Warren Savage: From Anchorman to Drug Addict

Transcript from CNN Interview by Whitefield:

"For 10 years, his was the face and voice waking up Atlanta ( Good morning. I'm Warren Savage.) Then one morning, Warren Savage was the lead story. His mug shot plastered everywhere. Savage in his early 40s, busted for drug possession. Watching his fall from grace from a jail cell."
SAVAGE: it was humiliating. I mean, total embarrassment.
WHITFIELD: A dream job.
SAVAGE: Ten years had risen to this level. I mean, I'm very proud of.
WHITFIELD: A bachelor. Six-figure salary, cars, two houses.
SAVAGE: You were the number one local morning news show in the country, and I was very proud of that.
WHITFIELD: A dream life.
SAVAGE: It just got to the point where you know things just didn't matter to me.
WHITFIELD: All of it concealing a nightmare.
SAVAGE: They didn't know that Warren was depressed. That Warren was unhappy. They didn't know that Warren was very dissatisfied.
WHITFIELD: Depression had taken over.
SAVAGE: I went from depression to denial to detention.
WHITFIELD: But not but all at once. First -
SAVAGE: Dissatisfied with the news business. Dissatisfied with office politics.
WHITFIELD: So he abruptly quit his job minutes before he was to go on the air.
SAVAGE: I regret the way I left. I don't know that I regret leaving but I regret the way that I left.
WHITFIELD: Moved to Vegas.
SAVAGE: I thought that I'd be happier playing music. Las Vegas is a land of excesses.
WHITFIELD: Excesses that in his case translated into a lot of drugs and an overdose of bad judgment. He thought returning to the less glittery and slower paced Atlanta might be a quick fix.
SAVAGE: I had the presence of mind that you know the environment that I was in was not healthy. But you know addiction is merely a symptom of all the stuff that's screwed up in us. I mean, that's what I had to realize that my addiction was a symptom of everything that was wrong with me. And the things that I needed to fix with me. The character defects that I had to identify, to address and things, I mean, that I was struggling with for years. I mean, things that I didn't even know why I was unhappy.
WHITFIELD: Things like?
SAVAGE: Striving to be perfect. I was always a perfectionist. I put - I was always hard on myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Undue pressure on myself. And I think I put a lot of undue pressure on a lot of people.
WHITFIELD: The fast lane in Vegas now behind him. But a blurry $100,000 a year cocaine habit was still driving Savage. A traffic stop in rural Forsythe county outside Atlanta put the brakes on everything.
SAVAGE: From Warren Savage sitting in, you know, suits and ties, dwindled down to an orange jumpsuit in the Forsythe county jail asking myself, how did I get here?
WHITFIELD: And how to get back on track. And there's more. This is just the beginning. Warren Savage said he had to lose everything to get what he needed. Find out what he needed in the second part of my interview.

SAVAGE: I was heading down a destructive path, headed for a cliff. And not for my arrest, I would have gone over that cliff.

WHITFIELD: From seemingly on top of the world Atlanta morning anchorman to rolling the dice in Vegas as a musician in search of true happiness to Warren Savage, hooked on cocaine, busted for drug possession. The fall was hard.
SAVAGE: I had to lose everything that I had to get what I needed. And that was humility and a real sense of who I am. I had to lose all of that stuff.
WHITFIELD: A big salary, cars, two houses, local celebrity.
SAVAGE: Good morning. I'm Warren Savage, and you're not. You know, that type of attitude had to be knocked down.
WHITFIELD: But you were comfortable with that for awhile. You admitted that to me.
SAVAGE: I was. I was comfortable with that for awhile. But after awhile, it became so vain. It wasn't me. I mean, it wasn't me. I -- I began to feel unlike me. And trying to be someone that I'm not. A lot of character defects. I was a very egotistical, very arrogant argumentative. I was hard on other people. I didn't realize until after I got arrested.
WHITFIELD: With this image on the air, instead of reporting the news, he was now the lead story. Savage painfully realized this was no longer about just him.
SAVAGE: I got so many letters, so many letters from so many people. I mean, I well up even today when I read them. They are just so heartwarming and encouraging.
WHITFIELD: Tired of dismissing his depression, running away reality, Savage pleaded guilty to drug possession in exchange for 18 months of enforced rehabilitation. Rehab now complete, he lives modestly in rural Georgia. His bike, his most valued possession, getting him to work stocking shelves overnight at a retailer.
SAVAGE: I was heading down a destructive path, heading for a cliff. And if not for my arrest, I would have gone over that cliff. I try to do the best I can one day at a time. And I know -- I know if I had to speak -- if I could speak to children now, I could speak to children. There are only two roads that lead, that drug addiction, that drug use. Any drug that lead, jail or the graveyard. There's only two roads. I mean, that's it. That's it.
WHITFIELD: Hopeful, anyone else fighting this same kind of inner demons on the road to almost certain self-destruction, or worse, can learn from his wild ride.
SAVAGE: We all have demons. We all have things we're dealing with. Sometimes you think you know your neighbor. Sometimes you think you know your co-worker who you work side by side, next to every day. You never know what they are masking.
WHITFIELD: If that was Warren Savage then. Who have you discovered Warren Savage is now?
SAVAGE: I have a purpose. I think I know what my purpose is. And I think it is to help other people. I think it is to help other people who may feel like they are hopeless and that they are helpless. And that they can turn their lives around.
WHITFIELD: He hasn't mapped out what's next or whether he'll get back into television. But admits it's impossible to plan ahead without reflecting often on exactly where he has been.
SAVAGE: I had to learn that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the road back is paved with humility. And I needed to be on that road.
WHITFIELD: And nearly four months now after rehabilitation, Warren Savage admits it is still one day at a time, just like it is for anyone who is trying to kick an addiction.

Meassage from "Reaching the Invisible God" by Phillip Yancy

"The Christian has a great advantage over other men, not by being less fallen than they, nor less doomed to live in fallen world, but by knowing that he is a fallen man in a fallen world." -- C.S. Lewis

A pilgrim "who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of who to thank." --- Frederick Buechner

"I die of thirst, here at the fountainside." ---- Richard Wilbur

"This is hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (Disciples)

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" (Jesus)

"Lord, to whom shall we go?" (Simon Peter) John 6:68

"Your faith has healed you"

"Overtime, I have grown more comfortable with mystery rather than certainty. God does not twist arms and never forces us into a corner with faith in himself as the only exit. We can never present the Final proof, to ourselves or to anyone else. We will always, with Pascal, see "too much to deny and too little to be sure..."

Jesus often made it harder, not easier, for people to believe. He never violate an individual's freedom to decide, even to decide against him. ... And Jesus's story of the prodigal son reveals a divine attitude of forgiveness-in-advance that may seem indulgent and risky, but it did restore a dead son to life. "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," ... I have concluded its converse is also true: "Truth" that does not set free is not truth.

Gradually those doubts settles into a lesser place, or found resolution, and they did so, I think , because fear melted away. I learned that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. One of John Donne's Holy Sonnets contains the mysterious line, "Churches are best for prayer, that have least light." ... After all, we lean on God out of need, not out of surplus.

As Thomas Graham, dean of a theological school, put it, faith is reason gone courageous - not the opposite of reason, to be sure, but something more than reason and never satisfied by reason alone. A step always remains beyond the range of light.

Private Jackson's Bible Quotes in Saving Private Ryan

On the Beach:
Private Jackson: Be not Thou far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near; haste Thee to help me.
[lining up a rifle shot and killed the German machine gunner]

---

On the Street:
Private Jackson: O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me.
[lining up a rifle shot at the tower and killed the German sniper]

On the Tower: Psalm 144:1-2
Private Jackson: Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
[lining up a rifle shot]
Private Jackson: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust, (who subdueth my people under me),

[He did not finish the verse before a tank gun killed both him and his friend]
Youtube link for Private Jackson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFCpslqr1tQ

---

James, earn this, earn it!

This is the last words of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) in "Saving Private Ryan". I know Lord is saying the same thing to me when he died in pain on the cross two thousand years ago.

The whole rescue does not make sense to the soldiers on the mission, as said by Private Reiben: "You want to explain the math of this to me? I mean, where's the sense in risking the lives of the eight of us to save one guy?"

Pvt. Reiben: Even if you think the misson's FUBAR, Captain? (Fubar means Nonesense, I think)

Capt. Miller: Especially if you think the mission's FUBAR.

The mission did not stop when they found Ryan. Now Ryan did not think he should be saved. He did not asked to be saved, nor did he want to. Ryan: "It doesn't make sense, sir. I mean, why me? Why not any of us?"

The mission made no sense mathematically, it made no sense practically. No one can answer Ryan's question. What Ryan did not understand is that it was not about him anymore, it is about all that they were fighting or dying for: the humanity that was lost in Europe under Adolf Hitler. If no one was willing to die for this mission, the Americans were no different from the Hitlers and it made no sense to even fight the war.

Lord died for us not because it made sense under any human reasoning. He died because it is the only way to lead us from darkness to light. We are lost and need to be found, we are blind and need to regain the eye sight, we are imprisoned by our sins and need to be set free, we are oppressed by fears and need to be released.

What else can He do? He did not have to die, or must he? Every day I need to ask myself: did I earn the new life I received from Him? I hope at the end of this journey, I can say the same words as Older Ryan in the cemetery: "... And I've tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me."

《前赤壁赋》

苏轼
壬戌之秋，七月既望，苏子与客泛舟游于赤壁之下。清风徐来，水波不兴。举酒属客，诵明月之诗，歌窈窕之章。少焉，月出于东山之上，徘徊于斗牛之间。白露横江，水光接天。纵一苇之所如，凌万顷之茫然。浩浩乎如冯虚御风，而不知其所止；飘飘乎如遗世独立，羽化而登仙。于是饮酒乐甚，扣舷而歌之。歌曰："桂棹兮兰桨，击空明兮溯流光。渺渺兮于怀，望美人兮天一方。"客有吹洞萧者，倚歌而和之，其声呜呜然：如怨如慕，如泣如诉；余音袅袅，不绝如缕；舞幽壑之潜蛟，泣孤舟之嫠妇。苏子愀然，正襟危坐，而问客曰："何为其然也？"客曰："月明星稀，乌鹊南飞，此非曹孟德之诗乎？西望夏口，东望武昌。山川相缪，郁乎苍苍；此非孟德之困于周郎者乎？方其破荆州，下江陵，顺流而东也，舳舻千里，旌旗蔽空，酾酒临江，横槊赋诗；固一世之雄也，而今安在哉？况吾与子，渔樵于江渚之上，侣鱼虾而友糜鹿，驾一叶之扁舟，举匏樽以相属；寄蜉蝣与天地，渺沧海之一粟。哀吾生之须臾，羡长江之无穷；挟飞仙以遨游，抱明月而长终；知不可乎骤得，托遗响于悲风。"苏子曰："客亦知夫水与月乎？逝者如斯，而未尝往也；盈虚者如彼，而卒莫消长也。盖将自其变者而观之，而天地曾不能一瞬；自其不变者而观之，则物于我皆无尽也。而又何羡乎？且夫天地之间，物各有主。苟非吾之所有，虽一毫而莫取。惟江上之清风，与山间之明月，耳得之而为声，目遇之而成色。取之无禁，用之不竭。是造物者之无尽藏也，而吾与子之所共适。"客喜而笑，洗盏更酌，肴核既尽，杯盘狼藉。相与枕藉乎舟中，不知东方之既白。

加州旅店

加州旅店是Eagles最有名的一首，歌曲的最后一段说出我们每一个人都活在自我的囚牢里，我们无法杀死自己内心的野兽，我们可以结帐，却永远也无法离开。

Hotel California
...
Mirrors on the ceiling,The pink champagne on ice, and she said:"We are all just prisoners here, Of our own device"

And in the master's chambers They gathered for the feast They stabbed it with their steely knives But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was running for the door,I had to find the passage back to the place I was before, "Relax," said the night man, "We are programmed to receive, You can check out anytime you like... but you can never leave”


如经上所记：“神给他们昏睡的灵，看不见的眼，听不见的耳，直到今日。”大卫也说，“愿他们的筵席成为陷阱，成为网罗，成为绊脚石，作对他们的报应”【罗马书11：8-9】

没有义人，连一个也没有，没有明白的，没有寻求神的；都是偏离正路，一同变为无用；没有行善的，连一个也没有。平安的路，他们未曾知道；他们眼中不怕神【罗马书3：10-17】

原来神的忿怒，从天上显示在那些以不义抑制真理之人一切的不虔不义上。
他们虽明知神公义的判决，行这样事的人是当死的，然而他们不但自己去行，还与那些行这样事的人同欢，以他们为乐【罗马书1：18&32】

但我是属肉的，是已经卖给罪了。因为我所行出来的，我不认可；我所愿意的，我并不作；我所恨恶的，我倒去作。我知道住在我里面，就是我肉体之中，并没有善，因为立志为善由得我，只是行出来由不得我。因为我所愿意的善，我反不作；我所不愿意的恶，我倒去作。但我看出我肢体中另有个律，和我心思的律交战，借着那在我肢体中罪的律，把我掳去。我是个苦恼的人！谁要救我脱离那属这死的身体？感谢神，借着我们的主耶稣基督！因为生命之灵的律，在基督耶稣里已经释放了我，使我脱离了罪与死的律。【罗马书7章】

既然照着神的智慧，世人凭自己的智慧，未曾认识神，神就乐意借着所传之事的愚拙，拯救那些信的人。【哥林多前书1：21】

因为世人都犯了罪，亏缺了神的荣耀；如今却蒙神的恩典，因基督耶稣的救赎，就白白地称义。【罗马书3：23-24】

写给一岁生日的Emma

从去年10月1日到今天，转眼已是一年了，惭愧的是做爸爸的我还没写过一个字给Emma。 我常常感谢神：赐给我们这个孩子，让我从Emma的眼睛里读出祂无言的爱。

Emma的出生还像是昨天。主日晚上10点钟，我们正要休息，她妈突然说我们得去医院啦！我们穿好衣服就冲出去，在路上我才发现双手在方向盘上不停地抖。我除了祷告，真不知道该如何平静我的心。。。。经过漫长的一天，Emma在晚上10点20分与我们见面。我看着一头汗水的Jin抱着她坐在病床上，就像一幅人间最美的图画。 我知道，我从来没有收到过比她更宝贵的礼物。

因为爸爸妈妈在这里帮忙，我们把主耶稣带给他们，他们则把完全的爱带给了Emma。Emma的健康成长离不开外公外婆白天黑夜的照顾。我没有见过我的外婆，可我知道外婆的爱是既无私，又温暖，而且无微不至的。

自从有了Emma，我们家就像上满了发条的闹钟，每天热热闹闹，忙忙碌碌。 Emma的能量可不小，甚至远在四川的爷爷奶奶和北京的叔叔也被她像磁铁一样吸引着。 只要有她的新照片，新录影，爷爷一定赋诗一首。 我们已经可以出版她的诗集了！ 连她叔叔也急着要找女朋友，想尽快生一个像Emma一样乖的宝宝。 我们再也不用催他考虑终身大事了。

Emma的成长，教会我很多生命的精彩与生命的律。没有经过为人父母的过程，实在是很难体会到其中的种种神奇。 孩子从豌豆大的时候就有了心跳，从B超的照片里感受神创造的大能，无不让我惊叹。

Emma刚生下来的一段时间，体重不增反减，我们曾为了让她长几个盎司想尽办法；后来又担心她半岁了坐不稳，9个月了也不爬。最后都是多余。每个孩子不一样，神有祂自己的律，我们除了爱心，还要多一些耐心和对神的信心。

今天是Emma一岁的生日，她会看着我喊“爸爸”，我真觉得那是我最幸福的一刻。我感谢和赞美我们的神，祂不仅让我们全家在主里得了自由和满足，更借着Emma给了我们最好的产业。愿她在主的爱里成长为一个爱主的好孩子！