About Leonard Lee Buschel

Leonard Buschel is a Philadelphia native, and a very happy Los Angeles. transplant. He is California Certified Substance Abuse Counselor with years of experience working with people struggling with addiction. He attended Naropa University in Boulder, CO. Mr. Buschel is the founder of Writers In Treatment whose primary purpose is to promote ‘treatment’ as the best first step solution for addiction, alcoholism and other self-destructive behaviors. Leonard is the director of the nine year old REEL Recovery Film Festival & Symposium, and is the editor/publisher of the weekly Addiction/Recovery eBulletin. He also produces the annual Experience, Strength and Hope Awards in Los Angeles. He just celebrated 27 years clean and sober.

In Addition: Mr. Buschel has studied with many numinous psychologists and evolutionary thinkers including R.D. Laing, Bruno Bettleheim, Joseph Chilton Pierce, Pir Valiat Khan, James Hillman, Robert Bly, Chogyem Trungpa Rimpoche, Rev. Michael Beckwith and Ram Dass. He also was the co-founder of The Laughter Heals Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting the healing power of laughter. Recently he assisted Malibu Ranch Milestones with their full day workshop with Dr. Patch Adams. Mr. Buschel also assisted at the Spirit Recovery Conference in Palm Springs, featuring Byron Katie, Dr. Joan Borysenko Tian Dayton and Mariette Hartley. Previously Mr. Buschel worked for Logan House Publications as editor and publisher.

HIGH: Confessions of a Cannabis Addict

If National Lampoon published a hysterically funny and mildly offensive parody of recovery memoirs, it couldn’t be as funny and mildly offensive as this autobiography of Leonard Lee Buschel, co-founder of Writers in Treatment, producers of the internationally acclaimed Reel Recovery Film Festivals, the Experience Strength and Hope Awards, and publishers of the Addiction/Recovery e-Bulletin.

HIGH is far more than a vastly entertaining recovery memoir. It is an open emotional summons, a sincere invitation to a life lived awake and alert, a life vibrating at a higher frequency of increased creativity and joy, and if you so desire, social inclusion, fun, fellowship, and plenty of free coffee.

Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while. 

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, welcome again to the behavioral corner. I'm Steve Martorano. I have a great job. I hang on the Corner and wait for interesting people to come by. And they have great stories to share with us at least we hope you're enjoying them. All of which centered around behavioral health -- a gigantic topic, which covers, well, everything that affects how we turn out the decisions we make in the life we lead. That's pretty much what makes up our behavioral health. So this is a podcast about everything. All right, not the least of which very often is substance abuse and recovery. I think that's going to be the primary focus of today's program. We have a saying here on the Corner, that all stories of substance abuse and recovery are the same, except they're different. And I think I'm going to make that point abundantly clear with my guest today. Leonard Bushel has, has led what can only be described very briefly as a very, very colorful life. The details of which are chronicled in his new memoir. Leonard's book is entitled High. High. As luck would have it. He's reading it right now. Confessions of a Cannabis Addict. It's a hell of a read. It's a hell of a story. A couple of other things about Leonard, let me say hello to him first, put your book down.

Leonard Bushel 
I'm sorry. I was so engrossed I couldn't stop reading.

Steve Martorano 
We like shameless plugs. I got to do your resume just a little more justice than it deserves there. Leonard is a California-certified Substance Abuse Counselor. He has years of experience in that. He is the founder of Writers in Treatment - the primary purpose should be obvious there - to help writers overcome some substance abuse problems. He is the director of the REL - R-E-L - Recovery Film Festival and Symposium, which she founded in 2008. As well as being (whew) the editor, publisher of a weekly addiction recovery e-bulletin, which is a dandy little thing to subscribe to, you should do that. And in addition, to which he is responsible for the annual excellence or experience, I should say his Strength and Hope Awards in Los Angeles. Leonard, thanks for joining us on the show.

Leonard Bushel 
Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for having me. And hello, everyone loves watching and listening. It's great to be here. As they say it's great to be anywhere.

Steve Martorano 
Be anywhere exactly. I want to begin sort of in the middle rather than at the beginning of this thing with some of the details of your experiences. Prior to you know your sobriety which by the way, I've talked about burying the lede, Leonard is celebrating 27 years -- count 'em 27 years -- sober. Nice job, by the way. Anyway, before we get to all of that, the title of the book is interesting. And I think needs some clarification, at least from your standpoint. High, Confessions of a Cannabis Addict. Gee, Leonard, I didn't think you could get addicted to marijuana. Would you mean by cannabis addict?

Leonard Bushel 
Someone who smokes pot every day for more than 20 years. I think that it would be considered a marijuana addict.

Steve Martorano 
Well, what would you do because I agree with you? If you do anything habitually, you're probably addicted to it. But as you know, from your working treatment, there are some pretty definite parameters that describe what addiction is. Marijuana incidentally, for people who don't know actually does measure up when it comes to, you know, actually a clinically an addiction. But there is a difference between being dependent on marijuana and being or anything and being addicted to it. You were addicted, right? 

Leonard Bushel 
My definition of addiction comes from an experience I had some years ago. I had been doing cocaine on a daily basis, meaning every day for 13 years. And I was only a cocaine addict for the 13th year because for 12 years every time I did a line or a spoon. I did it because I wanted to. But in the 13th year, I would wake up in the morning and say, I'm not going to do any blow today until after dinner. But then after lunch, I'd be getting high. And there were other times I'd wake up and say, I'm not going to do any coke today. And again, after lunch, I was doing it. As I said, I used to, you know, smoke my breakfast, snort my lunch, and drink my dinner. So I realized, to me, the definition of addiction is telling yourself, you're not going to do something, be it gamble, shop, smoker join to align but then doing it anyway. You know, I know the complex definition of addiction is where you know, dependency, and you need more and more, and there are consequences. The consequences of marijuana are not dramatic. Like they would be from an opiate or drinking and driving. They're very subtle. And I just say, you could go crazy -- you could become completely insane. But if you do it little by little, no one will notice. I think it's the same thing. With addiction, just little by little. You're not eating, you know, pot. I had a great conversation. I was via texting, with a disc jockey from Philadelphia. He said I have a problem with the title of your book. Addict? And he said, "I've been smoking pot for 52 years, and I can stop whenever I want." But had he ever tried to stop? That's because I think you can almost hypnotize yourself. We can almost be a mob mentality. Like you think you're getting high to get high. But I think after 20 years, you're getting high because you're dependent because it's a habit. Because it was a good idea. 20 years ago. Great idea. The first thing I did when I got out of rehab, 27 years ago, was I looked for a place where I could sign petitions to legalize pot. That was 27 years ago because I wasn't afraid of putting my name somewhere, as you know, a pro-legalized pot person. You know, I think it's a great drug for time, or for occasions, and I guess my hat goes off to people who can get high to go to a concert. I went to see Björk a couple of weeks ago and I thought, "Huh, I'm glad I wasn't high because it was such an intense show, I would have freaked out." But I guess for people that can really smoke a joint for special occasions. You know, but if that special occasion is driving to work, or driving home from work...

Steve Martorano 
...or a Tuesday.

Leonard Bushel 
...or a Tuesday, I think they're dependent, for better or worse. As I said, the consequences are subtle. But I believe that the thinking progress, I think as you age, I think is really working against you as you age and your cognitive abilities are starting to diminish a little. I don't think smoking pot every day. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. 

Leonard Bushel 
It's great still being creative, and you're still making money and you're still, you know, enjoying everything to the max. That's wonderful. I just have a feeling it becomes a mediocre drug. Being an incredible drug I think it ends up as being a mediocre drug after 20 years.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, well, anything you do habitually and regularly. It's part of a lifestyle. You know, familiarity breeds contempt. So it's sort of Yeah, I smoke a joint every morning. You know, it's an interesting analogy you just made about those people who do smoke it habitually for many, many years, might not be aware of any damage that's really occurring because it's so incremental and so slow. So the story of how do you keep the frog in the pot of boiling water that we put him in when the waters tepid. And then you slowly, very slowly turn up the heat of the water. Until pretty much it's too late to do anything about it. I was just curious about that. So I'm not the first person to say, "What are you talking about?"

Leonard Bushel 
I really don't like talking about other people. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. 

Leonard Bushel 
Or other people's addictions,.

Steve Martorano 
Right. 

Leonard Bushel 
God bless everybody doing anything to get through the day or the night. I just realized that it took me about seven years of being clean and sober where I could admit to myself, that was a stupid move, you know, the smoking pot every day for 26 years. You know, but I realized that was when I was 19 that I was doing LSD, or not a lot, but I did I was on a trip. And I realized God, I would like to be like this all the time. But I realized that was not sustainable. And I thought, but I could smoke pot every day, and sort of suggest this state of consciousness. Because like I said, doing LSD every day didn't seem like a good idea. So it took me a long time to admit that I had not eff'd up my life because I was okay. Because I never got arrested. I did go to the hospital a couple of times. I did nearly die from drug abuse and alcohol abuse, specifically, Heineken of all things. 

Steve Martorano 
Really?

Leonard Bushel 
And I, you know, did spend some time dead in the hospital. But it took me some years to realize, "Wow, that was a mistake."

Steve Martorano 
What did you think it was prior to recognizing the mistake? Just you were unlucky or something? Or what..

Leonard Bushel 
No, if was your choice. It was a choice. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Yeah.

Leonard Bushel 
I know that I had the choice to smoke -- and I made the choice to smoke pot every single day. I didn't understand the idea of self-medicating. Maybe I had a low-grade depression. I don't know I, it, it made me feel good. In every way. 

Steve Martorano 
Do you hold much stock in the notion that not everyone, but many, many people have substance abuse issues? There's some underlying trauma in their life that may have contributed to self-medication?

Leonard Bushel 
I think I would...

Steve Martorano 
Would you agree with that?

Leonard Bushel 
I would probably agree with that.

Steve Martorano 
Because you lost your father at a very young age. And I know in the book, his absence is a big deal. Do you think that affected any. Di that affect you at al?

Leonard Bushel 
I do. I do indeed. I do indeed. I do. Think that when I was in school, and I was in the schoolyard and guys would be talking about their fathers. You know, what, what their fathers did, where they went last weekend to the ballgame, whatever, you know, the proverbial did you know...you know even having a catch with your father was something I never did. That's why the movie Field of Dreams kills me. And, but when I started dealing pot in high school, it gave me a reason for those guys who want to come to talk to me. You know, suddenly I became part of, or even a little ascended because I had the good weed. You know, and to show you how old I am, which is a phrase I forbid myself to use but I did anyway. When I was in high school, there were only two pot dealers. That's how long ago it was. It was...it was...

Steve Martorano 
Wait...wait. In the world, or you mean in your high school?

Leonard Bushel

In my high school, there were two popular -- Ruby Rae and me. And I want it to be near Ruby Rae.

Steve Martorano 

I interrupt you here right now, because...

Leonard Bushel 
We had a little...a little monopoly. 

Steve Martorano 
Leonard is a Philly kid. Grew up in Philadelphia, in the Logan section, but as he became...as he became known as the person you could get marijuana from...

Leonard Bushel 
No, no, no, no, no, no. I never became known as the person you could get marijuana from.

Steve Martorano 
But you don't have any unsatisfied customers in Philadelphia. Do you know what I mean? I mean, your people were happy with what you were selling.

Leonard Bushel 
Yeah. It was the best.

Steve Martorano 
You had good stuff, right? 

Leonard Bushel 
Yes. 

Steve Martorano 
So then where's it kids your age? I thought that you were gonna tell me anybody's name. But where were you getting the best marijuana in the area?

Leonard Bushel 
When I started importing it I was getting it from Miami...

Steve Martorano 
Okay

Leonard Bushel 
...and Big Sur. But I remember when I was 20. It was hashish. Philadelphia was very famous as a hashish central import city. And I couldn't find any and that was my cannabis of choice at that time. And nobody had any in Philly. I had people in New York. Nobody had in New York. And so I convinced a friend of mine in college to drop out of college to go to Israel to bring some back. Because we were both so passionately, as you say dependent on getting high every day that we could not imagine what it would be like to not get high. So I don't know if that's a good definition. We went say 6000 miles away across the longest flight in the world at that time. El Al had a 12-hour flight from New York to Tel Aviv. And we were on it because we couldn't handle not getting high. And, and the idea of smuggling back little bricks of hash to Kennedy was just a risk we were willing to take. To not be, you know, our family thought we were going to discover our roots that somehow we had this epiphany that we should go see Israel. Our friends thought we were going to smuggle hashish back and make money. But we were really just going to get a stash. We were really just going for our stash and making enough money to pay for the trip. So we sold, you know, three-quarters of what we had and we kept the rest. And I remember my last sale, I'd sold the last sale. I had a friend he said he had two guys who wanted to buy my last was only a quarter ounce, seven grams. And I went to his house in Kensington. You could probably guess the story. And I was...two guys for the last quarter rounds. And instead of sticking their pockets their hands in their pockets to get the money. They each pulled out a handgun. And it was one to my head and one to my heart. And I looked in the barrel of the gun, I saw bullets. And I said okay, and you know, I tried not to say anything that would just you know, I wanted to make them happy with their career choice. So I was very nice and calm. Okay. "Do you have any money" I had $200 that I offered to them? I've offered it to them. I gave them the 200. They walked me to my car through the house. I got my car. And I was as I was driving away. Two things happened. I started crying hysterically from be have been in shock and realizing how close I could have been to losing my life. And at that point, I made the decision. You know that I that I've lived with to this day. I'm not dealing drugs in that neighborhood again. And I understand that Kensington and Allegheny are like the biggest open-air drug market in America. I hope no one's getting hurt there other than...

Steve Martorano 
Everyone's getting hurt, Leonard. 

Leonard Bushel 
Everyone's getting hurt.

Steve Martorano 
Everyone's getting hurt. It's a disaster. Anyway, yeah, good, good ...but you know, it's an interesting pivot. Because that is at its best Kensington was a working-class neighborhood. Very blue-collar. And it's at its worst. It's the sort of picture -- poster child of decay, and people living in poverty. So that's not a place I think I would find -- judging from your memoir, I think you would have gravitated towards in general, because you were nothing if not an upwardly mobile. You call yourself an entrepreneur, which is, which is another fancy way of saying you are a go-getter. So I can see you gravitating away from K and A, and looking you know, to sunnier climates. So you go through this progression where you get better and better at this. And it's opening up a world to you that I guess you might not otherwise have gotten to through selling drugs.

Leonard Bushel 
I don't want to come off as endorsing becoming a drug dealer as a career move

Steve Martorano 
You're taking this...but that's the path that you were on before you got to Betty Ford. And it's an interesting path. It gave you everything you wanted to get. Right?

Leonard Bushel 
I was talking to someone this morning about having been a compulsive gambler. I was stone called compulsive gambler as a teenager. And it was...and I would go to Liberty Bell Park. I don't know if Liberty Bell Park is still open?

Steve Martorano 
No. Well, no, it's not. Liberty Bell the tour that there's a track up there. It's Parks. I don't know if it's the same track or not. Liberty Bell was Trotter's right? 

Leonard Bushel 
Yes. Yeah.

Steve Martorano 
It's a flat track, now.

Leonard Bushel 
Okay. And of course, across the river was Garden State Park. In Maryland, it is Pimlico and Brandywine.

Steve Martorano 
And Delaware Park and Monmouth?

Leonard Bushel 
I did a harness and a thoroughbred track in the afternoon. And we would go to the hardest tracks at night because the harness tracks were open at night. The regular horses...and I was an impulsive gambler. And I realized I think it was like the second time, I bought a couple $100 worth a pot and sold it and ended up with $300. I thought, wow, I just want $100 Why would I go give my money to racetracks if I could, you know, use it more wisely. So I think that had something to do with, with the whole the choice to become a drug dealer. And it kept me....it keeps you awake, it does keep you awake, you don't really doze off, you know, you don't really go unconscious when you have a trunk load of pot, and you're driving through downtown, or you're driving down the 95. from Florida with 300 pounds of pot and you're drunk, you sort of stay awake the whole time. And that was before the 95 was completed when you had to get off for 60 miles in North Carolina, and Georgia. You know, 95 wasn't always straight through. You'd had to get off.

Steve Martorano 
Well, it finally made it from Florida to Maine, except for the 20 years, it couldn't get through South Philadelphia. So that was the last link to 95 North and South.

Leonard Bushel 
Was soft pretzel salesman who wanted to make sure that cars came off the freeway to buy soft pretzels? All those guys from the refiner?

Steve Martorano 
All those guys in city council and you know, everybody had to get a piece everything it took forever.

Leonard Bushel 
What percentage of your audience do you think is Philadelphia-based? Or are you from Philly?

Steve Martorano 
I think enough of them...I think...we can see some analytics. Enough of them are from this area. They'll get the references.

Leonard Bushel 
Well, it's a great place to be from.

Steve Martorano 
Except, of course, for those occasions when you are deeply scarred by some event that usually involves the local sports teams. You make a particular point of mentioning how you were severely depressed by the 1964 Phillies, please don't go into the details. We all were there was awful. Just awful.

Leonard Bushel 
It's sort of like when half the kids in Philadelphia stop collecting baseball cards.

Steve Martorano 
No, no, no, no. No, we came out with I mean, it was like over that's enough of that. Chico Ruiz stole home base. I mean, he stole home. It started the whole thing.

Leonard Bushel 

It was St. Louis. Terrible day.

Steve Martorano 

It's terrible. Anyway, Leonard Bushel is our guest...

Leonard Bushel 
Do you want to know how I've changed since I got... 

Steve Martorano 
Oh, I do.

Leonard Bushel 
Do you want to know...one of the most glaring signs to me, because when you change other people see it more than you do? Was it four or five years ago, the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

Steve Martorano 
Yes, a little longer. Yeah.

Leonard Bushel 
I didn't have a bet on it. And I knew they were a lock. You know, I think they did crush it. I knew the Eagles were the overwhelming favorite and the pointless spread was not that great. And I did not have the bet on the Eagles who I lost 1000s of dollars on.

Steve Martorano 
Over the years. Yeah.

Leonard Bushel 
That I didn't have a bet when they won the Superbowl. And I thought wow. Yeah, that's it's just different. It's just different. You know, of course, I was pissed that I didn't know oh, let's go but who goes to the Superbowl once a year? But it's just not that important to me anymore. It's not...

Steve Martorano 
Let me ask you a question about that. Betting. Compulsive betting? 

Leonard Bushel 
Yeah. 

Steve Martorano 
Your life is a highline drug salesman. To what extent do you think you -- now in the context of all that behavior? Not ultimately, but in the context of all that behavior and all that it got you? And it got you lots, the fine art, beautiful women, wonderful locations, lots of travel all that stuff. You didn't think you were lucky or good at it?

Leonard Bushel 
Lucky or good at it? Well, if I did it because I thought I was lucky that I was an idiot. I didn't really have a choice. And I didn't. I wasn't bad at it. You know, I never tried to make a lot of money. I just tried to make enough money to live well.

Steve Martorano 
Your idea of well...your idea, of course, cost a lot of money.

Leonard Bushel 
In my, I've never owned a house. And I've never owned a new Mercedes Benz. And to me, that's how as a materialistic person, I would judge if you're financially successful. I never owned a house. And of course, most people who own houses don't really own them because the bank owns some of the mortgages but for the people who have to me if you own something, and when you own it outright, nobody could take it away from you. No matter what because I never had a steady income. I never had a new Mercedes Benz and I never bought a house. But I can always afford enough to live in rented houses and rented apartments in safe neighborhoods where I've always felt comfortable.

Steve Martorano 
You have never been arrested when you were selling drugs, right? 

Leonard Bushel 
That's true. 

Steve Martorano 
Well, that was You were smarter than law enforcement or lucky.

Leonard Bushel 
I was. That's what I wasn't. I think I was that's where I was going. kept a low profile didn't want to be the biggest drug dealer. Nobody knew. I knew...no one knew I sold drugs, except other drug dealers. I didn't walk down the street and people say, "Oh, there's Leonard the drug dealer." You know, only drug dealers know I dealt drugs. I never had...

Steve Martorano 
You didn't have a retail clientele? Who'd you sell your drugs to if nobody knew you sold it?

Leonard Bushel 
We sold it? I only sold it to dealers. I didn't sell...

Steve Martorano 
A wholesaler? 

Leonard Bushel 
You could say a distributor.

Steve Martorano 
A distributor? 

Leonard Bushel 
Yeah. Acquisition...acquisitions, and distribution.

Steve Martorano 
I didn't get that impression from the...

Leonard Bushel 
I might have been a middleman for all you know.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I again, we was in Philadelphia at similar times, but I...you're right. I didn't know you were. I didn't know you were and I, you know, and I knew my way around that milieu if you were, anyway...

Leonard Bushel 
I never did cocaine with people who had less cocaine than I did.

Steve Martorano 
That's a that's a that's good. It's a good rule to go by. Leonard Bushel is our guest. He is the many things but most recently, the author of his memoir, your I bought your book, by the way, on Kindle. So I have a virtual copy of it. It's called high Confessions of a Cannabis Addict. We've just scratched...

Leonard Bushel 
It is on Amazon. It is on Amazon. 

Steve Martorano 
I bought it. 

Leonard Bushel 
If you have prime you can get it in two days and start reading it by Saturday. It's very funny. It's very sexy with a lot of photographs. There are a lot of good pictures.

Steve Martorano 
Oh, wait! The Kindle copy had no photographs?

Leonard Bushel 
Oh, no. Look, there's me in my first addiction pinball machine. And here's one of me with my forget that pin, my first addiction, the Sony Trinitron.

Steve Martorano 
While you were also very dependent on asthma medication because you had serious asthma problems. I wondered reading the book whether or not subconsciously, the life saving and if that's what it was life-saving qualities of particularly the inhaler that you were introduced to, and all the drugs they gave you to get you to breathe, didn't subconsciously work in your head saying, well, drugs are good.

Leonard Bushel 
Medication is amazing I mean, you know, America is a good place for emergency medicine. It's a great place if you have a chronic illness. But there are medications like prednisone, which can literally save your life like that if you're having an asthma attack. And I'm sure most people watching take something of course because Big Pharma has completely taken over the world in every way. You know, they make the military-industrial complex look like pictures, compared to what they've done, including the Sackler family with all you know, within getting people addicted, let me show one more picture that I really love. That's me in the Holyland holding that hashish. That I ended up bringing back. That's the shit I got held up for.

Steve Martorano 
In the Holyland? 

Leonard Bushel 
Well, I brought it home and then got held up at K and A.

Steve Martorano 
Do you...do you worry that you will be judged ultimately, for using the holiest of holy places Israel as cover for your drug smuggling? Did that ever bother you? That you were telling your mom, you were going over to the Wailing Wall?

Leonard Bushel 
Do you think a jew would ever judge anybody for making money?

Steve Martorano 
That's a good point. Hey, by the way, earlier, you said you sign your name to legalize a marijuana petition, but that was 27 years ago, how do you feel about legalized marijuana now that it's real.

Leonard Bushel 
It's every...every...the cliche is there almost as many pot shops as there are Starbucks in Los Angeles. Right out my window. There are two giant billboards for marijuana stores at the corner. What do I think about it? I think it's one of the few social improvements, legal or social, I think it's one of the greatest gifts to humanity, right now. I think people will look back at the last 50 years and think, "What barbarians they put young black and white and immigrant people into jail for having marijuana. They put them in jail, just to fill up the jails for the people who own the prisons. It had nothing to do with the drug itself. As Gabor Maté, the great psychologist and doctor says, "It wasn't a war on drugs. It was a war on drug addicts." It was a war on poor people. The sins of the people who enforce those days should be, you know, held accountable.

Steve Martorano 
And yet, given your experience, your books entitled Cannabis Addict, and your path that began and continued through with heavy marijuana use, you don't think there's any potential downside to legalizing marijuana?

Leonard Bushel 
None whatsoever

Steve Martorano 
Recreationally?

Leonard Bushel 
None whatsoever. That's like saying, "Why isn't alcohol illegal?" A lot more people die from alcohol and alcoholism every year than opiates and heroin. And certainly not marijuana. Okay. Nobody thought of a marijuana overdose. It was just to fill up the prisons for the ruling class. So they get...

Steve Martorano 
No, I mean, I understand that argument and it's valid. I'm talking about it personally. You smoke too much marijuana. Right?

Leonard Bushel 
I smoked too much.

Steve Martorano 
Apparently. Your book's called an addict. Your book's called Cannabis Addict. This, that's not a positive description.

Leonard Bushel 
But if you quit, but when you quit, you're not smoking any.

Steve Martorano 
Well, that's what I want to talk about next. You have that moment that one hopes everybody with problems in any room, we get to where they go, "Well, this ain't working anymore. I got to go someplace else where it is working." And you got yourself into the famous Betty Ford Clinic. The circumstances of that, as I understand it from the book is that you didn't go there primarily to get sober. You needed a vacation.

Leonard Bushel 
I needed a rest and I thought the cops were going to arrest me because of my career.

Steve Martorano 
So what better place to hide out right than right in the open.

Leonard Bushel 
I went to a difficult breakup with someone I had been using Ecstasy with on a regular basis. I had quit cocaine. But I was snorting a lot of ecstasy, pure MDMA, right from the chemist who got famous for making it. And I couldn't end...and I was going through a breakup. And I thought it was going to be arrested. And I had one particularly bad night which was a series of miraculous coincidences. Miraculous coincidence, meaning I was at a phone booth where I spent a lot of time. And the only person on the planet I know who had gone to rehab was walking by and we talked and I asked her if the rehab she went to had an 800 number A because I thought I was going to be arrested and it would be good if I was in a rehab for the judge. And three weeks later, I ended up driving myself to the Betty Ford Center or clinic. It's not Camp Betty. It's a real place. And I went up and I drove myself there and I went up to the front desk. I said you know my name is this was just where I registered. I said it's actually I said, "Is this where I check in?" And she said "Check in it's not a hotel. It's not a hotel. It's a hospital, this is where you get admitted." You know, they put the band on you take your blood and all that. What's my point? Oh, I did not go there. Even on the application on the phone. I didn't mention marijuana I mentioned Perkin NS and values value and the ecstasy and the previous cocaine but I didn't mention park because I was not intending to give it up. So I figured I'm not going to mention it to them. I didn't know how rehabs worked. I'd never been to an AA meeting or, or any kind of 12 Step meeting. So I'm like, I was a fool. Luckily, the fool. I don't know if the archetype the fool ever comes into your programs. As a fool. I went thinking it was just going to be a month of r&r, some swimming, some water volleyball, and I could get my act together or just clean out from the ecstasy. But just being there something happened. Before the writing exercises and the sharing with the therapist and the groups -- before any of that happened. The idea of using drugs again became obsolete.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, no to the way. You know, I only mentioned any of this because for a couple of reasons. I can't remember the number of people I've talked to about this process of the situation and You're not the first one to tell me. "I went to rehab because I needed a place to sleep, eat, get off the streets." And they did that over and over again. On the other hand, I've spoken to many people who like you. Were a one and done. That's pretty much the way it was for you. You went to Betty Ford once and it stuck. Is that right?

Leonard Bushel 
Yes. I stuck it like a landing at the Olympics.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, stuck the landing. Again, what do you think? You were just lucky that it all worked for you? Or resist some miraculous transformation? What happened?

Leonard Bushel 
Yes, miraculous transformation.

Steve Martorano 
That happens. That was 27 years ago, right?

Leonard Bushel 
27 years ago.

Steve Martorano 
No relapses? 

Leonard Bushel 
Don't believe in them. 

Steve Martorano 
You don't...you might not believe in them...

Leonard Bushel 
It's like my friend, a great songwriter named George Wallace from Philadelphia, not the politician. Great guy. I think he's out there and Feasterville. He said, take a stand and then stand there. So I never tried to get sober when I was using drugs every day that, you know, in fact, when I was at the Betty Ford Center, I wrote a couple of letters to people saying, I think I'm leaving the team. I hope you don't mind, right. But I can't live this way anymore. I'm too afraid of dying, and I'm too afraid of going to jail. And I have an interesting story about a therapist I started to see up in Marin County. And after like the second session, she said, "So you quit being a drug dealer because you had a change of attitude. You realize it was the wrong thing to be doing. And I said, "No, I could drug dealing because I was afraid of getting busted." And she said, "Well, that I can't work with you as a client. Your reason for quitting doesn't qualify." That's another side story. I love therapists. I've been to the same therapist...I saw him again today, every Wednesday for the last 12 years. Thank God, if I was married, if I had a wife, I would have someone to talk to. But instead, I have a therapist once a week.

Steve Martorano 
You don't believe in relapse when someone stops using drugs for a period of time and then begins using them. Again, they have relapsed.

Leonard Bushel 
No, they chose to start using drugs again.

Steve Martorano 
So while...we're splitting hairs here. It's a relapse. They have begun the bad habit again.

Leonard Bushel 
They changed their mind. It's in your head.

Steve Martorano 
I'm not saying they've been forced to do it. Anybody put a gun to their head, but they made a willful decision to get off the path that they were on of sobriety and reuse the drug. Look, you can call it whatever you want. It's a relapse. You never did it, is my point. You never relapsed, or you put it your way you never had to change your mind during these 27 years.

Leonard Bushel 
I never thought it would be a good idea to start using drugs again and I...

Steve Martorano 
In any way, shape or form, right? 

Leonard Bushel 
Any way shape or form. 

Steve Martorano 
Right. Okay.

Leonard Bushel 
It is such a relief to not think about, "Oh, how many glasses of champagne? Am I going to have at a friend's wedding?" Or, "Should I take one joint to the concert or two?" It's the only black and white area in my life. I've had a couple of surgeries. I had heart surgery. I had a little brain surgery. Six years ago, they gave me some Percodan and which I only took for two days. So I have had some drugs in my system. But I haven't had a glass of...

Steve Martorano 
Nothing recreational.

Leonard Bushel 
Nothing up to my lips or anything.

Steve Martorano 
It's important to highlight that because as I said, you have led a very interesting life very colorful life. You've done things been places known people that most folks regardless of value achieved it with think art is an interesting, interesting life.

Leonard Bushel 
No, it wasn't interesting while I was living it.

Steve Martorano 
From my perspective, what distinguishes your life is 27 years of not doing that anymore. That's what makes "A Letter to Michelle" interesting to us here on the Corner. Let me ask you this and then I gotta get out of here. I know you've got to...

Leonard Bushel 
I don't want to say, anybody who's relapsing, you know, God bless everybody for everything they do or don't do. And I can understand, you know, maybe I've stayed very close to the 12 step program. Maybe it's my morning meditation and prayer work. Maybe it's the incense I light every morning for everyone who's died from COVID and drug overdoses. I don't know what it is. But I understand how...how the pain that people can get in can only find relief through a substance or drink. I understand how that can happen. And all bets are off, give it to me, I need relief. It's like when my son got sober at 20 years old, my son got sober. I said, "Just make sure before you put a gun in your mouth, you put a bottle in your mouth."

Steve Martorano 
No, I have seen, and by the way, I know from talking to just doesn't scores of people. relapse is not a big horrible thing. It is. It's can be a part of the entire process of reaching sobriety. And it's nothing to be terrified about. I only bring it up, because it's remarkable when people are able to manage 27 years. 

Leonard Bushel 
It's not a big deal unless you die, or drive drunk and run over a family.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, that's the chances you take. Let me finish this up by saying this. And I'll give you time to answer the question. Here's what I'm struck by the story you've told, and the life you're living now, which is obviously exemplary, you're doing lots of great things. You seem to be at a very early age, a guy who could figure out an angle, and were inclined, you say to be entrepreneurial, and hustling. Everything seemed to operate in a transactional sense for you. In other words, you decided that you wanted to do something, or have something or be somewhere. And so you set about to figure out what you had to do in order to achieve what you wanted to achieve. That's the transaction. We all do it. You seem to have been very good at that transactional nature. When you decided to get sober. What did you want to get? Here's what I have to do. Now, what do I want to get?

Leonard Bushel 
I wanted to get the gifts that Joseph Campbell promises you in his masterwork, The Hero's Journey.

Steve Martorano 
Your bliss. 

Leonard Bushel 
I didn't know it was possible on a quantum physics level, on an emotional level, on a spiritual level, to not get high. So I didn't get high for 28 days, I thought, "Wow, this is a miracle." Like, I didn't know you could literally live like that. You know, the first couple of weeks when I got back to my town up in Marin County, I wanted to take AA meeting schedules into the bar to say, hey, look, there's another way! I call it the better mousetrap. There's nothing more pristine than a life without crutches or filters. Anyway. It's funny, it says the book, pictures, it's on Amazon. If you can't afford it, get to me on Facebook, I will send you a copy seriously. I wrote the book to basically tell my sons who I was who I am. Because they're in it. And maybe someone who's been smoking for 30 years might think let me try not smoking for a week, and they'll get sick and they'll not be able to sleep. But maybe the reward of clarity is worth it.

Steve Martorano 
Yep, it is.

Leonard Bushel 
My son always quotes Timothy Leary -- and I swear to God this might be the last thing I say, and it might not be. Tim Leary said, "The point is not to get high, but to be high." 

Steve Martorano 
Be high. 

Leonard Bushel 
I'm in a state where I cannot come down. It's scary. But I like it.

Steve Martorano 
Leonard, thanks for joining us. The book is fun. It's a great read. It's instructional. And it's as they say, it's colorful. Look at him. He's a swashbuckling example of what can happen in sobriety. Leonard Bushel thank you.

Leonard Bushel 
The pen is mightier than the syringe!

Steve Martorano 
Hey everybody, thanks. We'll be back on Behavioral Corner next time. Look for us everywhere you find your better podcasts. The Behavioral Corner. Later.

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