Surrender Is Not Defeat: The Spiritual Meaning of Letting Go
A reflection on addiction, achievement, surrender and the spiritual journey of coming home to who we really are.
There are many ways to leave ourselves.
Some are obvious. We reach for alcohol or drugs because we don’t know how to sit with what is happening inside us.
Others are celebrated.
We lose ourselves in work. We chase achievement, money, relationships, attention or approval. We convince ourselves that the next milestone will be the one that finally makes us feel successful, secure or worthy of love.
The behaviour may be different, but the longing beneath it can be remarkably similar:
I need something outside me to change the way I feel inside.
I have been reflecting on this since my conversation with Austin Rampt on the Soul Sync podcast.
Austin’s story is extraordinary. His addiction began with alcohol at thirteen and progressed to opiate painkillers and crack cocaine. It took him through overdoses, rehabilitation, relapse and eventually to Mexico, where he became drawn into the world of the cartel.
Yet the part of his story that stayed with me wasn’t the danger or destruction.
It was the image of a man sitting alone in a room, drunk and high, crying because he missed his children.
Behind everything that looked like money, excess and excitement was somebody in pain. Somebody who had spent much of his life searching for a feeling that nothing outside him could provide.
And I recognised something of myself in that search.
To listen to the full conversation between Jason and Austin on the Soul Sync, click below:
Addiction is not happening somewhere else
Addiction can still be spoken about as though it only belongs to certain people: people whose lives look visibly chaotic, who have lost everything or who exist somewhere beyond the boundaries of “normal” society.
The reality is far more human.
In England alone, 329,646 adults received help from drug and alcohol treatment services between April 2024 and March 2025—the highest number recorded since this reporting began. Almost 170,000 people entered treatment during that year. UK government treatment statistics
Globally, the United Nations estimates that 316 million people used drugs, excluding alcohol and tobacco, during 2023. UN World Drug Report 2025
These numbers are enormous, but every number represents an individual life: somebody’s child, partner, parent, sibling or friend.
In England and Wales, 5,565 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2024—the highest number since records began in 1993. The mortality rate has risen every year since 2012. Office for National Statistics
These figures should disturb us. But they should also encourage us to look beyond judgment and ask better questions.
Not simply:
Why won’t they stop?
But:
What happened to this person—and what did the substance initially help them survive?
The thing that appears to save us
Austin described his first experience of alcohol as though it solved a problem he hadn’t known existed.
For the first time, he could take a deep breath.
That insight matters because addiction rarely begins with a conscious decision to destroy our lives. Often, something initially offers relief. It quietens an anxious mind, numbs an unbearable feeling, creates a temporary sense of confidence or gives us an experience that feels remarkably like connection.
For a moment, we escape ourselves.
The tragedy is that the thing which appears to free us can gradually become our prison.
I understand that progression.
My own experience with cocaine didn’t begin with the intention of becoming addicted. It began occasionally. Then it became part of every weekend. Eventually, it started consuming far more of my life, attention and money than I ever imagined I would surrender to it.
I told myself I was still in control. I promised myself that each time would be the last.
When I finally moved away from cocaine, I replaced it with cannabis and convinced myself this represented progress because it appeared less destructive. But changing the object of escape is not necessarily the same as healing the need to escape.
My journey ultimately took me into psychosis and a complete loss of connection with reality.
I don’t share this because I want to define myself through the worst periods of my life. I share it because shame survives in secrecy—and because addiction becomes even more dangerous when we believe it says something unforgivable about who we are.
When success becomes another form of escape
During the same period of my life, I was building a successful legal recruitment business with a multimillion-pound turnover.
From the outside, I appeared to be achieving.
Inside, I remained restless.
I kept moving the destination. Once the business reached the next level, I would be happy. Once I had more money, more support or another holiday, I would feel peaceful.
But the arrival point never came.
Austin recognised the same pattern in his own life. As a child, he had absorbed the idea that exceptional achievement made him worthy. The reverse belief followed closely behind it: if he wasn’t achieving, perhaps he had no value at all.
This is where addiction becomes a much wider conversation.
I am not suggesting that working hard, using social media or wanting a relationship is equivalent to substance dependence. But almost anything can become a way of abandoning ourselves when we use it compulsively to avoid what we feel.
Some escapes destroy us publicly.
Others earn us praise.
A person can be applauded for their productivity while being completely disconnected from themselves. They can build an impressive life around an unhealed belief that says:
If I achieve enough, perhaps I will finally deserve love.
The world may call that ambition.
The soul may experience it as exhaustion.
The Gifts That Take Us Away from What Saved Us
One of the most powerful things Austin said was that the gifts of sobriety eventually took him away from the things that had given him sobriety.
As his life improved, he became disconnected from the practices, principles and people that had helped him recover. Success encouraged him to believe that he no longer needed them.
I think this reaches far beyond addiction.
Perhaps meditation carried us through a crisis, but we stopped meditating when life became easier.
Perhaps we learned to speak honestly, then gradually returned to hiding what we felt.
Perhaps community helped us feel less alone, but achievement made us too busy to maintain it.
Perhaps we asked for help when everything fell apart, only to become convinced that we had done the healing alone.
We often abandon the medicine once the immediate pain has passed.
Yet the practices that reconnect us to ourselves are not punishments to endure until life improves. They are part of how we remain connected when it does.
Healing is rarely one dramatic moment after which we never struggle again. It is a relationship we continue to choose.
The love we believe we must earn
In treatment, Austin’s therapist showed the group a photograph of her eighteen-month-old daughter and asked what the child had to do to deserve love.
The answer was nothing.
A baby does not need to achieve, impress, perform or prove its usefulness before it becomes worthy of love.
His therapist suggested that the difference between Austin and that child was an idea: the belief he had acquired that his worth needed to be earned.
That stayed with me.
How much of our lives do we spend attempting to prove something that was never in question?
We perform versions of ourselves that we hope others will accept. We conceal what we fear might make us unlovable. We chase people who reinforce our wounds because rejection feels more familiar than genuine care.
I did this in relationships. I wanted so desperately to be loved that I sometimes presented the version of myself I believed another person would find lovable.
But when we believe love must be earned, we become vulnerable to relationships in which love is continually withheld.
Real intimacy asks for something far more frightening than performance.
It asks to see us.
Surrender is not defeat
The word surrender can sound passive. It can feel like giving up, admitting weakness or accepting that we have failed.
But spiritual surrender is not an abandonment of responsibility.
It is the moment we stop pretending that control is the same as safety.
For many people in Twelve Step recovery, surrender includes acknowledging a power greater than themselves. That does not have to mean subscribing to one religion or accepting somebody else’s description of God.
A higher power might be understood as spirit, consciousness, love, nature, community or the intelligence that moves through life beyond the limits of our individual will.
For much of my early life, I resisted religion. I saw the harm caused when religious authority was used against marginalised people, including the LGBTQ+ community. My rejection of organised religion became entangled with a rejection of anything spiritual.
Mediumship would eventually transform that understanding.
I began to experience spirituality not as obedience to an institution but as reconnection—with myself, with love and with something greater than the identity I had constructed.
Surrender did not ask me to stop thinking for myself.
It asked me to stop running from myself.
Sometimes surrender means saying:
I cannot continue in this way.
I do not have every answer.
I need help.
I am willing to begin again.
There is extraordinary courage in those words.
Healing is not becoming somebody new
At the end of our conversation, Austin offered a reflection that captures the heart of his journey:
“My journey of healing has not been to add anything to me. It’s been to unwind all the things that were essentially not me.”
We often imagine healing as a self-improvement project.
We think we must become stronger, more disciplined, more spiritual or more deserving. We add practices and identities in the hope of constructing a better person.
But what if healing is also a process of removal?
Removing the belief that our worth depends on achievement.
Removing the shame that tells us our worst behaviour is our deepest identity.
Removing the performances we created to avoid rejection.
Removing everything we learned to become because we didn’t feel safe being ourselves.
Perhaps coming home to ourselves does not mean finding somebody new.
Perhaps it means uncovering who was there before fear told us we needed to be different.
When our failures become our service
There was a time when neither Austin nor I would have wanted people to know the truth about our addictions.
Today, those experiences have become part of how we connect with others.
Austin wrote One Last Hit and now speaks openly about addiction, recovery, spirituality and fatherhood. The parts of his life that once carried the greatest shame have become part of his service.
I recognise that transformation in my own life.
My difficult experiences have given me a softness I may not otherwise possess. They have changed how I see people. They have made it much harder for me to divide the world neatly into good people and bad people, successes and failures, the worthy and the unworthy.
I know how different somebody’s internal reality can be from the life they appear to be living.
Our pain does not automatically make us wiser. Suffering is not something we need to romanticise, and nobody should be told that a traumatic experience happened simply to teach them a lesson.
But when we begin to heal, we can decide what our pain becomes.
What once isolated us can become a bridge.
What once silenced us can become a voice.
What once made us feel unworthy can become the place from which we help another person feel less alone.
Coming home
Austin’s story is dramatic, but its deepest truth is quiet.
Underneath the addiction, the achievement and the running was a human being longing for connection.
Perhaps that longing exists within all of us.
We reach outward because we have forgotten how to return inward. We look for something to complete us because we have mistaken our wounds for evidence that we are incomplete.
Awakening does not always arrive through light and peace.
Sometimes it arrives when the life we have constructed can no longer protect us from what we need to face.
Sometimes it begins with surrender.
Not surrender as defeat, but surrender as honesty.
The honesty to say that what we are doing is no longer working.
The honesty to let ourselves be seen.
The honesty to accept help.
And the honesty to consider that what we have been searching for may not be somewhere ahead of us.
It may have been within us all along.
A moment for reflection
You might like to sit with these questions:
What do I reach for when I don’t want to feel what I am feeling?
What does that behaviour appear to give me?
Have I confused achievement, attention or approval with worth?
Which practices or relationships once helped me reconnect with myself?
Have the gifts of healing taken me away from what helped me heal?
What am I afraid might happen if I allow myself to be fully seen?
Where in my life might surrender be an act of courage?
What if healing is less about becoming somebody new and more about remembering who I have always been?
Listen to my complete conversation with Austin Rampt on the Soul Sync podcast.
Austin is the author of One Last Hit: The Remarkable True Story of an Addict’s Journey to Find Himself. You can learn more about Austin and his book at OneLastHitBook.com.
A note about support
This article discusses addiction, overdose, relapse and psychosis. If you are struggling with drug use, you are entitled to support and treatment. You can speak to your GP or contact a local drug treatment service directly through the NHS addiction-support guidance.
If you are physically dependent on alcohol, seek medical advice before stopping suddenly, as withdrawal can be dangerous. NHS alcohol support.
To read the full conversation between Austin and Jason click below
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The Healing Power of Surrender
A Soul Sync conversation with Jason Paul and Austin Rampt
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Repetition, filler words and minor transcription errors have been removed while preserving the meaning, honesty and natural character of the original conversation.
Content note: This conversation contains frank discussion of drug addiction, overdose, relapse, childhood distress, domestic abuse, psychosis and suicidal self-destruction. Please read with care. If you are concerned about your own or somebody else’s drug use, support is available through the NHS and appropriate local services.
The Healing Power of Surrender: Addiction, Spirituality and Coming Home to Yourself with Austin Rampt
A Soul Sync conversation with Jason Paul and Austin Rampt
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Repetition, filler words and minor transcription errors have been removed, while the meaning and natural character of the conversation have been preserved.
Content note: This conversation contains frank discussion of drug addiction, overdose, relapse, childhood distress, domestic abuse, psychosis and suicidal self-destruction. Please read with care. If you are concerned about your own or somebody else’s drug use, [support is available through the NHS](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/) and appropriate local services.
Introduction: Addiction, Spirituality and Surrender
Jason Paul: Hello and welcome back to the Soul Sync podcast. Now, addiction is something I've spoken about before on Soul Sync because it's also something I'm still learning how to speak about, honestly. Because addiction isn't simply a subject that interests me, it's been a huge part of my own story and my own awakening. I've struggled with drug use, I've known what it is to reach for something outside of myself because I didn't know how to sit with what was happening inside of me. And I know what it feels like to promise yourself that today will be the very last time—and that tomorrow I will stop—while convincing yourself that you're still in control. To replace one substance with another, one behaviour with another, and call it progress because the new thing appears slightly less destructive than the thing that came before it. And I know that because my journey of getting off cocaine was to move myself onto cannabis. Not a healthy route to take, but it was the lesser of two evils at the time. And my journey of addiction, I tell you this, my darlings, it's been a very difficult one. It has taken me into some really dark places, but it has also forced me to confront parts of myself that I might otherwise have spent a lifetime trying to avoid. Because beneath addiction, there is so often pain, there is shame, there is loneliness, and there is trauma. There is the desperate desire to escape ourselves, even if only for a few hours, and yet the very thing that seems to initially offer us freedom can slowly become the thing that literally imprisons us. Now, my guest today, Austin Rampt, understands that journey in a way that very few people ever could, because Austin took his first drink at just 13 years old. By 15, he was addicted to opioid painkillers, by 17, he was smoking crack cocaine. His addiction would take him through overdoses, repeated attempts at rehabilitation, the destruction of his family home, relapse, and eventually to Mexico, where he found himself surrounded by drugs and drawn into the world of the drug cartels. From the outside, some might even have mistaken it for excess excitement or partying, but Austin describes that reality very differently. Sitting in a room alone, drunk and high, crying because he missed his children. This is not simply a conversation about drugs. It's a conversation about what happens when achievement becomes our measure of worth. When success convinces us that we no longer need the practices, the routines, the people, the principles that once saved us. And Austin says so powerfully in this episode that the gifts of sobriety eventually took him away from the things that had given him sobriety. So this is a journey from crack addiction and the cartel to spiritual freedom, a story of recovery, fatherhood, service, and the courage to finally stop running. This conversation moved me deeply because so much of Austin's story reflected parts of my own.
Austin Rampt: Man, I'm so happy to be here with you, Jason. This is great. Thanks for having me on, buddy.
Jason Paul: Oh, Austin, I'm so glad you're on. Thank you for gracing us with your presence on this fine Friday evening here in Prague, where I am anyway. Obviously, I've only seen the tip of the iceberg. It really jumped out at me because it reminded me a lot, Austin, of my journey to where I am right now. But to begin with, tell us your story because it hasn't been an easy path for you to get to where you are, was the first thing that jumped out to me.
Austin’s Early Life and the Beginning of Addiction
Austin Rampt: Yeah. Most of this path would be what people would call horrific, tragic, right? So I'll start from the beginning and I'll give you the short version so we can get into some of the juice. I had a rough childhood, not rough imposed upon me, just rough as an internal sense. I had horrendous neurological tics as a child. So I would be in the back of the classroom twitching out, or I had, so these were the worst. I had auditory tics, meaning I would go like in the back of the classroom. And the kids at 10, 11, 12 years old were just they were just brutal, right? And I felt painfully conspicuous.
Jason Paul: That's the sort of thing that you have.
When the Gifts of Sobriety Take Us Away from What Saved Us
Austin Rampt: So here's what happened. So when I actually took my first drink at the age of 13, I just turned 13, it was like it solved the problem to me that I did not know existed until it got solved. And it was just like, wow, this is the first time I can take a deep breath. And from that point forward, I mean, by age 15, I was addicted to opiate painkillers. By age 17, I was smoking crack before I was even out of high school. And this started a journey of God, just a ton of rehabs. I actually did, so I had an overdose when I was 21. And one thing I actually just skipped over is I accidentally burnt our family home to the ground when I was 17. I was growing weed in the closet, and my mom hung up some clothes over one of my grow lights and it caught the entire room on fire, and we literally lost everything. And this was like the summer between junior to senior year. And so what this was or what this felt like right at the time was just this big old bag of crap that was Austin. That's the way that it felt as a child. I didn't really have any way to think my way out of that. And so I continued on this path of drugs to the point of, you know, really complete destruction. And when I was 22, I actually did get sober. and I stayed that way until I was 31. And, you know, like you had talked about, I had a lot of material success during that time. I ended up getting married, had my two oldest children during that time. But what started happening is, you know, for at least for me, I'm sober in 12-step recovery. And, you know, there's certain things that I need to do every single day to maintain my own sobriety, including a connection with people who also have the same affliction. And, you know, pretty soon the gifts of sobriety took me away from the things that gave me sobriety. And I stopped being honest. You know, I started kind of taking on this identity of wow, man, look at all this stuff. everything everything I'm touching turns to gold. It must be me, right? The hubris. And when I relapsed at age 31, we were having a whole different conversation at this point. You know, at age 22, a good night out might be a couple hundred dollars. At age 31, we were going to town now. And so I went on just a horrendous relapse, and where it ended was I'm in Fort Lauderdale about to shoot heroin, smoking crack, in a hotel. And the cops bust in the door and they grabbed me. And what had happened is I had been placed under the Marchman Act. So the Marchman Act is something that your family can do in the state of Florida. If you're using drugs to the degree that you can really prove that this person's gonna die, they'll get the courts involved. And so the cops came and picked me up. They brought me in front of a judge. The judge says, You need to go to rehab, or you can go to jail, your pick. So I picked rehab. And after six days, I left that rehab, hopped on a plane, and moved to Mexico. And this starts a two-year journey of me living in well, so I lived in Cancun for about 18 months and then Mexico City. Cancun's a really remarkable place. Have you ever been there, Jason?
Jason Paul: I have, I have, but I don't feel that I've really seen it, Austin, if I'm completely honest, because I feel I was immersed in an all-inclusive resort that I didn't leave for two weeks.
Austin Rampt: Okay, and that happens to a lot of people, or people say I went, but I don't really remember it. And I'm like, Yeah, that's probably right.
Jason Paul: Well, yes, I still don't remember it, Austin, if I'm completely honest. So I think I fall into both boxes.
Cancún, Addiction and the Cartel
Austin Rampt: So Cancun is very interesting in that it's completely run by the Sinaloa cartel, top to bottom, and it's the number one tourist destination in Mexico. So it brings in a lot of money, which makes it somewhat safe for people like me, for gringos. and so when I got there and I started buying dope in the way that I buy it was all coming from the cartel. And they quickly kind of brought me into their circle, we'll say, and started putting me up at their hotels, gave me a handler, ensuring that I can destroy my life in the way that I had always dreamed of.
Jason Paul: Yes, they're not doing you any favors, are they, really? No.
Austin Rampt: As long as the money was there.
Jason Paul: And I do know what even when I went to Cancun, I do distinctly remember every time I did leave the hotel, I couldn't walk five minutes without someone offering me Coca drugs. And it's very accessible. You know, you could get any drug you want in Cancun in the click of the fingers, can't you really? So it's not a great place for someone who's recovering to go to. And I say that because I'm very much in the same boat as you, Austin, whereas I've had my own problems. I've been addicted to many things, but my absolute rock bottom moment was cocaine for me, which I managed to get myself off. But as I got myself off of that, I got myself onto cannabis, which was, you know, yes, okay, the lesser of two evils, but still an evil, which caused me a lot of problems. So, yeah, tell me, you went to Cancun, you were put up by some unsavory people, to probably say the least.
## Achievement, Approval and the Search for Worth
Austin Rampt: Yeah, and here's the strange part of this, and this is actually something I kind of glossed over in the beginning, but I shouldn't have because it plays into my story. So as a young child, I somehow got the message. And I think it was because I played baseball. And anytime I would hit a home run, I'd see my dad like high five in the other dads, going, ah, that's my boy, you know? And somehow I got the message that if I exceptionally achieve, I'm somehow worthy. And that the flip-flop of that is also true. If I don't, then of myself, I'm certainly not. And this was something that really lived with me my entire life, up until my mid-30s. And so when I'm in Cancun, I'm surrounded by I've got, you know, my handler who's a cartel guy, other people that are, you know, just there for the party. they're making sure that, you know, they would shuttle me up a kilo every couple of months. And the truth was I knew that these people were only there transactionally. But I was so used to that being a part of my life. I was so used to that concept living in my head that I didn't care, right? Some of them were stealing from me. I knew it, right? And so where this ends up is the money runs out before my heart does. I had a huge Xanax addiction, like huge, 50 milligrams a day, not an exaggeration, 25 bars. And I'm pretty sure the Xanax addiction saved my heart from exploding. And so at the end of this, the money starts to run out, and I end up in Mexico City. and what had happened was I had bribed a Mexican official to give me Mexican credentials. So, for all intents and purposes, I was Mexican at the, you know, I don't look Mexican, but I was. And I'd gone to Mexico City to party and my wallet got stolen. So I couldn't get back to Cancun. And I had met a girl there, probably three or four months earlier who just fell in love with me. Like she just fell, I don't know why. I was a junkie, I was in bad shape, everything. She fell in love with me. And so I'm in Mexico City and I call her and I said, you know, I'm stuck. And she says, Oh, is this a joke? I said, No, it's not a joke. I'm here. She said, Okay, you come live with me and my mom. And I'm like, all right. So I hopped in a cab and I went to this little city on the outskirts of Mexico City called Coacalco. And as I arrived here, what I what I came to experience was, all right, so cinder block buildings, maybe like the color of my hat, clothes lines out, what we would call here in the United States projects, but poverty, right, is what it looked like. But this is just how they all lived. And what I proceeded to experience was two of the kindest, sweetest, most connected people I had ever met. And they had probably never held a thousand dollars cash in their hand. And what I had spent my life doing was chasing all of these things that I thought were going to fill that hole in my soul. And I had this example of two people right here who just that just wasn't in their sphere, right? They couldn't chase those things. And they had found everything that I was looking for. And I didn't, I didn't recognize that gift as it was happening because I was so very addicted. But later on, by the time I get back to the United States and looking back on that, I saw the example that those two set for me. And it was really remarkable. And the second night I'm staying with her, they had these big water tanks on top of the on top of the buildings. And I didn't understand what those were. And what they are is they're rain collectors, because that's where the running water comes from a lot of the time. And on my second night there, I asked her to take a shower and she said, hang on a second. And she had to go heat up the water on the stove. And what she would do is she would put that hot water in a bucket, you'd take it into the shower and spoon it over your head with a bowl. And that's how she's been showering for years. And so, in the span of, you know, two years, right, I went from making millions in the United States to broke and showering out of a bucket in Mexico City. And I'll tell you, I still wasn't done. That wasn't enough for me to actually stop. A lot of things had to transpire for me to make my way back to the United States. But for a guy like me, who had been so I had just been so consumed with this belief that there was like this point I could get to, that if I achieved enough, that if I looked a certain way, that if you liked me enough, then I would finally find peace. And when that peace never came, you know, really the solution I had was okay, let's blow it up. And that's kind of what I did.
Jason Paul: Do you know what? It reminds me as you're talking very much of my story because I during the period of building my business, which I did from going into the recruitment industry, saving up a lot of money, and then going on this journey over probably two years, which was just like a roller coaster. It was like I'd literally started a monster I couldn't control because my business grew so quickly and it got to a multi-million pound level. And what happened was I kept chasing that next milestone as if that's going to be the thing where finally I feel happy. Oh, my business is making loads of money. Once I get more support in place, I'll feel happy. Once I've had that holiday, I'll feel happy. And eventually you get to that painful realization that none of this is making you happy. And for me, you mentioned about in your story and journey that you know, even being in Mexico in that situation wasn't enough for you. For me, what was the moment that enough was enough? It was probably at the point I'd spent about 50,000 pounds on cocaine. And one day, you know, I remember I was coming in late to work, I was struggling to hold it together. And one day I just thought, I cannot do this anymore. Luckily, I didn't get to rock bottom. I was very close. I didn't, even though I managed to spend 50,000 pounds, that wasn't all the money. So I managed to turn the dial back. But one thing that really jumped out at me as you were talking there was about you seeking love from your dad at a young age. And my dad, my biological dad, my mum had conceived me from someone that she rented a house with who was my father. And on the day she arrived back from the hospital with me, our stuff was on the doorstep because she couldn't pay rent. So what happened was my biological dad, I'd seen a couple of times in my whole life, but I had a stepdad that brought me up who is my brother's dad. But and he was a beautiful man to take someone else's child in and treat them as your own, I can't say a bad word about him. However, and he's in the world of in the spirit world now, so I always feel really bad when I talk about him when he's in the other world because I know that he's around me and can hear this. But he won't, we've we've put that to one side. We've had many conversations since he passed away in October. But I a lot of the time, because of through my childhood, I was always seeking love. And when I got love, it was almost like a kind of reward mechanism. And it felt a lot to me, Austin, but that seemed to feel to me like a catalyst, this seeking of love, and you know, you almost associating that as a reward.
## Vulnerability, Authenticity and Human Connection
Austin Rampt: Yes, completely. And in fact, that's been one of the big, I guess, realizations that I've had. On, you know, I came back from Mexico 10 years ago. So the other side of that, what I what I really realized is what my heart wants more than anything else in this world, like in a true sense, is it wants close, intimate relationships with other people. That's the juice, right? And but the thing that it takes to get that is vulnerability, which is the thing that scared me more than anything else on the planet, because I had the belief if you see me, you'll reject me, you won't love me. That was that was my foundation of my belief. And it wasn't until everything was gone, everything I could possibly identify myself with, the success, the business, the family, everything, that I even had a smidge of courage to try and show up as a real human being and to see what happens. And what I found out was completely different than what I thought I was gonna find out. It was that every one of us, for some reason, we I don't know if we sniff it out or sense it or what, but we can sense authenticity. We can sense the real stuff. And when I started to the best of my ability, which was still limited, to give that to people, I got more than I ever bargained for. Really? Oh, you're muted, Jason. Sorry.
Jason Paul: It's because I keep leaning on the space bar. I must stop that. That's the worst bar to lean on, the worst button to lean on. even as you were saying that, so much of my 20s was very much seeking out love. You know, I wanted to feel love, I wanted to be loved, but that comes from the childhood, doesn't it? It comes from our relationship with love. And those formative years are so important because I think we're unaware a lot of the time of how even you know, I think our stories are probably quite at the extreme of you know, examples, but how, you know, that relationship with love that we have, because I believe now these days, love is all that exists. And love, I believe, when we go back to the spirit world, we realize that love is the only thing. And actually, anything like fear, anything else is just a lack of love. even, you know, all these horrible emotions, again, they don't exist. It's just a lack of love. But from seeking, you know, I remember in my 20s, I would try so hard to find a partner. I would feel like once I find a partner, then I'll feel love. But actually, what ended up happening, Austin, was I ended up attracting people who were not very nice characters. And actually, I was in a domestic abuse situation for years with a narcissist because of the fact that when you are so desperate for love, and there's this lack of acceptance of yourself. And I remember a lot of the times in my 20s, I would perhaps, you know, try and mirror the qualities of that I thought was lovable, which wasn't the authentic self. And it's only when you get to a place, I believe, now, of actually finding love within the love within yourself and learning to love yourself. You can't be in any great relationship unless you've got that foundation of self-love at the start. But we have to find that. So, in your journey, you know, what was that moment of right, okay, this is gonna change now? Because it sounds like to you, some people manage to turn the dial back before they get to that point. To you for, you know, hearing your story, it sounds like you was very much not just in the gutter, but almost face down in the gutter, which is a very hard, you know, position to turn things around when you're in such a place of vulnerability. And not just that, you're not even in your home country, you're you know, in Mexico.
Austin Rampt: Yeah. So I did, you know, when I made it back to the United States, that was not the end of my use. I slid back in and I didn't realize the damage I had done to my own, my own brain over the last couple of years. Because, you know, one thing that's quite characteristic of addicts is we will in my case, I'll speak for me. We I can perceive something about my reality as being true, but 10 other people looking in see something completely different, right? Because I'm seeing it through charges.
The Message That Changed Austin’s Life
Austin Rampt: Emotion, not objectively. And so I got back to the United States and proceeded to relapse a couple of times, including an overdose. And I finally did land in rehab in March of 2017. And my therapist had me pegged. I mean, from jump. I was the sort of person that, you know, oh no, I have no emotions, right? I've got, I'm either happy, maybe a little bit angry or excited. Those were the only ones that I knew. I didn't even have words to name the other ones because I just wasn't taught that stuff. And I was constantly trying to be the person I thought you wanted me to be. My environment, I would treat it like a sonar. I would send something out, and whatever came back, that's who I am. And so there was this one day she walks into the group room and she puts a picture of her little baby girl up on the wall, this beautiful 18-month-old little girl with, you know, blonde curls. And she says, What does this little baby have to do to deserve love? And of course, the answer was nothing. We all knew that answer. That's a baby. And she made the very strong argument that the only difference between me and that baby was an idea. And that I was the only one that had that idea. And that idea was the one that was going to prevent me from finding peace and happiness in this world. And I'll tell you, maybe at no other time in my journey could I have heard that message. With a full bank account, I couldn't have heard that message. With good relationships with people around me, I couldn't have heard that message. But because I was at such a destitute place, I heard that message and it gave me the courage to try. All right, let's try. Maybe she's lying to me, but let's try and see what happens. If I if I just try and love myself and then show up as that loving person. And it was, it was an experience I'll never forget. It was a new trajectory in my life. And in fact, it was during that time that I attracted the woman I'm married to now, who, you know, we have three kids together and plus my first two, so five. and she is the most amazing example of that I've ever experienced. She was a whole person coming into this relationship, and I was a whole person when I met her. I've since, you know, waxed and waned inside of being maybe whole, maybe a little bit less than whole, but she is she's an incredible example in her mother, her motherhood, like in the way that she parents our children. she taught me how to be a father. And I credit a lot of a lot of my life to her. I gotta be honest, really.
Shame, Success and the Courage to Ask for Help
Jason Paul: it’s interesting, isn't it, with the journeys we have to go through. And I almost look back now at my times of really struggling with addiction to realize it just amazes me how long this even went on before I even spoke to anyone, before I ever reached out for help, because of shame. And shame is the worst emotion, isn't it? Because it just stops you from speaking out, asking for help, because you try and take it all on yourself. And, you know, there's people out there who have never suffered from addiction because I feel people awaken in different ways. And you get some people who might have an absolute tragedy, which I don't want to take away from, like, for instance, a child passing away. I come across mediums like that. But they generally had an easy life up until, you know, that point. But I almost look at that experience now in my own life as I had to go through all of that trauma, that hardship, that lived experience. Because what it's given me is it's given me a level of softness, a level of empathy, and a level of you know, I can never come across anyone that's in a bad place, but I don't just want to give an outpouring of love to. Because I'm one of the, I look at it, but I'm one of the lucky ones that managed to you know, turn things around before it got too late. But, you know, when you're on that one-way spiral going down, it takes so much courage and strength to turn it around. Because when you're in the depths of despair, you know, you're you're not just got your own internal battles going on, you've got this sense of yourself. And you mentioned something earlier about how you know your perception of the world was this way. And we all we all experience the world differently, don't we? And I think sometimes we forget and we fail to acknowledge the fact that we're all experiencing the world through our own reality, and our own reality is that of Austin's past experiences, that of Austin's belief, that of Austin's way of viewing the world. So even when you're in that situation, you know, I had so such low self-esteem. And the crazy thing about it, Austin, was at that time, and it sounds like you've very much been at these extremes, and it's funny, isn't it, that we can go from it's not funny, but it's interesting that we can go from, you know, outwardly being what society would call super uber successful. Because, and that was one of the things I was struggling with, because on the outside, when I was experiencing that, people were saying to me, You're successful, you must be so proud of all you've achieved, this, that, and the other. And it was almost the more people were telling me that, the more internally I was feeling worse and worse and worse, because I felt like an imposter, which then made it even harder for me to reach out for help because of the fact that I was almost living this. I had this mask on, this certain mask that I would put on, which is this is who Jason fit feels Jason should be to the outside world because this version of success. And it's interesting, isn't it? How the internal reality can be so different from the external reality because that's what we view society, that's the box we think that we should be in to be viewed as successful. But it's interesting that internally that reality can feel so different. And that's what gets us to this, you know, depths of despair moment.
## What Outward Success Can Conceal
Austin Rampt: you literally described, you know, parts of my journey. Exactly. And interestingly enough, you know, especially let's take social media, for example, if I'm watching Instagram reels of what appears to be successful people, right? I'm not, I'm not seeing the world internally. I'm I'm seeing the world that they're portraying. And so I'm putting all these different, you know, things in my brain, oh, this is what success is, this is what, you know. But the truth is, and I think I think maybe as I get older, this becomes more obvious to me is that everything I want, everything I try and do really is because I think I will feel good in the having of it, like oh, you know, these relationships or this particular job or whatever the case may be. But underpinning that truly at the end of the day is love. It's exactly what you said. I was in Mexico and this was, you know, people that look in go, oh, you were really partying there. But really, what I was doing wasn't partying. I was sitting in a room alone, drunk and high, crying, missing my children. And then today, just like you said, because I can pull back on that experience that happened 11 years ago, even when the kids are crazy, when my three-year-old is, you know, a terrorist, right? I can say, you know, I would have killed for this life. I would have done anything for this life 10 years ago. Let's stay in the game, you know? And I and I also noticed something. I had, wow, I haven't, I don't think I've ever told this story. when I first got sober, I got really into yoga for a little while. Haven't done it in a while. I probably should now that I'm saying it. and I would go to yoga three times a week. And I remember this one class. There was this woman, she had been teaching yoga for 40 years, elderly woman. And what she did was she said, Look, my body doesn't really respond the way that it used to. So I'm going to do the easy poses, right? So there's like a the yoga pose that everyone does, and then there's the easier form of it, right? And I remember, I never forgot the feeling that I got inside of me, which is she was giving me permission not to be perfect. And that permission not to be perfect doesn't come through showing the world my accolades, it comes through showing the world what's actually going on under the surface. And man, that little moments, right? That just like, I don't know why it imprinted on my brain, but it did.
Jason Paul: I need to start going to yoga. I've only did the problem is, Austin, I went recently, but I threw myself into the deep end because I went straight in for the hot yoga. And oh my goodness. So I went in there and I knew as I walked into the hot yoga when all the men had their shirts off that I was walking into something pretty extreme. But I don't cope very well in the heat. And when I went into this Bikram yoga, I was about half an hour in and I thought, this is unbearable. This is unbearable. So I had to end up leaving. So I think that I threw myself into the deep end. But you make, you know, you make an interesting point, even in the fact that you were seeking perfection, you were seeking this version inside Austin of what you believe success looks like. That's not what anyone else feels success necessarily looks like, but we this is the problem with the world we live in now, isn't it, with social media? Is that only fuels this sense of what we feel we should be? And we all come down here and we get born into this meat suit of a body. We get given a name, an identity. And we, you know, it is luck of the draw in terms of which parents you get and where you lend up in the world. You know, I always believe that gratitude these days is so important, it is the one way to change your vibration. And I thank my lucky stars that I haven't just been born into Afghanistan, Ukraine, and another number of other countries to say that. But we you know, I think even when we get born and we get given a name, the problem with that is that creates a sense of separation because we are all one, and actually we are all experiencing our own versions of reality depending on how we perceive the world. And we are a product of our experiences, our beliefs, our preconditioning. And if you've come into this world and you've one of the first things that you've experienced is a relationship of love where you have to go and externally seek that. That's going to seep through into every aspect of how you are. So, for instance, a lot of my childhood, you know, I kind of had a dad that was, he struggled, my dad, because he was the kindest person to take me in to care for me as his son. But he struggled because in his childhood, which I've only now come to realize, he was doing the same thing with his dad, who was a stepdad seeking love. And in my dad's generation, part of the problem was you were not encouraged to talk about your emotions. It was sweep it under the carpet. And I even remember my dad saying to me many times growing up, you know, oh, we don't talk about that. You ask her how she is, she'd say to you, Austin, I'm okay, mustn't grumble. Not very positive. But those, but those formative years led me to a place of believing that when I found the right person, when I found the right love, etc., life would be complete. But it's interesting the journey that you've gone on to get to that point of the acknowledgement of the self-love. But it's interesting because even in my own life, I now look at those experiences as being such a driving force in terms of how I live my life now and how I want to have a mission and an impact to spread love. And it feels to me like very much all of that awfulness that you went through has been defining in, you know, it seems like everything you do now is driven by that, because of that, and you're owning that now.
## Addiction as a Dark Night of the Soul
Austin Rampt: I would, you know, I would like to say I really hope so. And as being the guy who lives my life, I'm constantly aware of the ways that I fall short of that, you know, and it's so interesting kind of to be talking to you, Jason. I have not done a podcast like with a psychic medium before, but I have been so incredibly intrigued by that, like, oh my gosh, that whole journey. And I don't really know where I was going with that except to say you're but you're on that journey, Austin.
Jason Paul: You're on that journey. And the fact is, I very much feel even talking to, you know, so I'm going into media mode now, this is the problem, but you're very much on that journey because you've got this thirst for knowledge and this thirst for understanding and this desire to want to understand more about what you are, and us people, and I'll tell you what, every time I've ever met a recovering addict or an addict, I always think they are the some of the most intelligent people you will ever meet. Because the reason they get into that predicament of a problem is because for me, it was like that it was almost like my soul. This is how I look at it now, as a dark night of the soul. My soul was yearning to be connected because we are all connected to and you know, you're a soul, Austin, who's lived many past lives, many. But, you know, I do feel that you're being attracted to that. And now the way I look at the world is love, you know, love really is all that exists. And we all go on this different path of rich tapestry of experiences. But I often believe it is the people who go through the hardest, absolute, most troublesome journeys on earth is because ultimately your soul, and this is a hard pill to swallow, Austin. You would have signed up for that as a soul when your soul put its hand up to have a plan. And I often laugh because I think my soul was probably sitting there at the point where we could do the soul contract, deciding what we want to come down here and learn. And my soul was probably putting its hands up every two minutes. Who wants domestic violence? Yes, me. Who wants to have addiction? Yes, me. Who wants to struggle with falling into gutty? Yes, me. And I can imagine the other souls were reaching over and saying, put your hand down, you're gonna have an awful time down there on earth. But, you know, it’s a journey we're on, and we spend so much of our lives having to unlearn what we've learned. And I look at myself now, but the second part of my life is unlearning the habits, the limiting beliefs, the thought processes, the sense of identity that I've got. And I'm I'm on a mission now to try and understand who the real Jason is, who is the soul behind the beliefs, behind the thought processes, behind the way I see the world. And, you know, arriving at this interesting juncture that I'm at now, it's very interesting, even despite the fact I'm in a good situation, having just been through this situation with my business to exit. But it's amazing how the ego wants to always pull you back down. Because that internal voice, you know, in our heads, that internal chatter, how have you managed to, Austin, get that internal voice in your head to be one of encouragement rather than self-sabotage and criticism?
## Recovery, Service and Changing the Inner Voice
Austin Rampt: Wonderful question. I am I'm very active in 12-step recovery, which means I am surrounded by other people that think and feel and sometimes act in a similar fashion to me. And so as a result of that, you know, part of the things that we do in 12-step recovery is we do a lot of inventory, right? So we take inventory of our behaviors each night, prayer and meditation in the morning, connecting with newcomers, right? So constantly re-engaging in the process with people that are coming just out of rehab or detox. And I think a lot of that, you know, the act of working with new people is really to pull my attention away from me and my problems and put it somewhere else. And in the midst of that, incredibly many of my problems just seem to solve themselves when I'm not sending energy that way. But I want to touch back on something that you know you were kind of dancing around Carl Jung there for a minute. And I do believe I do I do believe that, you know, that those of us who become addicted is that soul yearning for connection and drugs and alcohol just happen to feel a lot like connection sometimes.
Jason Paul: And well, you're self-medicating, aren't you? Even when you're doing drugs, you're not doing them. yes, you might initially start using drugs recreationally because they're giving you something, but no matter when you're using them, they are disassociating yourself with yourself because you're not taking any drug that's really well, it’s changing your reality in that moment. And the, you know, the crazy thing about when we do drugs is normally it starts off all
Jason’s Experience of Cocaine Addiction
Jason Paul: fun and games at the beginning. I remember when I started doing cocaine, it was, you know, once on a Saturday every now and then, which then became every Saturday because I couldn't imagine a Saturday without using it. And then it started becoming daily. And it and it and do you know what? The amount of things I was giving away in my life to keep that going, it becomes the central focus of everything, the drugs. And that is the problem. And even when I will never forget one moment that brings me, even now, it brings me a deep sense of shame, actually, when I look back, which it shouldn't, because I should be past that, but it brings me shame because of how it impacted others. And I remember that my mum came down and started working for my business because I'd convinced her that my business was going absolutely pedal to the metal, things were happening, I couldn't cope with it. So what I decided to do was convince my mum to leave her job in the NHS, which is the National Health Service, a hospital where she works, and to come and work for my business. And I remembered saying to myself, but I'm going to stop using drugs before my mum arrived. Now, as you can imagine, I had that line in the sand that I was going to stop by then. But did I stop by then? Of course I didn't because it carried on. And I remember one day when my mum had probably been there a few weeks and I'd slept in because I'd been doing cocaine till whatever time in the morning. And I don't know why, but I'd always put the double lock on the door, the chain across the door. And I remember one morning she came to wake me up about 10 o'clock because I was still in bed. And I remember that she'd managed to somehow unlock the chain from the outside. Now, my mum, she must be like a magician, because I don't know who the hell manages to unlock one of those safety chains from the outside. But she came in and the first thing I did was I jumped out of bed, Austin, because on the side in the kitchen was the bags of cocaine from the night before. And I managed to stop her from seeing that. And she didn't know about the cocaine addiction for years later because of the fact of the shame of hiding that from her, because I was so ashamed of bringing her down to work for my business while still doing that. But this is the problem, and this is where a lot of the misconceptions come about addiction, because you will get someone who doesn't understand it who says, Austin, why keep doing it to yourself? Why keep doing it? it's almost, and it’s not as simple as that. You're doing it because you can't not do it. And this is the problem with our brains as humans. We are living our life and our brains are just on repeat. We are who we were yesterday, we are who we were two days ago. And to bring about change, to form those new neural pathways, it is difficult. But I believe it starts with how you talk. The language you use and the words that come out of your mouth are the first stage of that process. and it's difficult because if you've got used to talking to yourself in a certain way, and we're very self-deprecating as humans, you know, we like to critique ourselves more than encourage ourselves. And when you're struggling with addiction, your sense of self-worth is in the gutter and you're fighting that internal battle. And I actually think one of the most damaging things
## Punishment, Treatment and the Need for Connection
Jason Paul: that we have ever done is make drugs a criminal offense because the war on drugs isn't working. And by doing that, what it's done is it's made people who are struggling with addiction not want to come forward because they feel like criminals. And what we need to do, I believe, is yes, target the criminals, the people who are actually making the money from the drugs, but we never, we never really go there. What we're always doing as a society is tackling it as street level with the people who actually are selling the drugs, are probably victims in their self, young people who are selling them. So we need to change the way we're viewing drugs as a society because it's not bloody working.
Austin Rampt: There is so much to unpack in that. So, you know, I'm not even gonna get into the CIA importing drugs into the United States, but let's just say we know that they did. but on the second On the side of that, your belief in the non-criminalization of drugs and drug addicts actually has a ton of data backing it up. And I'm assuming you're familiar with the data, but you know, Portugal, for example, is a country that decriminalized all drugs. And what they did is instead of all the drug addicts, they started, you know, not just providing them clean needles and healthcare and things like that, but they start, they took the money that they were using on the war on drugs and poured it into a reintegration campaign to reintegrate these people into society, despite them being addicted to drugs. And what they found was the same thing, you know, Johann Hari talks about in a TED talk. What they found was when these folks started to get connected, the addiction rates dropped by like 50%.
Jason Paul: Isn't that an interesting word? Even when they start to become connected. that's what a lot of these people are crying out for is connection. We don't one day decide we want to start harming ourselves by putting poisons into our body. And actually, interestingly enough, I became a police officer, which is a whole nother story when I was about 24. and this was before the funnily enough, this was before the drug addiction. So I was a police officer for year for about four years. It was one of the worst times in my life ever. and I first hand saw that the war on drugs wasn't working because if you looked at a cut custody suite on an average Friday, Saturday, 80% of that custody suite would be taken up with people on drug offences. And I'll tell you what, not one of those people that you ever came across was someone that should be in a custody cell. Where they should have been was in some kind of treatment center. And actually, I used, and that's actually what made me start to lose my sense of I remember saying to my mum when I was in the police, I said, I'm losing all faith in humanity because what I was seeing was vulnerable people being put behind bars. And that was and that in itself was sort of chipping away at my soul. But I didn't realize, I've always known that I was a sensitive person. I shouldn't have been in the police, no way in a million years, but I kind of fell into that job, which is a whole nother story. But, you know, for me, that was I had such a bad experience in the police that it was running from that experience in the police that then led me into that addiction, which then made me feel even kind of worse about things. But, you know, I feel a lot of the time though, it's these terrible experiences that we have, which are what make us into what we are now. And, you know, if you hadn't have had that experience, Austin, as awful as it was, and it wasn't just one experience, it was many experiences, you wouldn't be the person that you are today. Because what it's given, I often believe, and you know, a lot of people may argue otherwise, I often think that when we get back to the spirit world, one of the first people that we meet, and in the line of souls that we meet, I believe that we probably shake hands with the people who are the most horrible people to us because they're the greatest teachers, because they're the ones that make us learn. But how is it that you, because obviously now you must be as a dad, as a father, with your own children, you know, very aware of the paths that we can take. How is it that you sort of live your life now? Because even as I talk to you've got a microphone that says one last hit, which says to me that your struggles have now become your identity, which is now what you are so much on a mission to you know, and it's beautiful, isn't that beautiful? But once upon a time, Austin, you wouldn't have even wanted a soul to know. Now this is a major part of your you know, defining feature on how you push ahead and you know live your life. And isn't that a beautiful kind of full-circle moment to show the healing that you've done?
When Our Failures Become Our Service
Austin Rampt: Yes. And I'll tell you, as you were talking, and I, you know, this is just from listening to different people reading different books, like I really do believe once we once we transition, right? It's just we're just all there, all the answers are there. I love that. I are I love it. But anyhow, on the yeah, back to the One Last Hit is the name of my book for anyone that's that's unfamiliar. And it chronicles my entire life up until a few years ago. it took me about four years to write the book, and it's you know, I don't come out of it smelling like a rose because addiction is ugly. It's quite ugly. And but what I've found, and back to kind of what we were talking about earlier, is that when somebody does read my book, A, it means so much to me because I feel like you've got such an intimate look in my life, but B, as people have started to reach out to me, it really has been the ways in which I've quote unquote failed that are the wins today, right? And there's a gosh, there's a line in a book called The Prophet, which is a very famous book by Kahlil Gibran. And he says that the joy and sorrow are cut from the same stone, meaning that as far as I go down, that's the opposite that I can I can experience in this life. And I'll tell you short story, I'll give you a short story. When I went to Mexico, I had a I had a vasectomy after my first two kids. I did not think I was having more children. and then when I came back and I met my current wife, she said, Listen, if we get married, you've got to get that reversed. And the reversal, like, you know, it's like a 50-50 shot whether it's gonna work. And I did, I got it reversed. And in 2020, my daughter Delilah was born. She's my six-year-old. And I thought we were done. I was like, all right, honey, I'm gonna go get another vasectomy. She said, No. We're gonna have another kid. I said, What? Four? We're not even Catholic. Like that's crazy, you know? And so finally we did have, you know, my three-year-old Nicholas, who was born in 2023. And then two years ago on my birthday, I was at a 12-step retreat, and I got a call from her, and she said, Honey, oops, we're gonna have another baby. And I will here's what I want to tell you. From the beginning of this journey, I pushed against having more children because in the self-centered part of me, what more children represented to me was less freedom. It represented less me time, right? That sort of thing. But I think from the beginning, something somewhere new that by the time I oh, I'm getting goosebumps telling you this, Jason. By the time I got to this point, I would have seen the truth about what was happening. And what was happening is I was being dragged into the life that I always wanted against my own will.
Jason Paul: Isn't it interesting, even the word dragged? There was such resistance there about you even feeling worthy enough to have that life because deep within you felt that where you belonged was, you know, in that in that sad and destructive place. And it's the same as me, you know. And it’s really important now. I look back, just how our formative years are just so important, which is why I honestly believe that we need to change the way that we view education. We need to get kids more in touch with their intuition, how they feel, especially in this world of social media where people are becoming more used to looking outside of themselves more than ever for knowledge, especially with AI, looking outside of ourselves for knowledge. And, you know, we need to get back to being in touch with the way we feel. And I always think that the best advice you can give anyone in life is always tell them to follow their heart. Because if you follow your heart, you're not gonna go far wrong. But it's, you know, I always feel when I look back at those years now that I'm and my story, Austin, I'll tell you this. you know, I've just told you the tip of the iceberg, my story eventually led to me having psychosis, completely losing touch of reality. And it really had to get to a point where you know, it was rock bottom. But now it's interesting because those experiences so fuel everything I do today. And it's given me a certain softness in the way that I look at people, in the way that I live my life. And I know because I never went down the 12 steps. and I'm fascinated by the 12 steps, so much so that even recently I've been thinking about going to it. Isn't this interesting, even recently now that I this is not currently an issue? And I say not currently because it could become one again at any one time, because I'm only ever probably two meters away from a self-destruct button, as we all are, who have gone down this path. But what is it about the because to me, the 12 steps looks like it's a journey of surrender, and it seems to me like there's something in the full circle moment that when you start to heal, you become that inspiration for others. And what was interesting as you were talking is the fact that even now where you are in life, you still attend those meetings because they seem like they're woven into the fabric of you.
## The Spiritual Foundations of the Twelve Steps
Austin Rampt: Yeah. Oh, let's get into it. So I don't know if you know this. Carl Jung was actually very important into the formation of the 12-step program. no, didn't know that. Yeah, he was the one that told a guy named Rowland Hazard, who was a chronic alcoholic, and he flew to Switzerland and spent an entire year with Carl Jung in the 20s. And he left Carl's office after a year and he was drunk before he got on the boat in France. So he goes back to Carl Jung and he says, Dude, what the hell, man? I spent a year with you. You've given me everything you've got, but you didn't heal my alcoholism. And what he said to him was, I've never been successful with an alcoholic of your type. And the guy went, Oh shit. I got what am I gonna, what am I gonna do? Because this is the guy, you know, he's one of the number one psychiatrists in the world. And he says, you know, here and there, once in a while, people have had what are called vital spiritual experiences, and they're phenomena. I don't really know how to bring this about, but I've been trying to bring it about in you, and you need to go find one. So he comes back to the United States and he connects with an organization called the Oxford Groups, which was a first century Christian movement that believed in things like complete surrender. They had these four absolutes, absolute unselfishness, purity, love. but where the 12 steps came from were from the tenets of the Oxford Group. So in the founders of you know, AA and the various anonymous organizations, they didn't obviously create these things, but the process of surrender, belief in a higher power, inventory, confession, restitution, which is the amends process, and then service for whatever reason, that cornucopia of things, and 95% of what is happening in the 12-step process is happening outside of the realm of my five senses, right? It's things that are they're just going on all around me. But for whatever reason, that combination is magic. Absolutely magic.
Jason Paul: There's something about the surrendering to a greater power than you, that no matter where you're from, no matter what your background, no matter what your belief, no matter what your religion, and this is the problem. This is probably why it took me so long to get to spirituality and so long to become a medium, because I kind of wanted to hold two fingers up to the church growing up, because I looked at the commandments, the way that I felt power was abused, the way I felt that they treated marginalized communities. I couldn't think of anything I'd want to be you know, I would describe myself as an atheist. Not because not because I would say I was an atheist with no beliefs, I didn't believe in a higher power, just because I didn't want to align with your religion. But it is interesting, the 12 steps, because there's such a spiritual fabric woven into that. But I honestly believe that spirituality in all its different forms is the ultimate healer because it's about understanding and reconnecting to the power of everything that is. And through that of doing that, you start to understand that all the love that you need does live within. So, you know, it's beautiful. And Austin, I feel that you know, are such a fantastic human. And, you know, to be able to now be in a place where you can show such levels of vulnerability and authenticity, you know, I can't imagine the journey that it's taken to kind of get to this point. And I think that you're really inspirational because, you know, it makes me feel very emotional as I say that. Because, you know, when you go from a point in your life when you're absolutely in the depths of despair to when you sit here, you know, to do that journey, you know, there's so many people that don't even make it close to ever coming back from that. And I feel we're in a real even America. I just keep seeing so much sad stuff about opiates, about the way that big pharma have operated over the years. And I've watched so many programs about America and its relationship with opioids. And you know, it makes me sick to the stomach when I look at how you know, I can't remember the name of the family now, but the family that you know made opioids what they are. And I was angry, I had to turn that movie off, Austin, because when I started watching it made me so angry that oxycontin was allowed to become a thing. but you know, we need to start getting, we need to start waking up now to how we view medicine. And I'm a big believer that eastern medicine and western medicine, if we actually combine it's gonna really change people's life. So, in true Soul Sync tradition, leave us today, my dear, on a closing thought to close your beautiful episode.
## Healing as a Journey of Coming Home
Austin Rampt: Well, I think you actually just gave me my closing thought in what you just said, which is that you know, in my experience, my journey of healing has not been to add anything to me. It's been to unwind all the things that were essentially not me, to realize that thing I was looking for was in there. I it was just covered up by all sorts of garbage. And man, I gotta tell you, Jason, I have had goosebumps for half of this show, like the whole time we've been talking. It's been it's just really brightened my day. Man, I'm I'm so grateful to have had this experience with you.
Closing Reflections
Jason Paul: Oh, me too. You're honestly on a path of connecting with your guides, your spirit helpers, because even as I say that, and I don't often start doing mediumship in an episode, but I do feel like there's a lot of spirit people around here. Even your dad, I feel is in the spirit world now, and I feel he is here right now, you know, almost with a sense of apology for many things. But I do believe, Austin, that you are you know, meant to be doing what you're doing. I really believe that. And you know, you're such a beautiful human. And, you know, I wish you nothing but the best and thank you for coming on and sharing your story.
Austin Rampt: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Jason.
Closing Reflections
Jason Paul: Same to you. I tell you, that conversation really got me reflecting a lot on my own journey and actually having such a sense of pride for the battles that I've overcome when it concerns addiction. And, you know, there's nothing like speaking to someone else who's also been through the same experiences. It was a deeply sobering conversation that really touched my heart with Austin. Do remember that I now have a monthly mailing list that you can sign up to. And to do so, you just need to go to my website, jasonpaulmedium.com, go down to the bottom of the homepage. I've also released a number of slots for readings, both psychic and mediumship readings at the moment. So if you feel called to get one, you can also book those on my website. I absolutely love that conversation. Lovely chap Austin and what he's doing with his life now to see him having turned it around so much, you know, really was a beautiful thing. So until next time, my darlings, lots of love.
Austin Rampt is the author of One Last Hit: The Remarkable True Story of an Addict’s Journey to Find Himself. Find out more at [onelasthitbook.com](https://www.onelasthitbook.com). To discover more Soul Sync conversations, meditations, classes and events, visit [jasonpaulmedium.com](https://www.jasonpaulmedium.com).