Fear and Loathing in the Kingdom Hall
My memoir follows the religious exile, Seattle's underground, addiction, and the long work of building a life afterward. Read the live manuscript, or watch the chapter excerpt above.
Read the memoir →Joshua Hale · The story behind the work
I wanted a life
I could show up for.
I spent years clawing my way out of systems that told me who to be, what to believe, and what I needed to survive. Religion. Addiction. Debt. Then a business I built myself. Leaving each one was only half the work. I had to build something I could live in afterward.
Today I help small-business owners build useful systems with AI, and work with Freedom Builders learning to take more control of their tools and their lives.
Leaving, then learning to build
At 16, the world I knew fell away.
I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. At 16, I fell in love outside the faith and faced a choice that cost me the community I'd grown up in.
“I chose love. Which meant choosing exile from everyone I'd ever known.”
That was the beginning of the story, not the permanent state of my family. We've rebuilt relationships and mutual respect across that difference in belief.
A different scene. Another dependency.
Seattle's underground music scene became my next world. I was DJ Noisemaker, playing warehouse parties, and what felt like freedom became a long struggle with addiction.
For years, heroin was part of that life. I thought I had escaped control, but I was arranging my days around another dependency. Different rules. Same loss of choice.
Laura and I got sober in 2012. Meditation helped me sit with feelings I had spent years avoiding. At 33, I needed a list of feeling words to describe what was happening inside me. I knew mad, sad, and happy. There was a lot more to learn.
Recovery meant building ordinary things I could rely on: honest conversations, relationships, and a day I did not need to escape.
The life came first
A home, a family,
and work with a place in it.
Some of the first glimpses of that life came on trips to my future mother-in-law's farm to paint the barn. I wanted more of what I felt out there. Laura and I went on to build a rural, multigenerational home with family.
Becoming a father made the question concrete: what kind of world was I helping my daughter grow up in? I wanted her to have a community she could belong to without having to agree with everyone in it.
During the December 2025 flood, we filled sandbags at our mutual aid home base. Then the levee broke. We went upstream and found an overflowing pond with blocked drainage. With the neighbor's permission and help, we dug new paths for the water. By dark, the shop was safe.
The relationships were already there when we needed them. So were the sandbags. Years of showing up for each other made that day possible.
In April 2026, I was deep in a launch when 80 chicks arrived a day early. I left the desk, helped build their brooders, got them settled, and came back to the work. Landing pages, birds, family, all in the same day.
I still DJ. I still work with my hands. This is the life I'm trying to make room for, and I'm still figuring parts of it out.
How the business began
A recording for myself became my first offer.
I was working in restaurants and knew how to make music. I used those audio skills to record affirmations in my own voice, something I wanted for myself. Then a friend asked me to make one.
That led to an offer, a first website, and a lot of trial and error with social media. Learning how to get my own work in front of people became the start of my marketing career.
Then I built a business that filled the week.
The agency grew to 8 contractors. I was working 50 to 60 hours a week, with thin margins. I'd built the structure myself, and it still left too little room for the life I wanted. It was a cage with my name on the door.
That's why I ask about your family, your time, and what you want the business to fund before we decide what to build. Those answers belong in the plan from the beginning.
The pattern underneath it
Leaving one system didn't make me free.
At 33, I had $200 and collection calls. Getting sober didn't make those calls stop. I still had to learn how money worked, build an income, and stop making decisions from panic.
I also spent time chasing answers through spiritual teachers and conspiracy rabbit holes. Seeing through one story made it easy to believe I had finally found the whole truth in another. I could spend all day learning what was wrong and do nothing that changed my own life.
That became another thing to question: was this helping me live, or giving me a new way to stay stuck?
The work became more concrete. Build a business that leaves room for family. Grow food. Know the people nearby. Learn to disagree without throwing the relationship away. Keep enough knowledge and skill in my own hands that I can make a different choice.
That's the thread connecting business building, holistic living, and mutual aid. I want to help people build the alternatives, because understanding the trap doesn't build the way out.
The work I do now
I want the useful part.
And a life outside it.
A fellow marketer showed me ChatGPT over lunch. I could see it coming for work I'd spent years learning. I started teaching people how to use it, while paying close attention to what we might give up along the way.
That tension is still part of my work. I want the useful capability, and I want to understand the dependency that comes with it. Who controls the files? Can you check the result? Can you keep going if a tool changes?
AI can help organize business knowledge, draft useful work, and take some repetition out of the day. You still need to know what you're trying to do, check what it produces, and decide what happens next.
When we work together, we start with your actual situation. We make the decision, build the first working version, and document how to run it. The goal is for you to leave more capable.
Go further
The story, and places to begin.
Beyond the Matrix
The personal side of this work: examining inherited beliefs, caring for your health, and making choices you can live with.
Explore Beyond the Matrix →Mutual aid
Build relationships with people close enough to show up. Share skills, resources, and the work of taking care of each other.
Explore mutual aid groups →