In this single‑speaker Book Thinkers video, Nick Hutchison delivers a detailed review of Doug Cartwright’s memoir/guide Holy Sh!t We’re Alive: Now What?. Hutchison opens by praising the book’s compelling introduction, which frames Cartwright’s psychedelic‑spurred spiritual journey as an ex‑Mormon millionaire seeking deeper meaning. He highlights the book’s central theme of perspective‑shifting – using cosmic scale analogies (1 in 4 trillion chance of being born, Earth as a thumb‑sized speck) and the personal “Memento Mori” tattoo to prioritize time and reduce anxiety. Hutchison then delves into Cartwright’s extensive experimentation with psychedelics and a wide array of healing modalities (ayahuasca, crystals, astrology, Reiki, breathwork, meditation retreats, biohacking, etc.), emphasizing a crucial caution: psychedelics provide a roadmap but do not do the inner work for you. He cites recent scientific research from Johns Hopkins and UC Berkeley showing psychedelics’ therapeutic promise for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and addiction, and warns against chasing ceremonies without integration. Hutchison also notes Cartwright’s business insights, describing him as a successful entrepreneur who follows gut instincts and a sense of divine guidance. Concluding, Hutchison recommends the book for readers interested in entertaining, psychedelic‑informed personal development, praising its writing and urging viewers to comment, ask questions, or DM him. The video ends with a friendly sign‑off encouraging further reading.
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This book had one of the best introductions that I've read in a very long time. Doug kicks off this book by saying, hey, this is my story. It's the psychedelically sparked spiritual journey of an ex-Mormon millionaire. And when I read that, I was scratching my head. I'm like, geez, I'm probably in for a wild ride here. And I wasn't wrong, but I loved this book. So Book Thinkers family, today I will give you my review of Holy We're Alive by Doug Cartwright. And the subtitle reads, Now What? Which is a great subtitle because this book helps you navigate through some of life's bigger questions, which is exactly what Doug did. He's very transparent. He's open. He's vulnerable. But he wrote about it in a very interesting way. So this book does have a psychedelic undertone, which I just mentioned about the introduction. And I thought that was fascinating. I love psychedelics, but it also does deal with some of the bigger questions and creates perspective, which I really value in personal development books. So in the beginning of the book, Doug sets off to create that perspective that we're talking about. He says some of the things that you might hear, like, we have a 1 in 4 trillion chance of even being born. Like, do you realize your grandparents' grandparents' grandparents had to meet, and if that never happened, you wouldn't be here? Be grateful. He also talks about zooming out, and he says, look, look at Earth, you know, in an entire map or picture of the solar system, and you could pretty much just cover it up with your thumb, and you start to realize that all All of our problems on Earth are pretty insignificant. Even the wars and the pollution and the politics and all this kind of crazy stuff. If Earth exploded tomorrow, it wouldn't even create a dent in the universe. He says if you held a photon, a beam of light, in your hand, it could travel around the Earth 7.5 times in just 1 second. How close is the nearest star to where we are today? It would take you 4.5 years of traveling at that speed to reach it. Through absolutely nothing, dark matter, blackness, space. So again, Earth is so tiny. And what that does for me is it does help me kind of prioritize my time. It allows me to stop creating anxiety over the smallest little problems, and it helps me kind of zoom out and think of bigger things. Some of you guys know if you've been following Book Thinkers for a while that I have a tattoo on my chest that says Memento Mori. Which is remember your own death or mortality. And that helps me prioritize my time. Stop worrying so much about the little stuff. Focus on life's bigger problems. And that's kind of what Doug does through this book. He also has some really goofy examples that make you think, like, about this perspective thing. He says, as an example, what about this? Imagine we discovered one of the other 200 quintillion planets had humans just like us living there. Everything was the same. They looked like us, spoke similar languages, they drove cars, they had jobs, but for whatever reason, they had no animals. If they got on a spaceship, came to Earth, and saw a pet dog, they would be blown away. Their jaws would drop, and they'd claim we live with furry aliens. That would be— or they would be completely overwhelmed and awed by what seems so ordinary to us. And I started thinking, that's true. I mean, we're so fixed in our perspectives of how things should be There's 7.7 billion of us on this planet, and each one of us thinks that we know what should be happening, and we get upset when it doesn't happen that way. Like, zoom out a little bit. And Doug does a great job at providing a bunch of other metaphors right in the beginning of the book that will help you do that. So this book does deal with a lot of psychedelics. Doug details his journey trying a bunch of different things, and I think that's fascinating. So he has a word of caution that I'd like to read because this is really important. It'll give you his perspective on psychedelics. It's actually back-to-back pages that I'd like to read, but it's really important information. He says a lot of amazing things are happening in the psychedelic space these days, and the science behind the positive influence they can have on our health and well-being is staggering. Prestigious universities such as Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley have both recently opened research centers dedicated to the study of psychedelics. The results of their studies are nothing short of miraculous for people suffering from the long-term effects of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and addiction. Psychedelics have been shown to greatly reduce and sometimes even eliminate these difficult issues that pharmaceuticals have never been able to adequately address. He goes on to say that the purpose of using psychedelics And visiting such spiritual healing space is to improve the quality of our human lives, not just to hang out, get buzzed, and be treated to trails and trippy versions or trippy visions. A common mistake that people fall into when they start experimenting with psychedelics is getting caught up in the next ceremony, breakthrough, insight, download, or visual without ever doing any self-healing in between. He said by his 7th time doing ayahuasca, Which is a crazy amount. Uh, that was pretty much where I found myself, focused on the next ceremony rather than doing the work. One of the other things he says in this book about psychedelics is that they don't do the work for you, they simply provide the roadmap. He has another great metaphor where he says you could read every single book on the planet about doing push-ups, you could watch YouTube videos about the perfect form, you could even interview Guinness World Record holders for push-ups. But unless you sit down and do the work, it's not going to get done. You're not going to become more muscular and be able to improve your body. The same thing with psychedelics. They will make you aware of things that you weren't aware of before, but they don't just solve your problems. Self-love doesn't just happen overnight. Healing doesn't just happen overnight. You need to be very careful with this stuff. If you think like I did that you've tried a lot of this kind of woo-woo stuff before, check out the list of stuff that Doug has done. Crystals, astrology, physics, Reiki, ecstatic dance, EMDR, silent meditation retreats in the mountains, which I'm jealous of, yoga retreats in the US, Costa Rica, Bali, sound bath work, cryotherapy, which I've done and it's really cool, Bulletproof and biohacking. I just had Bulletproof coffee with my ghee butter and my MCT a minute ago. Holotropic breathwork, Wim Hof Method, neurotherapy, fireside camps at Burning Man, so many psychedelics, which he says, by the way, have worked the best for him, float camps in the mountains of Utah and California, hiring personal meditation coaches, hiring personal spiritual coaches, tarot cards, and the list goes on. He has done so many incredible things, and like I said, he details his experience with all of them in this book. There's also, which I think I mentioned before, some great business advice in here. He's been a very successful business person. He follows his gut. He believes in divine intervention and faith in, in some way, shape, or form. And you'll learn a lot in here. So what's the moral of the story? This was a crazy book. If you're looking to be entertained, if you're looking to be glued to the pages, if you're interested in psychedelics and you're interested in kind of personal self-exploration or self-love or whatever that might mean to you, then pick up a copy of this book. I'm not kidding, it was really well written and I really enjoyed it. So Doug Cartwright, thank you for getting in touch with us, and I'm happy that I read the book. It's really, really good. Book Thinkers family, comment down below if you've read this book, drop your thoughts. If you have any questions, drop your thoughts, and, uh, feel free to DM me as well. Take care, go read something. Bye!
