Related Story Glenn Beck: What's Coming

GLENN: Just looking at clips here on the TV screens about change we need. The better question is change, change we're going to get and change we're going to be told are in our best interests.

Welcome to the program. There was a great story on the front of the Wall Street Journal in the Money and Investing. You know, tomorrow, Stu, I want to take the 12 steps of alcoholism and I want to do an hour on them as who we are because I think alcoholics are going to (mumbling).

STU: It's odd because they haven't done --

GLENN: They haven't done much.

STU: They seem like the group --

GLENN: A lot of people say it's going to be the alcoholics. I think it's going to be the alcoholics that save us.

STU: Current or recovering?

GLENN: Recovery.

STU: That's a significant --

GLENN: No, the alcoholics, the current alcoholics, they are the ones that are getting us here.

STU: But the ones that are in recovery.

GLENN: Yes, they are going to save us.

STU: It's always easier to bounce from the bottom.

GLENN: Five stages -- it is. You got no place to go. Five stages of grief out of the Wall Street Journal today: Denial, anger -- tell me where you think we are. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, grief. Most Americans are beyond now Stage 1. They weren't six weeks ago. Most Americans are beyond Stage 1. Took a long time but the Dow has caught the attention of most people, and pay no attention to the Dow. It's going to go up, it's going to go down. Pay no attention to the valves that they are opening anymore. The valves aren't going to work. No matter what they do, it's not going to work.

This is, by the way, a new position of mine. Today the valves no longer work. In my -- what my gut tells me with this giant, you know, global rate cut, if that doesn't do anything, gang, it ain't -- nothing, there's nothing left. So forget about the valves. In fact, you call congress, you tell Senate, you stop spending my money, now. I understand what we're facing and what we're facing is a very possible Great Depression but please understand, go out and read Amity Shlaes' book The Forgotten Man. It will show you we're repeating. We're doing the same things over and over again and unless you get that message out to people, they are not going to -- no, no, they are helping us, no, they have got to bail us out, no, they've got to do that. No, they don't. No, they don't. We're building the framework for an extraordinarily long and deep Depression. You've got to call congress and tell them, "You don't have authorization to spend any of my money. Stop spending money right now."

So most Americans are past now denial. Many Americans are in anger. Anger, how did this happen to us? You've got to be kidding me. Who did this to us? You people did it to us! It is normal to feel angry. It's part of the five stages of grief. But you know what? It's not where you're -- if you're there now, congratulations. You've got to keep a piece of that anger because you've got to get the guys who have done this to us and that is an answer that needs to be asked, answered and then those people need to go to jail. We're at the end of Stage 2 for many people, especially in -- especially those people, you know, talk radio listeners, I mean, you get it. You are at the end of that one because you know.

Moving into Stage 3, which is bargaining. The government right now is bargaining with the economy and the market. This is a natural force, gang. This is a natural force. The economy is -- you cannot contain it because it contains all the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations, the hard work, the perspiration of every man and woman on planet Earth that lives currently in a free nation. But what they're doing is they're promising Wall Street hundreds of billions of dollars, promising to buy your mortgage, promising to make direct loans to businesses, all in an attempt to get it to calm down: Please sit down, please sit down, please sit down, please sit down, please sit down. It is a bad child that has never been really truly punished. Mom and dad, the government, have always swooped in. Well, now they are swooping in again but now they are just saying, hear, I'll give you candy. How about candy? You want candy? Just calm down. It ain't gonna work, gang.

As the market continues to tumble, unemployment is going to go up and we're going to go into the fourth stage. The fourth stage of grief is depression. It's when we realize that our problems are a lot bigger than the Dow industrial average. It's a lot bigger than Wall Street. There's going to be a realization that our problems are going to take a very long time to heal. There is no easy cure. Anything that you do to take an easy cure, the patient needs radiation and chemotherapy. You can say all you want, you want to do other things, and that's fine. But the patient must be allowed to fully heal and feel every bit of that pain and discomfort and it's going to get ugly, gang. But anybody who is promising you an easier way out, do not listen to them. The only way this is going to work is if we really reset ourselves, set our lives. Healthcare is not a right. It's a privilege, and you're about to find out what that privilege has been this whole time. As much as we have whined and complained about it, we're all about to find out how great we've had it in this nation, but we squandered it because people got greedy. All of us, me included. We got greedy: More, more, more, more, more.

The fifth stage is grief. Politicians won't tell you this. Pain and grief are coming and it is part of the process. Anybody who tells you they can spare you this, they don't understand. They have never had anybody obviously die in their family, they've never had any problems. Five stages of grief. You can't be spared this. "That $700 billion, it will spare us." No, it won't. No, it won't. But you don't stop at grief. That is the five stages of grief. What follows? Life, happiness, moving on. You're better. You're stronger.

I've had two suicides in my family. The first one happened when I was 13. It almost destroyed me. I didn't heal until I was 35 and I didn't heal because I took the easy way out. I never looked at it. I never dealt with it. I drank. I did anything I could do make me happy. I didn't deal with it. I'm happy, gang. I am. I'm truly happy because I faced it. I looked it in the eye and I said, "You're not going to beat me. I'm stronger than this." My faith teaches me that we chose to come here at this time. We're here for a reason. We chose -- I believe we chose to be here at this time because we've got a great job to do, and I'm up to it. The question is are you.