"Drugs, porn, booze, sex, fame, money, other people's approval are all going to be prized and pursued over the coming years.
The problem is, and I know you don't know this, you're good at getting stuff you want, so everything on that list -- each word for you an exciting pang and a thrilling goal -- will come into your little life and it falls to me to tell you that none of that stuff is going to help with the loneliness, thinking or sadness."
.....
"Now I'm not going to tell you to not take drugs or drink or go crazy chasing girls and fame -- you hate being told what to do.
No, take all the drugs you want. Drink yourself into police cells and hospitals. Talk yourself into fights that are going to be hard to talk your way out of as you plunge into the powders and the rocks and bottles looking for something that's not there.
It's going to take you to some dark places and you're going to meet some desperate people, in crack houses and whore houses, in parties so glamorous that they're lit by flash bulbs and other people's envious attention.
In all those places you're gonna see the same sadness and feel the same loneliness.
Do it all. Go nuts. You're gonna do it anyway. Just know that it can't make you happy.
In fact, no externally acquired thing can help you."
....
Wow.
Often we look at people like Russell Brand and we can intensely dislike all that they stand for, so much of what he has done has been destructive not only to himself, but also to others.
Then you read something like this and you realise that behind it all is someone who is lost and who needs God, who we are called to love rather than judge. Who may even have something worth saying.
Someone who we should be praying will find that light, that help, that answer to the loneliness and the emptiness and the darkness.
