My last, soul-fragmenting, “fall from grace” memory was of smoking crack cocaine with a woman in a seedy motel in the Watts district of Los Angeles at 7:00 a.m., with porn playing in the background. I had previously taken several Ambiens, which made me zombie-like, so I recall little between taking the sleeping pills and ending up in the motel with the woman. But I remember her crying, and when I asked why, she said she was five months pregnant. I left that motel and found my way back onto the freeway to head home to Malibu. I had only a couple of days to regroup before informing my boss about the relapse. I took a large dose of niacin at the gym and must have sat in the sauna for an hour, with toxins of crack cocaine streaming from my pores. I couldn’t go on. What was I going to do?
For some reason I visualized myself high up on a mountain trail in Sedona, Arizona, surrounded by the vast red rock country, with red-tail hawks soaring in the bluest of skies. I thought of shamanism, and “magic mushrooms” came to mind—something I took many times in college, but as a “fun drug” in which any sacrednes …