What happens when a culture forgets how to initiate its youth?

In the absence of rites of passage, adolescents are left to create their own—often through drugs, risk, and rebellion. I know because I was one of them.

In this bonus episode from Wax On Wax Off, I reflect on how addiction became my initiation in a society that offered me no meaningful map for becoming a man.

I share the full arc of my journey so far: from early trauma and substance abuse, to the structure of recovery communities, to becoming a “bio-healer” to repair my mind and body from the damage done, to sharing my passion for discovering the most effective tools for healing with the larger world.

This conversation’s especially poignant because my precocious host Solomon, at 17 years old himself, is standing at the threshold of adulthood. His sincerity and presence provided the perfect forum to unpack my childhood trauma and my long and circuitous path to recovery. It also gave me the chance to drop some hard-won wisdom on avoiding the pitfalls of life that nearly destroyed me.