Starting Over (feat. Ben Bridwell)

One, two, now

Those three plus years, I was so proud of

And I threw them all away for two styrofoam cups

The irony, everyone would think that he lied to me

Made my sobriety so public, there's no fucking privacy

If I don't talk about it, then I carry a date

A 0, 8, 10, 0, 8, and now it's been changed

And everyone that put me in some box as a saint

That I never was, just a false prophet that never came

And will they think that everything that I've written

Has all been fake or will I just take my slip to the grave?

What the fuck are my parents gonna say?

The success story, that got his life together and changed

And you know, what pain looks like when you tell your dad

You relapsed, and look him directly into his face

Deceit on your shoulders, the seedily heavy weight

Haven't seen tears like this on my girl in a while

The trust that I once built's been betrayed

But I'd rather live telling the truth than be judged for my mistakes

Than falsely held up, getting props, loved and praised

I guess, I gotta get this on the page

Feeling sick and helpless

Lost the compass where self is

I know what I gotta do and I can't help it

One day at a time is what they tell us

Now I gotta find a way to tell them

God help 'em

Yeah, one day at a time is what they tell us

Now I gotta find a way to tell them

We fall so hard

Now we gotta get back what we lost, lost

I thought you'd gone

But you were with me all along, along

And every kid that came up to me

And said I was the music they listened to when they first got clean

Now look at me, a couple days sober, I'm fighting demons

Back of that meeting on the Eastside

Shaking, tweaking, hope that they don't see it, hope that no one is looking

That no one recognizes that failure under that hoodie

That's posted in the back with my hands crossed, shooken

If they call on me, I'm passing, if they talk to me, I'm booking out that door

But before I can make it, somebody stops me and says, "Are you Macklemore?

Maybe this isn't the place or time

I just wanted to say that, if it wasn't for Otherside, I wouldn't have made it"

I just look down at the ground and say, "Thank you"

She tells me she has 9 months and that she's so grateful

Tears in her eyes, looking like she's gonna cry, fuck

I barely got 48 hours, treated like I'm some wise monk

I wanna tell her I relapsed, but I can't

I just shake her hand and tell her, "Congrats"

Get back to my car, and I think I'm tripping

Yeah, 'cause God wrote Otherside

That pen was in my hand, I'm just a flawed man

Man, I fucked up, like so many others I just never thought I would

I never thought I would, didn't pick up the book

Doing it by myself didn't turn out that good

If I can be an example of getting sober

Then I can be an example of starting over

If I can be an example of getting sober

Then I can be an example of starting over

We fall so hard

Now we gotta get back what we lost, lost

I thought you'd gone

But you were with me all along, along