word for seagull is fiskmos, which is roughly translated to fish-gull, I guess. Which I guess is based upon the food that they eat most of the time.
[00:01:51] By the way, if you're new to this podcast, this isn't something that you'd really need to listen to. I'm just going to speak from the top of my mind until you fall asleep or something else that you want happens.
[00:02:06] I'm speaking in my second language, which means I will invent words as they go. And sometimes I will get an intellectual overload. That doesn't mean that I have an abundance of intellect.
[00:02:26] That only means that sometimes thinking out loud in a language that is not my own is a bit too much for my brain. And then everything collapses and you will hear it when it happens. It will sooner or later.
[00:02:42] In Sweden, the seagulls are kind of a problem. I wouldn't say that they're a problem in a national sense. Like they're top government meetings where they need to do something about the seagulls.
[00:03:04] But in places like on the east coast, no, on the west coast, I guess it's a more prevalent problem. They grow huge and they like dive at you and steal your hot dogs and whatever, ice creams and stuff.
[00:03:22] I once saw this huge seagulls. I once saw this huge seagull on a square in a town called Varberg, which is, I guess it's an old watch town. It's a mountain from which you watched out. So Var, it means watch in a way, an old Swedish word for guardian. And Bärg means mountain.
[00:03:47] So an old watch mountain. So this is a city where I, in my past, I went there every summer and I saw this seagull on a city square just gulp a whole pizza, like this oversized four person pizza. It just swallowed it, like it, it just.
[00:04:14] It's swinged it and balanced it, like on the top of its beak and then just opened the beak and the pizza just by gravity alone, just sank down into the seagull and the seagull, the seagulls eyes were half closed, like it was really enjoying itself.
[00:04:36] and it was a an appalling sight we watched in horror as the whole pizza slowly sank into the seagull never to be seen again by human eyes i guess the bacteria within the seagull itself actually in theory would have been able to see the pizza after it's been devoured by the seagull
[00:05:05] but as far as human eyes goes i was the last one to gaze upon that pizza that's actually a thought that is okay so i'm okay it's a slippery slope now i'm going downhill
[00:05:28] it's actually kind of an exciting thought to think of stuff that you see or hear or experience in other ways like you're the last one to do that to this object or this thing like for instance when
[00:05:50] i was a kid my dad he used to well he didn't he he didn't use to he did this once and i still remember it it was christmas and i think they're called walnuts he these are kind of big nuts that you need to smash in order to get to the actual nut so the shell is like much bigger than the actual nut
[00:06:15] nut so he gave me this nut and he said and we had this nutcracker device i don't know the actual term for it but it's a nutcracker grip device kind of thing and he said okay so crack this nut so i did and then he said don't show me keep it in the your hand closed hand and now i'm going to look away
[00:06:45] and you're going to gaze upon he didn't use the word gaze upon that's kind of a very formal thing now look at the nut okay so i did and in the remains of the shell there was this small walnut it was an ordinary walnut it wasn't anything but in particularly it wasn't any okay so now as you
[00:07:11] can hear i'm on my way to a collapse a language collapse it wasn't anything special about this particular nut but i have a memory of it i can recall it in my brain although this was this is a memory
[00:07:29] memory from my childhood back in the 80s so i looked at the nut and then dad said now eat it and i ate it and then he said now you are the only human being in the universe that has seen that nut
[00:07:56] and that was an amazing thought for me because speak about power you know well it's not a power that you can do anything with you know you can you can't you can't conquer countries you can't manifest change in the world with this power it's an it's an imaginative power
[00:08:23] it's an imagination power it's something that you can do a lot of stuff with in your brain it's such a cool thought to have that you're actually the only person in the world i mean maybe even who knows because bacteria and other microorganisms they don't have eyes in any real
[00:08:52] human sense anyway so there no one nothing or no one has ever laid their eyes on this nut that's so cool i'm the only organism in the universe as far as we know that have seen this this specific nut
[00:09:19] this specific piece of nature that has evolved and has you know has manifested into the physical world for reasons well perhaps no reason and i am the only one you know who knows what it this particular nut looked like because every nut is an individual nut you you could argue that every nut is the same but
[00:09:48] they're not there are shapes and details on each and every thing that exists that makes them special you know and that forms sort of a bond between me and this nut we get pals you know we become pals
[00:10:12] we don't get pals we become pals sorry and that makes us you know that creates this togetherness bond and it will always be true i don't know where information ends up eventually whether or not there is a place an information graveyard
[00:10:39] or an archive where everything gets stored or if there is no such thing but somewhere someplace in my imagination at least there's this fact that is stored and that fact is henrik watched this nut the nut got watched and determined
[00:11:02] it's shaped was confirmed it's shaped was confirmed it's shaped was confirmed by henrik and that's truly amazing to think about fortunately i am not allergic to nuts
[00:11:29] which is great because otherwise this story might have taken a different turn my dad said eat that nut but dad i'm allergic shut up i'm trying to make a point no but dad i'm I could die yes but so that's true about almost everything in life now eat it boy eat it and i ate it and then i was hospitalized and my dad he stood over me and he said see
[00:11:57] now you understand don't you and i said no I don't i don't understand why did you force me to eat the nut while you knew that i was allergic i'm allergic yes my dad said but then again i am your imaginary dad i'm not your actual dad this is just a fantasy spoken out loud by this weird podcast host from sweden who's just trying to put people to sleep and just goes wherever his mind takes him
[00:12:28] okay i said childhood me said i'm sorry dad can you please just forget that i complained and take me along on wherever that podcast host's mind takes him you know let's let's move on from this nut thing because the word nut is also kind of a hard word to pronounce it's
[00:12:58] why when you speak swedish it's like a very i mentioned pre the previous last week i guess the staccato problem with the swedish language that it's uh the english is softer in a way so you can like you can you can say the word nut in not such a staccato way and i don't really know how to do that and it it bothers me every time i say it nut it feels like i'm saying
[00:13:28] the swedish word for night which is nut so having nuts at night in sweden is impossible especially if you're allergic if you're allergic to nuts you shouldn't go up at night eating nuts because time of day doesn't change your allergy people think that when it's night time and no one's around to see you or judge you
[00:13:58] then that whatever bothers you will not be present but it will and the same thing with vacations so in my sphere in the world right now there's a lot of people considering the state of the world overall and especially oil prices and not oil prices per se because i'm not friends with a lot of people
[00:14:26] who deal with crude oil and stuff but ordinary people who want to go on vacation usually by taking a flight and that seems more and more far-fetched as things progresses like the fuel will be yeah i don't i don't even want to talk about fuel that's such a boring thing to talk about yet it's such an important thing
[00:14:56] it keeps us you know it's our whole fabric isn't that weird isn't that sometimes sort of a scary thing to think about that the very stuff that keeps us together as you know as society as societies is this thing that is so problematic in all sorts of ways speaking about oil i mean the very thing the very fact that it's ending you know
[00:15:25] not ending but it's it can end you know there's no there's no infinite amount of oil it will run out eventually and i mean kind of a desperate desperate feeling you know to think about and again i don't want to worry you sleepy but then again these things exist whether or not we're trying to sleep you know might as well just talk about it and get it out of the way okay
[00:15:55] so i'm scared that it's it kind it it kind of feels like a bottleneck in a way that you're we're so dependent on something that is so small and insignificant and really you know a finite amount and people go to war over it and i think it's yeah okay i think it's disgusting in a way it's undignified it's really
[00:16:24] an undignified thing that so many warlords emperors presidents power people have built their whole lives on ruling over pieces of land where this smashed mushy dinosaur remains and plant remains are in abundance
[00:16:54] it's the same with gold really but gold isn't today you think of gold almost as a curiosity thing but that's also stuff that has built and collapsed empires and it seems so futile don't you think it seems so i mean what are we it's almost like we're some sort of
[00:17:23] hoarding squirrel like animal that just hoards stuff and again if you love squirrels i'm not trash talking squirrels they're adorable although i've heard that they can be quite aggressive i haven't been attacked by a squirrel ever but once i saw this squirrel climb up a tree outside my studio and i went up close to get a photograph and for some reason this squirrel didn't move it just stayed
[00:17:53] stared at me and when i got close enough it screamed at me and i got really scared i sometimes i get really scared like not scared in that human contemporary grown-up sense that oh my god i'm scared i'm gonna miss the bus oh my god i'm scared that something will happen to someone i love
[00:18:22] or something like that you know the urgent fear the fear that takes over that was one of those moments when the squirrel screamed at me and i was hurt as well you know it didn't have to scream at me like that i just wanted to take a photograph i kind of felt humiliated in a way the squirrel just screaming at me in front of my
[00:18:52] friends well there was no one around but i i consider the rest of the nature my friend the trees and the wind and the clouds and the the satires dancing around my feet because i always have satires can you okay so now this okay i'm sorry sleepy sat satire is that for me that is a fairytale creature but i'm
[00:19:22] not sure now if that is the correct way to name them in english in swedish they are called satyr but i i realize as i say it in english it's satire which is like this form of humor i guess satiric satires okay yeah
[00:19:51] well you know if you're new to this now here's here's my limits in all of its grandeur i am by default not fluent enough to make it through a single episode without this happening sooner or later so i
[00:20:22] i don't drink alcohol i've been talking about this before but i might just as well do it again because why not i really think that that is something worth exploring i was i guess i was i'm sorry if you've heard this before then you can skip or you can just listen to another episode but i was i was kind of old when i discovered
[00:20:52] alcohol when i grew up my mom said that well she was very strict and firm and it was an impossibility for me to even consider drinking and again i was bullied and i didn't have a lot of quote unquote cool friends so i didn't get exposed to this teenage drinking thing it was when i started acting school when i was in my twenties that
[00:21:23] drinking became a possibility for me and it was actually one of my teachers my teacher in dance and movement she was i was an outsider in my class and she said why don't you just at least try and participate have a drink on the party when there's a party because i didn't because i didn't dare and my
[00:21:52] i didn't dare i didn't have i thought that i was going to think that it was awful so because my mom had said that you become very dizzy when you drink and one of my main fears still to this day is being dizzy it has to do with losing control i think and one of the things that really makes me lose it is when i get dizzy and that's a problem because you get dizzy from time to time i'm
[00:22:23] better at it today than i was before though anyway so so at that time i was in the first grade of acting school it's a four-year education university education so and it was the responsibility of the first graders to arrange parties and when we didn't do it frequently enough the rest
[00:22:53] of the students complained and said that we didn't do our job and i happened to end up in a class where extravagant parties was really a thing so my class consisted of really strong personal unique creative individuals with a lot of dark energy if i can say that and i'm
[00:23:22] sort of a well i am sort of a dark minded kind of person but i'm not a yeah that's a different story
[00:23:53] but they were really cool and they were older than me and they had this was in the 90s so if you can imagine like like this badass rock star in weird and awful and funny things happened
[00:24:22] and so the day after the parties it was up to the first graders to go to the venue and clean it up and it was always like this total mess but it was the school so it was the schools the the venues were actual classrooms in
[00:24:52] so to speak so we needed to clean it up otherwise we would get in trouble so I was the
[00:25:26] so I started I said to myself okay because at this time as it was oh my god okay collapse is it always the same time like half an hour into the episodes where I normally collapse yeah I guess so so I was as it was presented to me the thing the fact that I
[00:25:56] didn't drink at parties the fact that I was an outsider that was my issue that was my fault so to speak and in all of this because this is all in all a happy story although it could have gotten worse it could have
[00:26:55] just this clown and I mean I can't think of anything more wholesome and good and no that's the wrong words I can't think of anything more artistically or creatively perfect than a clown people talk about clowns like it was something goofy or foolish or but that's just the alter ego of the clown you know
[00:27:24] a clown is you know this perfect art form everyone should be a clown everyone should have something of a clown in it you know anyway but at that time me not drinking me liking you know old classic films by Ingmar Bergman
[00:27:56] what is it called my favorite film by Ingmar Bergman a little night music a little oh my god what is it called in English um steven sondheim also made a musical oh my god what's it called i've i've i've i know this it's just because i'm on the spot now i can't remember it the smile of a summer night is the direct translation but it's not that
[00:28:26] title in English anyway it's a comedy it's one of the greatest i think he's done a lot of great movies of course a lot of great films i'm not a fan of Ingmar Bergman the person but this film is amazing anyway i was a fan of that and that was of course the dorkiest lamest kind of because my my class they were into you know
[00:28:56] yeah they had a band called sissy prozac you know you can do the you do the math anyway so it was my own fault that i didn't belong and i knew that everyone told me so and that's the thing that i find really tragic in this because who knows what i would have experienced if i would have been accepted the way i was but no one neither my classmates nor
[00:29:26] the teachers they i mean i wasn't like harassed or bullied or anything like that but i had that background so i it was it came easy to me to take the you know to automatically kneel in social situations you know before at least i mean as far as teachers go
[00:29:55] they were so into just this one way of creating art and i guess that's one of the dangers with attending any education any higher education it's a good thing it can make you grow but it can also make you this limited kind of half artistic half thing yeah and then considering what happened
[00:30:25] when i grew up when i grew up with this drug alcohol this could have taken a turn for the worst by far it didn't but it could have and that makes this fact that it was my fault it was my own fault as they presented it to me and i presented it to myself as well then that is a really tragic thing anyway i started to have one small glass of wine at every
[00:30:55] party just as a symbol act of symbolism really and what happened was that it changed everything for me all the doors opened i entered this world in which none of my previous anxieties was anything to even pay attention to so
[00:31:25] the feeling i had that i was a dork a nerd someone an outcast someone whose opinions didn't matter they just disappeared i remember sitting down and just talking to the rock stars in my class and they listened to me and you know and when they didn't when they just yeah when they were rock stars i just didn't mind you know i went somewhere else i
[00:31:54] didn't i wasn't this walking sensitive membrane i be like everyone else just sitting in a group and having fun not constantly worrying about what other people think or how i present myself or why people don't see me the way i am none of that mattered after that
[00:32:24] one small glass of red wine it was always red wine and also sambuca which is some italian liquor thing tastes awful and you would put it ablaze you would light it on fire and you would suffocate the fire with your hand upon the glass and then the glass just got sucked onto the palm of your hand
[00:32:54] and then you would just rip your hand away and just devour the entire shot and that was a cool thing at the time so that was how I started and in the beginning it really was something I benefited from I thought at the time I got over my fear of all sorts of stuff the child in me kind of took the back
[00:33:24] seat he climbed into the back seat and fell asleep and for a while I imperfect weak little boy became this normal guy who had fun with his friends but then I realized that I wasn't happy I
[00:33:55] was for a while I guess I have memories like in 96 or 97 98 maybe where I'm totally at peace with being this normal boy it I started to mess up you know nothing serious just stupid stuff and
[00:34:25] I was so ashamed and I felt so I felt that I make me stop but then by this time I couldn't really stop because I
[00:34:55] still had this need to be a normal boy and it wasn't until I many years later today it's been eight years since I quit drinking at all I wasn't in any I wasn't at a kind of a situation where I couldn't function without drinking or anything like that it was just that when I was
[00:35:25] partying when I was drinking it tended to be a lot and then stuff happened you know conflicts and mishaps and yeah nothing serious but really embarrassing and stupid and also hurtful things to me and to others and I always felt so bad afterwards and that type of on and off lifestyle it didn't suit me at
[00:35:55] all and I can't really remember now why this happened I was I was at the gym and I at the time I was working out for a film part a film role that I was going to do and I needed to be stronger so I had a personal trainer and I was hung over and I
[00:36:20] was at his place and I was working out and I said jokingly oh my god I I'm not my best today because it was a party two days ago or something because as you grow older you also get like really hung over for several days and I laughed like because normally the other person would say yeah I know what it's like yeah you do the best you can you know but he didn't he just very seriously very seriously looked at me and he said well isn't that a shame.
[00:36:50] I mean you payed me so I mean you payed me so I mean you payed me so I mean you payed me so I was hurt like really hurt and offended because I thought that we were kind of friends you know and then he just pulled this Mr. Miyagi kind of thing on me so no not Mr. Miyagi Mr. Miyagi is the
[00:37:20] the trainer in karate kid movies and he's the trainer in karate kid movies and he's the trainer in karate kid movies sorry Mr. Miyagi I don't know who that is yeah Miyazaki is isn't he isn't that the Japanese director or is it the musician that makes music for
[00:37:46] no he's Miyazaki he's the director sorry he's my favorite director by far in the world except for maybe David Lynch I I there are two different types of artists but I love them regardless anyway so I went home and my girlfriend at the time and my friend was there we were riding a TV show together
[00:38:14] so we were going to work and I came home from my Pete my personal trainer and I said he really made me feel bad just because I've been out partying and then he said that it was a waste of time and then my friend who's sober since many years he don't drink at all he said why don't you just quit drinking that would solve this issue and when he said
[00:38:43] that I were like I was like of course I've been thinking about this every hungover opportunity you know for ages but it was something I guess I've reached this point where there's this his words they had bearing for the first time maybe it was because he himself lived that life
[00:39:12] and that I thought that he would apparently he had a very yeah he seemed happy you know and I something in me clicked so I remember going to the bathroom as they worked in the other room and I downloaded an app that counted yeah it was called it was sort of a to-do list kind of thing but it wasn't a to-do list app
[00:39:42] it was Streaks I think it was called so and I created this item no alcohol and I pressed you feel like circles in it so I filled the first circle day one without alcohol and then I thought okay so I'm going to wait until I'm going to I can't really remember what I set out in the first place I think I
[00:40:11] because earlier I have had like okay I will go one month without and stuff and that either just failed miserably or it just went by and then nothing really happened I just started over again so I was like I think I'm not going to put a time limit on this I'm going to wait yeah this was it I'm going to wait until there's this substitute for this drug alcohol
[00:40:40] because also I I've been having I had been having thoughts about me being unmodern ancient even alcohol what even is that I mean it's a it's a drug and it's from fermented vegetables or whatever and it's something that people have been using in order to get close to the gods or whatever for thousands of years am I
[00:41:09] am I a Sumerian priest no I'm not I am a modern human being living in today's world and I'm still romanticizing and thinking about a drug that is being used for thousands of years even using that fact as a as a as a reason you know feeling close to my human roots or whatever in every other aspect of my life
[00:41:39] I want to be in the future almost I love like human progress discovery you know but when it comes to alcohol I'm just this old yeah and also I've been noticing whenever I saw a picture of myself drunk I started to look like this old alcoholic you know
[00:42:09] it wasn't that frequent that I drank it wasn't like I was this alcohol embedded drunk I think I had this functioning alcoholism going or at least developing but on the pictures I saw this old drunk dude and I just couldn't stand that image of me
[00:42:39] so when I downloaded this app and I just decided that I'm going to wait for a synthetic variant of alcohol because I've read somewhere that that was in the pipeline little did I know that that apparently is a very complicated thing to replicate the nice aspects of alcohol while eliminating the dangerous and awful things because that's the thing as well you know alcohol is just this
[00:43:08] I mean there's this amazing ability to drown your sorrows but there's also all these downsides and they're frequent you know everyone who uses alcohol from time to time on different basis can you can't argue with the fact that there's so many bad things about that drug regardless of what it gives you you know so
[00:43:40] I thought I'm I was going I'm going to wait and waited I did and I pressed a day without alcohol at the end of each day and then just life just moved on we wrote that TV show when we recorded it and I directed it and my girlfriend at the time Nina she played she starred in it and also my friend who told me to get sober and
[00:44:10] I never really thought about it because you know life took over it's surprisingly how easy it was for me to just stop after trying it for so long on like a time time base like a month without two weeks without so when I didn't set a time limit just a limit
[00:44:39] for you know whenever there's a safe version and of course the safe version never showed up and then I looked at my app and I've been sober for a thousand days and it just went by I never thought about it well of course I thought about it sometimes at parties and stuff but I was kind of in love with the idea that I'm a modern
[00:45:09] person I want to be in my I want to be in my body and even though it's harder to experience the bliss and the relaxation that you get automatically with alcohol I want to be in that body and I don't want to go on any field trips drug wise until there's this way of doing it that are totally safe or
[00:45:39] even beneficial for me and so far that hasn't happened so that's my story and I would really I don't know about you sleepy and alcohol but I would okay so what I really
[00:46:13] dealing dealing with the person I am and the person I want to be and that's a different story I guess so I wasn't in the situation where I needed to fight off you know the withdrawal symptoms or anything like that but most of us I guess we have this ambivalent relationship with this drug where we know that it's not good for us and
[00:46:43] sometimes we tell ourselves that it's good for us in a way it's good to but the downsides I mean I don't want to sound like this good little two shoes I am an example of I am a person
[00:47:13] driven by lust and impulse and longing and restlessness so I know that I know what it's like you know the thing that I struggle the most with not so much in the beginning but more now since my life have changed
[00:47:44] in many ways is the different parts of my person I was going to say persona but my personality that don't go hand in hand so I have this great need for stillness for a sense of me being with myself the whole way holding my own hand and I also have this need this deep need for
[00:48:15] the opposite of that being thrown you know falling cascading through the world you know exploding in the night backseat those two they don't go together very well and when I when I drank the exploding part of me got really a lot of attention but the next day the
[00:48:46] holding my own hand side of me were really devastated and to me today the image that I gave you earlier about my childhood self in the backseat that is the holding my own hand part like he's the watcher he's the he's the he's the consumer
[00:49:15] of the world in this very fruitful way he builds me you know he gives me food like for my mind exploding Henrik doesn't give me food for my mind exploding Henrik is about gratification outlet and he has his
[00:49:45] points you know and that's really what I'm missing today I kind of miss that part of letting go because I don't have an equivalent of that not drinking so the thing that I kind of struggle with I think is combining these two sides of me because none of them and this was an important lesson I think
[00:50:16] both of them are valid it's not like the wild side of me is wrong or the safe side of me is boring or scared they're both valid and they both need or well maybe not need but they have a right to exist and most of all I just can't remove them I can't take them away they're there you know it's me so
[00:50:47] in the beginning I had this thought that because you automatically think about saying no to parts of yourself as some sort of blockage you know you really need to say yes to everything that's you and I think there are different ways to say yes I mean saying yes to exploding Henrik isn't giving
[00:51:17] him alcohol saying yes to exploding Henrik is to say hi exploding Henrik what do you need what can I do for you no I can't give you some I can give you like exercise or you know I can give you falling in love or I can give you dancing or I can give you eating like this perfect pizza like a seagull in Varberg
[00:51:49] you know that that I can give you but I can't give you sambuca and eventually exploding Henrik will be happy about this because exploding Henrik will not benefit from sambuca it will destroy him as well so that was easier back then to think about and I also thought about it as if I were to be allergic to peanuts I wouldn't eat peanuts you know whether or not I
[00:52:19] loved peanuts and you could argue that just one peanut wouldn't hurt you know or I can have peanuts on Saturdays or whatever but if I were allergic to peanuts I wouldn't do that no but all the other kids have peanuts and it's so nice to have a peanut after you finished work or in the weekends or if you're sad or if you're happy or when you're with friends or when you're alone and depressed and you know
[00:52:48] you wouldn't do that if you had a peanut allergy and I experimented with the thought of letting my relationship with alcohol be the same I just can't have it it's it has it has nothing to do with being fair or you know I just can't have alcohol because I have a personality type that really doesn't go well with any drug so
[00:53:18] that's just the truth it doesn't have anything to do with fairness it's just it just is you know this is just what I am and that really helped me but today is harder because I'm alone again I am separated and I've had this crush and
[00:53:48] I've I've been saddened and it's it's harder to say no to exploding Henrik I'm not really in the peril I'm not really in any danger of well I don't even want to say use the word danger because what even is danger
[00:54:19] it's not that critical in me I don't have an overwhelming urge to go out drinking again that's kind of gone but I would lie if I said that it it's as easy as back when I started when my life was more well not stable because there were
[00:54:49] other things that were wrong at that time but my life were more fixed so it's harder not in
[00:55:26] I I just got something in my throat I'm telling you the truth sleepy honestly so recently stuff have begin to happen in my life that is kind of cool and I'm starting to see this new version of me
[00:55:55] and it's it's scary but it's also kind of amazing because I don't know where it will lead a thing that I'm thinking about a lot is yeah the fact that I I have never lived this life the life I'm living now
[00:56:26] and not have alcohol as a partner in it yeah of course when I was a teenager and a kid but I haven't lived like this alone again without alcohol since I became a grown-up and it opens all sorts of exciting dimensions into whatever it means to move on with your life when you're 50 and sober
[00:56:59] sometimes I'm scared sometimes it feels hard because it would be so easy just to go out and have a drink and have fun and dance and end single anymore and life is on the way you know but now I have my thoughts with me at all times because that was the thing also alcohol just took away all the thoughts and I was amazing because
[00:57:31] thoughts can be like torture sometimes but now when I talk grass all grass bluish in the color and there's this wind moving through
[00:58:00] the grass rustling it and the sky above me is not blue it's rainy gray but it's not a depressing rainy gray it's a rainy gray filled with promises and you could hear like faint music at a distance music that draws you deeper further in down to the I
[00:58:30] don't know if there's a center to this field or whatever but it feels like I should move on you know but I want to do it with myself I don't want to run I want to move with myself all the way I want to hold my own hand I want to let backseat childhood Henrik be a part of the can't drive like all the time
[00:58:57] he would drive us into a ditch but I want to keep him for as long as I live and I can't do that with alcohol okay so this became an episode of stop drinking a stop drinking episode whenever I talk about this I do it a lot whenever I talk about this
[00:59:27] I get messages from people saying that they can relate and that they have these thoughts and most of them struggle and I just want to say that if you if you're at a position where you're questioning your use of alcohol then maybe just take that as a hint and just quit the drug altogether
[00:59:57] because life doesn't it doesn't depend on this drug it tricks you into thinking that society overall thinks that tricks you into thinking that without alcohol there's no fun there's no release there's no community there is nothing but there is there is and there this is not just me
[01:00:24] you know trying to convince myself or whatever there are so many hard things in life without alcohol but then again the hardness were there with it as well you know life is a mess but I want to do it while keeping myself along with me at all times