Brand Reveals Addiction Stemmed From Attempt to Create Sacred Space Apart From God

What was said

"I was trying to improvise a kind of holiest of holies, an inner sanctum. I was trying to create a space for kind of deep intimacy with God. But because this, you know, still quiet voice is, uh, in some ways subtle..."

Russell Brand reframed his decades of drug addiction, bulimia, and compulsive behaviors as misguided attempts to create sacred solitude and intimacy with the divine. He described a pattern of seeking isolation through substances and destructive habits, explaining that even before understanding the concept of the sacred, he was unconsciously trying to build a space for encountering God. This insight emerged from comparing his addictive patterns to Christian contemplative practices.