“Once I opened my mind to the concept of a greater power, I never struggled with it. Everywhere I went, I felt and saw the existence of a creative intelligence in this universe, of a loving power larger than myself in nature, in people, everywhere.”

“...for the first time in my life, a voice went off in my head:'You have no power over what happens in your life. Drugs dictate exactly what you're going to do. You've taken your hands off the steering wheel, and you're going wherever the drug world takes you.'That had never changed. The feeling would well up inside of me, and no matter how much I loved my girl or my band or my friends or my family, when that siren song 'Go get high now' started playing in my head, I was off.”

“When I looked into her eyes, I saw an invisible spirit of something that I already loved.”

“And then I realized I was high. I loved the sensation. It felt like medicine to soothe the soul and awaken the senses. There was nothing awkward or scary-I didn't feel like I had lost control-in fact, I felt like I was in control.”

“I had to sit with my senses. This clear, beautiful intuition took over. I knew exactly how I felt, and I wasn't confused or clouded or compromised. I realized that none of my feelings had diminished, but I might have to lose someone I truly loved. I didn't want to run away from Claire, but I knew drug addiction was strong enough that I had to be willing, if need be, to let go of the person I'd just fallen in love with.”

“There wasn't any single moment of bedazzling revelation, it was more of an education process. The more I learned about the nature of addiction, the more I was willing to look at my own behavior and history. And the more I was able to help the people I was in there with, the more it all made sense. A lot of this process came through witnessing the sickness of these people I was in rehab with, for me to see these people and care about them, and to know how slim their chances were of ever changing the demonic possession they had been living with. I realized this was not the jail I wanted to live my life in.”

“I felt I had thrown away so much inmy life, but I also felt an unspoken bond between me and my city.I'd spent so much time wandering the streets of L.A. and hikingthrough the Hollywood Hills that I sensed there was a nonhumanentity, maybe the spirit of the hills and the city, who had me in hersights and was looking after me. Even if I was a loner in my ownband, at least I still felt the presence of the city I lived in.”