I have a couple of announcements. First, I’m going to North Carolina early in the morning to visit Kristina and her hubby, Houston, for a few days. We’re taking Bella, so she’ll experience her first airplane ride. I’m a little nervous about pet relief stations and whether we can find one, but her bladder is pretty touch. She can hold it for 10 hours. One day I’d like to take her to Norway. I don’t know how her bladder will manage that flight!

We won’t have the radio show this week, mostly because Kim is going to her daughter’s Christmas play, but we’ll have it next week!

Enjoy today’s Best of Erik!

Me: What is your take on alcohol and it’s effect on the physical, emotional and spiritual body?

(Pause)

Me: Look, I’m still having my glass of Cabernet every night, so say whatever you damn well please.

Erik: That’s different, but let’s take it in separate phases. So, alcohol with meals. Red wine, white wine. Whatever, with a meal. I think all that’s just fine. If it’s moderate, it’s okay with the body. If it’s a smidgeon above moderate, it’s doing damage. The more you put in after moderate, the more you lose: Mental clarity, ability to process, ability to connect spiritually. It has a—

Me: Wait. Connect to what? Connect to what? Sorry.

Erik: Connection to other people, to boundaries, to respect, to communication, to spirit. You just can’t.

Me: Okay.

Erik: It has such a dense, low energy. It slowly turns the brain and the heart off. Some people, they like that experience because it sets them free, and that’s where the addiction comes in.

Me: So the connections, that’s like clipping strings to things you don’t want to be associated but you also lose connection to things you want to or should be connected to.

Erik: Yes. It’s separating you from life experiences, but if it’s moderate, it doesn’t. It just loosens the strings.

Me: Okay.

Erik: With too much alcohol like with the addicted, the drunkards, it’s just pretty much disgusting. They can’t identify with where they’re standing in life. There’s no grounding capability.

Me (soberly—no pun intended): Yeah.

Erik: So, my take on it is: If you’re going to do spiritual work or meditation, I wouldn’t use it whatsoever. If you’re interesting in using—

Jamie (sounding a bit floored): Vleahhhh! Did you just say that, Erik? (Pause) Don’t promote it. I mean it.

Erik: Why?

Jamie (sternly): Cuz it’s illegal, that’s why!

Erik: But if it’s right…

Jamie: Yeah, but you still gotta maintain—

Me: You have to move to California or Colorado if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about.

Jamie: No, he does suggest ayahuasca.

Me: Hm. I’ve heard of that.

Jamie: Yeah. Something like that.

Me: I thought he was going to say marijuana.

Erik: Or an LSD. Find someone. Find a therapist who can, you know, let you experience this and supervise and moderate you and help you expand your awareness of life.

Me: Erik, I don’t even know if that exists, you know. I don’t even know if there are therapists that do that legally.

Erik (laughing): Um, oh yeah. They exist.

Me: Oh really? Legally?

Erik: Yeah! Hell yeah!

Me: Really? California I guess?

Erik: Yep.

Me: Whoa, so it’s legal in California?

Erik: Only if it’s prescribed by your psychiatrist for a certain kind of a reason.

Me: Oh okay. Hm. Interesting. Well, Texas is way behind the times. Erik, do you think you’d still be alive if we had let you smoke pot and didn’t do random drug tests for marijuana all the time?

(Pause)

Erik (in an uncharacteristically serious tone): No.

Me: Okay. Anything else about alcohol’s effect on the emotional, physical and spiritual body?

Erik: Nah, it just sucks. Just tell people to cut it out as much as they can. If it’s with a meal and moderate it’s okay. What I mean by moderate is one glass for most people and for the bigger people, two.

Me: Okay.

Erik: And that’s for maybe once a week. And for those of you who are looking for a better time, I would go with marijuana, because it doesn’t clip those ties, those connections to life. In fact, it allows you to observe them more closely, and you actually make conscious changes during those times that carry over when the high is gone.

Me: Yeah, but it’s illegal, Erik! If you want to get a job, that’s it; you’re screwed! What can you do? If you’re a truck driver or whatever, they do random drug tests all the time and the DOT has a zero tolerance rule. What do you do with these guys? I mean, seriously!

Erik: Get somebody else’s piss.

Me: Well, I know, but geez! It has to be a certain temperature, etc. It’s really tough. When will they legalize marijuana? Because I really think they should. There has never been a death attributed to pot. People rarely drive under the influence of marijuana like they do with alcohol. They stay home and order pizza or eat nachos. And they’re pretty peaceful. What are they going to do, bludgeon someone with a pizza box?

Jamie: Well, in many states, what he’s seeing is that they’re lighting up in the amount, like if you just have a little bit of marijuana, your not going to get arrested or booked for it.

Me: Mm hm.

Jamie: And because they have done that, then if they trace it in your body, then you can say, “actually, I had it and there was a,”

(Pause)

Jamie (to Erik): Oh, but that still creates a weakness, huh?

(Pause)

Jamie (to Erik): Yeah, but possession is different than using it and taking it, because if their testing it and it’s in your body—

Erik: Yeah, but if it’s at a certain level or dosage you could say, legally, “Well, there’s a fault in the system, because I had it and it wasn’t taken away from me.” You’ll see. The system is going to start changing. These states aren’t going to start arresting for it, and, actually Mom, a few states are going to start using it as a grow crop. It’s going to be regulated.

Me: They can get a lot of tax revenues that way, I guess. I lot of states and municipalities are hurting financially now. I bet Big Pharma would love that!

Erik: It’s so fucked up. You should really arrest people who drink.

Me: I know. That’s worse. That causes so many more deaths.

Erik: Whoever got high and got a speeding ticket? No one!

Me: What about channeling and meditation? Does it help or hurt that?

Erik: It depends on what kind of marijuana it is. If it’s the marijuana that affects the head and you get a head high, then it’s going to enhance the channeling, but if it affects the body too much, then it makes it a little more difficult for us to interact with you because you’re trying to judge so quickly about what your body is going through.

Me: Oh, okay. I didn’t know there was more than one type of marijuana.