(somber piano music) ♪ Being in addiction is kind of a hopeless situation, and it doesn't really lend itself to dreaming, and visioning, and--and all of those, those really important things that you need to do to be creative as an artist.

♪ So, music, like, it kind of brought a lot of my life back.

That's basically, like, the role it's played in my life.

It's given me something to really, like, believe in.

(abrupt whooshing) ♪ I have a passion, which I'm finding a lot of people don't have.

A lot of people can't find a passion.

♪ I love that I'm actually in the moment.

I'm not two pages away in the script.

I'm actually right there with you.

♪ (Kathy) You can use color, and line, and texture... and all these things that we learn to do to express, to make visible what's invisible.

(urgent music) ♪ (soft snuffing sound) (intense music) ♪ (feet thumping) ♪ ♪ (Luis) I haven't made any artwork about when my brother went to prison.

For me, that was one of the happiest days of my life.

It's weird saying that, but the relationship I had with my older brother was almost all negative, because I was gay and he was in a gang and completely against me being gay.

I experienced a lot of physical abuse with him.

So, when he went to prison, he got that life sentence, it was a big relief to me, because I knew that he finally, you know, he couldn't hurt me anymore, that was I finally safe.

(fabric snapping) (dynamic music) (soft whooshing) Art has been a vehicle towards what I want to get away from to solutions to getting myself out of the darkness that I'm in.

♪ (water pattering) ♪ ♪ (echoed water pattering) (engine revs) (Lessa) Well, before I even knew it was an addiction, it was a way to fit in.

I would just progressively use more and more and more.

(tranquil music) ♪ If I had it, I was smoking it.

♪ Addiction never allowed me to be myself.

And art allows me to be myself, and to explore, and to discover myself... in this ongoing process.

(uplifting music) ♪ ♪ (water softly rushing) (engine rumbling) (Brandon) It does literally feel like just yesterday, like, I almost missed the bus to rehab, and I almost didn't make it.

I always think about that.

I'm like, "Man, if I'd missed the bus and not been there by nine like I was told I should, then I probably wouldn't be in the position that I am right now."

Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch... scratch, scratch, scratch... (thudding hip-hop music) ♪ You've gotta wanna change ♪ ♪ Go through a lot of pain ♪ ♪ There's a lot to gain ♪ ♪ But no one's gonna go get it for you ♪ I was just gonna go by my real name, and then, I was writing a bunch of songs, and almost all of them had to do with sobriety.

So, I was like...Dopeless.

♪ ...get it for you ♪ ♪ Recovering from addict's life ♪ ♪ Takes a lot of sacrifice ♪ ♪ Growin' up ♪♪ Sobriety kind of gave my life back, so, it meant a lot to wear something about it on me at all times.

(quirky music) ♪ ♪ (Luis) Um, I was born in L.A.

I'm adopted.

My birth parents, they both died because of drugs before I even turned one, like, when I was an infant.

My mom overdosed on heroin in our apartment.

And this is all, like, information that's been told to me.

Obviously, I was so young, I don't really remember it happening, but I was there when this happened.

My dad, um, fled the scene and was later killed 'cause he was involved with a lot of, like, dark people doing dark things.

(photographs softly flicking) And my mom who adopted me said that she saw me on the news and that God told her that she was meant to adopt me.

So, she adopted me and my brother together.

(waves crashing) (bird calling) (distant siren wails) (door thunking closed) (Lessa) I have about 70 days sober, and for the first month and a half, I felt pretty good.

And lately, it's actually kind of... like, I'm having more, I-I won't call them cravings, but they're, like, thoughts.

It's almost like there's that thought of... oh, let me, you know, just go-- I'm still around pot sometimes, and I'm definitely still around drinking, because I work in a restaurant.

There's still the thought of, how might it be to have a drink, or "I want to smoke some weed."

But it's so interesting to kind of have these dual sides of me, and then hear the other side say, "That's not really what I want."

(edgy music) (soft, tense music) ♪ (downcast music) ♪ (distant siren, whoosh of traffic) (Brandon) I grew up kind of like a loner, 'cause my mom, she didn't have that much money, and she couldn't afford to have me do certain activities that I wanted to do.

Like, I really liked to dance back then, but, like, I couldn't take dance classes.

Main point is, like, all I really had was music, like, just listening to it.

It put me in a space where I wasn't thinking so much about the fact that I was alone.

Ha!

(dynamic hip-hop music) ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ Don't do it for them ♪ ♪ Do it 'cause you deserve it ♪ ♪ ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ It's worth it ♪ ♪ Don't do it for them ♪ ♪ Do it 'cause you deserve it ♪♪ (cheers, applause) I think the one important part about music, and hip hop in general, is that it gives me a voice, right?

It gives me a chance to talk about all the things in my life and do it in a creative, constructive, and positive way, instead of turning to drugs like I have in the past.

(tense, dark music) ♪ (Lessa) I dropped out of high school, and I had a friend who was a stripper, and she told me how much money you can make, and I became a stripper, and... (slow-motion whooshing) ...I found my love of dance through that.

(dynamic music) ♪ The experience I had on stage was liberation, empowerment.

♪ So, it gave me a sense of confidence, whereas when I was dancing tableside, I felt like I had to impress, or please, or give of myself, and look so perfect for the men.

♪ (slow-motion whooshing) I feel...shame.

Yeah.

Um... I've forgiven myself a lot, but the shame is like this... I guess, for some reason, the image of a doll comes to mind, like, a little... something that's kind of in the background that I don't know... ...um, how to heal, exactly.

Maybe it just takes time.

(faint rumbling of traffic) I grew up half Black, half white, raised by, like, a mainly Caucasian family.

Never met anyone from my African American side, not--including my dad, never met him.

My grandpa was racist and didn't talk to me.

I didn't understand why he didn't talk to me until I was, like, 14.

I'm barely white enough to kick it with the white kids, and, like...I'm nowhere near Black enough to kick it with the Black kids, you know?

And it created this sort of divide within myself where I literally was just a half-Black, half-white kid.

(man) Make some noise for my man Dopeless, y'all.

(cheers, clapping) San Francisco, how we feelin', man?

(whooping, chatter) I'm ready to go when you are, DJ.

For those who don't know me, this is the first song I ever wrote and recorded.

(intense, enigmatic music) ♪ (sniffs) ♪ (indistinct lyrics) (transcendent music) ♪ ♪ (Luis) The first time I tried meth-- and it was by accident-- that was July 2011.

I had no idea what I was doin'.

I felt reckless, I met up with this guy I met off the internet.

♪ I misunderstood the lingo he was using.

He said he was playing in the clouds, so, I thought he meant he was smoking pot, and at the time, for me, that was me being edgy-- like, going out, smoking pot with someone.

But then I got there, and it was, like, in a different kind of pipe.

♪ I didn't know what it was gonna do to me.

I just decided to try it, and then, it felt really good.

It's like I said, I got on the ride.

I didn't have any reason to get off.

It didn't stop feeling good.

♪ There's always an underlying tone of, like, me doing this work on myself, and really doing these introspective songs, and exploring every emotion that, um, it's about treating yourself like you're number one.

Like, the reason I'm doing this work and really looking at myself is because I want to be a better person.

Um...so, even if you hear, like, a really hype track to, like, a trap beat, or, like, you know, a softer song where I'm doing more melodic stuff, like, I'm doing my experimenting because I'm trying to figure out more of who I am, and throwing myself into art is-- has been the only way to do that for me.

(soft, tense music) ♪ I'm trying to reach the one person ♪ ♪ One person ♪ ♪ (bleep) all the haters, it's all about one ♪ ♪ Got a message from someone and he said my music garbage ♪ ♪ I admit, it hurt at first ♪ ♪ But that's not for you, regardless ♪ ♪ Trying to reach a human starvin' that's searching through the garbage ♪ ♪ Talking to the coppers from the drug that they'd be doing often ♪ ♪ Been at this for years though there's always room to grow ♪ ♪ With the cypher sessions, I wouldn't be this dude, you know ♪ ♪ Why my blessing's beautiful ♪ ♪ Never taking that for granted ♪ ♪ Who the (bleep) are you, tryin' to take this away from Brandon?

♪ ♪ Whether I go back to-- save your opinion ♪ ♪ I got control of my life ♪ ♪ I'm trying to reach the one person ♪ ♪ One person ♪♪ ♪ (Lessa) As a person in recovery, I need art, because it is what empowers me and... ...gives me strength, gives me courage.

It is my new medicine.

And it makes me feel... (dramatic rock music) ...on one side, grief and sadness, and on the other side, hope, and that courage, that strength.

♪ ♪ -Hi!

-Hi!

(Luis) I want to be able to say I have 15 years clean.

Like, right now, I want the happy ending to have already happened.

I want my picket fence.

I want all the darkness to be way in the past.

(indistinct chatter) At the same time, I'm sure there are, like, other artistic and creative people out there who are struggling with similar things but in different ways, trying to, you know, get back to their crazy selves without, you know, engaging in crazy, damaging behaviors.

That balance is gonna be really hard to find.

(transcendent music) ♪ ♪ (faint city sounds) (hyperkinetic rock music) ♪ (Ralph) Maybe this is part of the creative thing.

I still have, like, a very deep self-destructive streak.

There's something--like, to me, there's something almost-- it's almost comforting, the idea of, like, just, you know, self-destruction, which is really strange, 'cause I actually really love life.

♪ I was always into rock music, and I liked metal, and I liked, you know, I liked heavy music.

And I was a teenage alcoholic, and I was angry, and I was flipping around the radio, and I heard Maximum Rocknroll Radio on the stereo on my Toyota Corolla.

And I was like, "This is totally what I've been looking for."

Plus, my last name is Spight, so, what the (bleep) else was I gonna do, you know?

Start a punk rock band.

(melodic rock music) ♪ ♪ I've got a little fever down in my soul ♪ ♪ Located next to my need for control ♪ ♪ It isn't pretty, but it's all that I've got ♪ ♪ It makes me stink like decay and rot ♪ ♪ I never should have never got out of bed ♪ ♪ Got out of bed ♪ ♪ Got out of bed ♪ ♪ Whoa-oh ♪♪ ♪ (whooshing) (Joan) When I was really young, I spent a lot of time alone, and I spent a lot of time drawing and doing art and being very obsessive about it.

And when I was younger, it was a way of survival.

It was a way of, um, blocking everything out.

And I still get the same type of comfort from, like, doing that.

And I love capturing what I'm able to capture.

I feel like I connect better with people when I have a huge camera in front of my face.

It allows me to see something that is very unique about people.

(soft music) I think that generally when I show people their photograph, they... they're not sure whether they like it.

They definitely feel like it's revealing something about them.

Then they really start digging it.

(tapping) (funky music) (Peter) Be nonchalant.

(indistinct chatter) ♪ How's everybody doing tonight?

(audience exclaims) I heard a boo.

♪ (cheering) My drag name is U-Phoria, and that's straight up from doing drugs that made me feel good and Prince.

And it's also my favorite song by Michael Jackson.

So, it's a culmination of my experience.

And it's--it's neither male or female.

♪ It's one word.

So, I feel like I'm a really popular band in the future.

♪ (audience clapping) ♪ (cars whooshing) I was adopted and I went to live with these people, and my father was an alcoholic, and my mother was a rageaholic.

And so, it just got progressively worse for me.

And of course, I had my own little secrets about--about things.

Like, I had these feelings that I know the other kids didn't have, or I just felt other boys didn't have those feelings.

So, things progressively got worse at home.

(indistinct chatter) My father had left the building, and my mother was just-- she was spiraling down in her mental illnesses and her health.

I finally had had enough, so, I--I...I left.

So, I am thinking, "Oh, okay, I'm going to go, like, have a really amazing wild life as a prostitute under 15."

(bluesy music) ♪ (bird cooing) ♪ (Joan) I was in my addiction, uh, to heroin for 20 years, and that was nonstop, relentless.

I think that's all driven by, a pretty severe lack of self-esteem.

And, for me, just this, uh, overwhelming kind of feeling of hopelessness.

And that started really early for me from my childhood.

(guitar music) ♪ (bird squawking) ♪ I wound up homeless, as people usually do when heroin is more important than their rent, their food, or anything else.

(bird chirping) And then started stealing and robbing in order to support my habit.

♪ And then it happened pretty quickly, I think, like, over the course of probably like a year.

♪ I was arrested four times.

I was put in jail and going to be sentenced to prison.

(waves whooshing) What we do is kind of like a high-wire act, you know, because it's really, uh, it's--the music is really loud and fast and furious and, like, there's a lot of changes, and it's really--it's kinetic.

(lively music) ♪ To do what I did with that band required a lot of mental energy and, like, intensely physical music.

So, I actually wouldn't get drunk.

I mean, it was, like, constantly this thing of trying to manage the fact that I wanted to get obliterated, but I couldn't until after the show.

So, what it would be that I'd try to maintain so I could play the show, and then I'd be up until dawn, you know, finishing the job.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!

(intense music) I felt like I should have been super happy about how things were going.

I had this woman that I was, like, madly in love with and this band that was (bleep) great, and all I could think about was how I wanted to kill myself.

(horn blaring) (cars whooshing) (Peter) At some point, I crossed a line as far as art and drugs and alcohol was concerned, where I didn't think that I could create without it.

(mellow music) ♪ And that was a little scary for me, because it'd be like drinking, and then I'd be doing other substances and thinking that I had some sort of system to what I wanted to create.

So, if I wanted to create something wild and wacky, it would be crystal meth.

♪ The thing that is so incredible about hitting your bottom is that you've hit the same low several times before, and somebody says something that they said a hundred times before.

♪ ♪ Got no FUBU ♪ ♪ Then my friend said, "Do it somewhere else, I can't stand watching you do this to yourself over and over and over again."

(mellow electric guitar music) ♪ (Ralph) I basically had this moment where I didn't want my old life at all.

♪ For about a year, I just concentrated on being sober.

I didn't play, I didn't touch a guitar.

I didn't write songs.

I have more of a language for it now.

(indistinct lyrics) There's more shadings to my emotions.

I'm also older.

(indistinct lyrics) You live more, and so you see more of where you can be wistfully happy or depressed and grateful at the same time.

(laughing) I mean, I have these mash-ups of emotions that were just never possible before.

♪ But I'm not done talking to you ♪ ♪ You know there's not a lot I can do ♪ ♪ You're like a perfect stranger I never knew ♪♪ (wind howling) (Peter) The really strange thing about my crazy life was that when I found out, I walked outside and...I looked up in the sky and... (clearing throat) ...it--it's blue.

And I just had never even stopped to consider that it was blue.

(gentle piano music) When I got sober, this last time in 2000, I really didn't think it was gonna work.

♪ Now, when I look at it, I realized that it was probably part of the thing that kept me alive was art through the whole thing.

Art through my whole using period.

♪ Ah ♪♪ ♪ (indistinct vocalizing) ♪ (leaves rustling) ♪ (Joan) Recovery has allowed me to do anything and everything that I do.

So, it forms the foundation of who I am now.

(clattering) People like me, we need something to obsess over.

It's so much better when it's something healthy or something that gives you a lot of pleasure, as opposed to something that is destructive.

(camera shutter clicking) I admire people who can kind of separate that in their lives and don't have, like, addictive personalities, but I do.

I'm a workaholic... (laughing) ...but it's healthier.

It's definitely so much better than what I used to do with it.

So, I consider myself lucky.

(soft piano music) Yep.

(indistinct chatter) ♪ (upbeat guitar music) ♪ (Ralph) Two, three, four.

♪ ♪ Well, I woke up from a dreamless sleep ♪ ♪ I drank some decaf coffee, smoked a light cigarette ♪ ♪ I popped a near-beer and jumped on my scooter ♪ ♪ And I almost felt like I was really alive ♪ For me, songwriting is, on one hand, it's--it's great, I love it, but it's like 90% of the time it's just (bleep) torture.

It's the inspiration perspiration thing.

I want to get all high on the inspiration.

But, like, so much of, like, what we have to do has to do with, like, being able to show up... ♪ Bom, bom, bom ♪ ...'cause it's not the drugs, it's the mindset.

It's my addict mindset.

I keep running into this thing, like nothing's good enough.

This song's not good enough.

Like, my relationship isn't good enough.

Like, you know, my car isn't good enough.

My bicycle is a piece of (bleep), you know, like, my house sucks, you know, like, it's just the mind, just, like, it's constantly criticizing everything.

♪ The hardest thing to do is to just show up, let it all be, and like, "Okay, I'm just going to keep carving on this thing until it turns into something beautiful."

♪ Almost feel like I'm really alive ♪ ♪ I said I almost feel like I'm really alive ♪ ♪ Almost feel like I'm really alive ♪ ♪ I said I almost feel like I'm really alive ♪♪ ♪ (door squeaking) (engine puttering) (indistinct chatter) (Peter) It's probably the most organized move I've done in the last ten years.

(man) And how many moves have you made in the last ten years would you say?

(Peter) Like, five.

(engine puttering) I don't know where I would be without recovery.

Um... I think I'd probably be dead.

And then, above art, although recovery is sort of like an art, it's the way you choose to live your life.

(man) Lock her up.

I think that's all I want to say, is that above art and everything else, my recovery comes first.

(soft melancholy music) ♪ (indistinct chatter) ♪ (boat engine puttering) ♪ (man) Hi!

♪ (Kathy) I could never make art while I was drinking.

I have friends who definitely could and still do... ♪ ...and I had to get sober.

I had to be in recovery before I would even consider it.

For me, a lot of the-- my addictive behavior was to calm my fear, to treat my fear.

And I was so afraid.

Um, I mean, that's--that's how I lived.

♪ (Wes) I think when you're new in recovery, you have a lot of lies 'cause you you don't know what recovery is like 'cause you never lived it.

So, I was like, "It's not gonna be fun.

There's not gonna be music."

And I've kind of felt like the metaphor I use is a man who comes back from war.

"Thank God, Bob, you're alive."

"Right, but I got my legs blown off."

Meanwhile, my brother is saying, "You went farther than most people.

Your band did well.

Just come back to reality," kind of.

I was like, "Yeah, maybe you're right."

But it didn't feel right.

I would go to shows, see people play, and it would be like a kick in the gut.

Like, I should be up there playing.

(whooshing) (bluesy guitar music) ♪ ♪ (Jason) I was smoking weed and drinking beer on a regular basis by 11 or 12.

♪ Because it was escape.

♪ I needed to block out my feelings because my mom was dying, and she was in the room behind a closed door right over there, and we just pretended li-- I pretended like it wasn't happening.

♪ Drugs and alcohol and music helped block out my feelings.

♪ It just grew from there.

I started building up this emotional wall so that I wouldn't feel.

♪ My last band, Whiskey Belly, was all about getting (bleep) up.

♪ The prerequisite was you had to be an alcoholic.

♪ I had never played sober.

So, the idea, I guess, intimidated me.

♪ (spirited music) ♪ (Kathy) I never had any notion that I could make art.

I believed that you either could or you couldn't.

The concept that maybe you could learn was not in my universe.

I just didn't.

It didn't ever occur to me that I could.

I did have to take one studio class for my art history major, and I didn't do very well in it.

I mean, was the first thing I did.

It was a sculpture class.

It was my only C in college, and I think that sealed the deal.

I said, "Well, uh, I'm never going to be able to make it, but I can appreciate it."

♪ (paper rustling) ♪ I think I was an alcoholic from the get-go.

♪ From the time I was a little child, I was always looking for something outside of myself to put inside myself to make myself feel better.

(projector whirring) When I was six, we went to my grandmother's for Christmas.

She had decorated her Christmas tree with Hershey Kisses.

I wanted to eat them all.

My mother said no, my grandmother said yes, and my grandmother won.

And so I did.

Now, by the time Christmas dinner was ready, I was green and my mom took me to the emergency room.

She didn't know what was wrong.

And I threw up all over the ER.

I remember that at Christmas time because that's the way I drank too.

(distant siren) (energetic rock music) ♪ (cheering) ♪ (Wes) Well, the guitar became my best friend in high school.

I just really isolated with my guitar and I had by this time discovered rock music.

And, so, I would smoke pot and just go into this zone, and I would come out four hours later like, "Wow," you know?

And, uh, it was giving me results.

(intense rock music) ♪ ♪ Hey, yeah ♪ What drugs, drinking, using do to me is a different reaction than somebody who takes a pill and goes, "Ooh, I felt kind of weird, I better to chill out."

I'm like, "I feel weird.

I'm way too wasted.

What else do you have?"

I was on crystal meth every day for probably three years.

I mean, literally every day without stopping.

I lived on it.

(energetic rock music) ♪ Now you have something that keeps you up for days on end.

Music and creation takes a lot of energy.

And I just went nutso with that.

And our band started doing really well.

We became the talk of the town, selling out local clubs.

♪ And that felt really good.

So, you couldn't tell me I had a problem.

This is my elixir.

This is the thing that's doing everything for me.

Um, it was my-- my creative juice at that time.

(car whooshes past) (Jason) I was still performing when I was, uh, doing heroin, but when I started doing crack, no.

There was no way I was gonna get on stage when I was doing that.

And there were certainly times where I was too drunk to play and made a fool of myself and the band.

(silverware clattering) (door slams) (remote car lock beeps) It was pretty easy to sit on a barstool and dream about how it used to be and resent the world for not recognizing who I was.

(mellow rock music) ♪ One of the reasons why I stopped playing, it was a broken dream.

It wasn't gonna happen 'cause I was a loser.

I was unmotivated, unguidable.

I just, you know, nobody could correct my path.

It was just veering left and crashing.

♪ And then when I got sober, I think I just kind of shunned all that and didn't want to... ♪ I don't know, I found sculpting, so I didn't have to face that.

♪ It used to be that I would have something in mind and then I'd try to find a stone that would fit it.

And now I just go with... I'm just drawn to it.

This one, there's just-- there's curve and movement in it already.

And, so, it'll be something abstract with folds, some drapery, something like that, but I don't know yet.

Usually it takes a long time to see something that, you know, it's gonna turn into, but this one is a definite.

(birdsong) (Kathy) What was frightening me the most was that I knew that I was bad... and my purpose in life was to hide that fact from the rest of the world.

My deepest fear was that others would find out the truth about me.

That I was no good... uh, and incapable of being good.

Frankly, I have learned that I was wrong.

It's not that I'm-- I'm not bad.

I--I have this disease.

(birdsong) Finding my way to be able to make art was as powerful a change as my getting sober.

It took longer.

It wasn't that I stopped drinking and the next month I went out and bought some canvases.

No.

Um, it was a gradual thing in several-- you know, in several steps.

(bright rock music) ♪ (Wes) To talk about the creative high, I have to go back to rehab when I had been crushed by my addiction to where, like most people, everything you love has no value.

♪ You know, your insecurities and cliquiness, you're like, "I like that guy.

He's a jerk.

He's weird."

There's a lot of division.

It's self-imposed, I think.

But I would whip out my guitar in--on breaks and we'd do these silly songs, and everybody would start singing and dancing and, like, having a-- having a good time.

It would bring us all together and break down walls, and that always stuck with me.

(lively rock music) ♪ Okay, universe, how can I help people and make a living?

I'm a musician and a sober dude.

Instead of being like, "Poor me, I've been sentenced to sobriety and being a broke musician," there's got to be some way to help people.

♪ And I went back to that time of like, well, there's not music in treatment centers.

So, the idea was to try to bring that high to them in a creative sense, but not just to musicians, to non-musicians, right?

♪ Music's in all of us.

♪ (chisel tapping) (solemn music) ♪ (Jason) I was probably in my first year when it was my birthday, I guess I was 37, and my dad wanted to get me a birthday present, but no idea what to get me.

♪ So, he got me a stone carving starter kit for kids.

You know, little pieces of soapstone and little rasps, something that you get a kid in fifth grade or something like that.

It's like, "Oh, thanks, Dad."

♪ I said, "Well, what the hell?"

Looked at it and said, "Okay, I can see something in there and I'll give it a try."

♪ About three hours later, I just emerged from this meditative state with a sculpture that I still have today and was just completely lost in--and--in la-la land.

♪ For my 50th birthday, I gave myself permission to take a drawing class.

And there I was, sitting in this classroom drawing.

And the experience was not at all what I thought it was going to be.

The teacher was so encouraging and gentle and... And--and that was the start.

I was still afraid of color.

I was not gonna deal with color.

That was just too scary.

There was too much emotion in it.

But after a few years of drawing, I started painting, and I got into color with a vengeance.

(energetic music) ♪ Just a beginning, you know?

I mean, it's-- You can see it's sort of the intersection between intent and chance.

♪ The interplay between having an idea, working toward it, guiding it, and letting it be what it is.

♪ The whole, uh, paradigm shifts when my goal in life is to help other people.

And what a beautiful thing it is when I can talk about doing meth and all these mistakes I've made in life, but that's how you and I connect, 'cause you're like, "Wow, me too."

Putting it all together, making it all happen.

(energetic rock music) (Wes) It's like, really, what I was taught recovery is all about is just learning to carry the message to other people.

There's no greater joy than watching people come in near death, and a year later, they're just, like, these incredible humans.

See ya in a few, homie.

♪ -Yo, here you go.

-Thank you.

♪ (cheering) ♪ (Wes) Yo!

We wanted to create a cool, sober event.

And, so, when we walk out of here tonight, I want you all hopefully to feel a little lighter and a little brighter and know that recovery is amazing.

That's our hope, that's our dream.

(energetic rock music) ♪ ♪ This is our night ♪ ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ ♪ ♪ We're coming a long way ♪♪ ♪ (Wes) Our heads love to lie to us.

They'll say, "You can't do guitar sober," you know, all these things you can't do.

And we have to understand that's an outright lie.

The talent lies within you.

It wasn't the drug giving it to you.

And music is the most beautiful thing sober.

When you actually realize, "I can't drink or smoke weed or do any of that weird stuff anymore to escape," then music takes on a whole new magic meaning, because it does become the way that you go into the rabbit hole.

It becomes the elixir, becomes the transformative magic element in your life.

(water flowing) (electric chisel buzzing) (Jason) I know that I'm a pleasure seeker and that I love instant gratification.

But when I'm over there working, it's just a release.

I'm free to soar.

And if I didn't have a passion, God, I'm just afraid life would be boring and, you know, I need that high that drugs and alcohol used to give me.

And, fortunately, I found something, you know, a sufficient substitute.

(laughs) (soft music) ♪ (indistinct chatter) ♪ (Kathy) I think art points toward the transcendent, you know?

It's--it's a guide, just as... Um... ♪ It's a spiritual practice.

And it's--it's also, even if you don't do it, even if you're simply appreciating others' art, it can point you toward the transcendent.

♪ It enables us to address the unanswerable questions.

♪ I always needed to have the answer before.

It was about, "What's the answer?

What's the answer?"

Maybe it's just about pondering what cannot be answered, you know?

The mystery.

♪ (pigeons cooing) ♪ (sentimental music) ♪ ♪ (solemn music) ♪ ♪ (energetic music) ♪ (energetic rock music) ♪ (man) ♪ I got a little fever down in my soul located next to my need for control ♪ ♪ It isn't pretty but it's all that I got ♪ ♪ It makes me stink like decay and rot ♪ ♪ Well, I can see the little smirk on your face while I wallow in my demon disgrace ♪ ♪ I never should've got out of bed ♪ ♪ Got out of bed ♪ ♪ Got out of bed ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪ ♪ Whoa-oh ♪ ♪ Oxygen Tent ♪♪