Danny Jones Podcast - #216 - Brandon Novak Comes Clean on CKY, Viva La Bam & Heroin Addiction
Aired: 2023-12-29
Duration: 01:54:32


=== From Skaters to Sponsored (05:59) ===

[00:00:06]  All the CKY videos and all that stuff, Haggard, all that stuff pretty much like defined our childhoods.
[00:00:12]  That's a very depressing thing to hear.
[00:00:16]  I'm just kidding, man.
[00:00:17]  I'm kidding.
[00:00:18]  It is the reason I ever picked up a video camera, like ever when I was 15, and started doing that's led to all this shit.
[00:00:27]  And like, it is so cool to sit down and talk to you, man.
[00:00:31]  It's unreal.
[00:00:32]  It's, it's, uh, nah, I'm grateful to be here.
[00:00:34]  This is, uh, you guys have a really rad thing going on.
[00:00:38]  And, uh, you know, I look forward to making any reason to make it to Florida.
[00:00:42]  I really like it.
[00:00:43]  I have a place in Fort Lauderdale.
[00:00:45]  Oh, do you really?
[00:00:46]  Yeah.
[00:00:46]  And I was, you know, telling him time kind of slows down when you get here.
[00:00:50]  When I'm, whenever I get off the plane, as soon as I walk off the plane and the air hits me, I'm like, ah, I can breathe a little.
[00:00:57]  So it's, you know, I really love coming here.
[00:00:59]  But it's funny because the, the, the, the, Gravity and the magnitude of what that's produced from then to now is like mind blowing.
[00:01:11]  And the amount of money that's generated off of like YouTube is insane.
[00:01:15]  Oh, dude, so crazy.
[00:01:17]  You know, I remember being at Bam's house when he received his first check for the million dollars.
[00:01:26]  I actually signed for it.
[00:01:28]  Really?
[00:01:29]  Off of when they delivered the package.
[00:01:32]  And the funny thing is, the irony is, I had no idea what I had signed.
[00:01:35]  I was like withdrawing on heroin from heroin because that's how I ended up at his house and in those CKY videos.
[00:01:42]  And the part that I played in the very first one or the second, whatever one I was in, second or third, I think it was the third, was Dooley, which was a drug dealer.
[00:01:51]  And I was a shady drug dealer guy, which was ironically my drug dealer's name in Baltimore.
[00:01:56]  What's up, sweetheart guy?
[00:01:57]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:59]  But, you know, at that point in time, there was no like internet sensation, there was no YouTube.
[00:02:07]  You know, it was word of mouth and, uh, you know, it was just kind of sold out of skate shops.
[00:02:12]  Yeah.
[00:02:12]  Tapes.
[00:02:13]  Yeah.
[00:02:13]  How did that shit start to like catch fire?
[00:02:16]  Like, I knew, like, you guys obviously were well known, like, in the skateboarding circuit, but, like, how, like, it's hard to even fathom when you're making videos back then how you would get the word out or get people to start like sharing them.
[00:02:28]  Like, these kids and like everybody, all my friends would buy every single CKY.
[00:02:33]  We would download it.
[00:02:34]  We would watch it all the time.
[00:02:35]  Like, how do people in Florida become so, like, obsessed with their stuff and find this stuff when it's coming out of like, Pennsylvania.
[00:02:43]  For sure.
[00:02:43]  There's no internet.
[00:02:44]  I mean, there is internet, but not really.
[00:02:46]  Not then.
[00:02:46]  It wasn't being used like it is today.
[00:02:48]  I think, you know, Bam was just really way ahead of his time.
[00:02:51]  He just had such a creative perspective on life.
[00:02:54]  And because the majority of the people in the CKY videos weren't really skaters.
[00:02:59]  You know, there was a handful, like, but the ones out of Pennsylvania didn't skate.
[00:03:03]  Dunn didn't skate.
[00:03:04]  Rab didn't skate.
[00:03:05]  Dico didn't skate.
[00:03:06]  Rake didn't skate.
[00:03:07]  Bam skated.
[00:03:09]  And Maldonado skated.
[00:03:11]  And then, Bam kind of just showcased his other skater friends because he realized.
[00:03:17]  I remember him saying, he's like, dude, you know, skating's rad, but no one gives a shit.
[00:03:22]  Like, the varsity, you know, girl who's like gonna go on to become Miss America doesn't care about skating.
[00:03:29]  Like, how do we make this cross paths?
[00:03:31]  And he did that by just kind of adding these funny, stupid skits that, you know, was just really in at the time.
[00:03:39]  And it kind of transitioned into.
[00:03:42]  A bigger world than just skaters.
[00:03:45]  You know, it wasn't limited to just that.
[00:03:47]  And then it just kind of spread.
[00:03:49]  Didn't you get him into skating?
[00:03:51]  We know.
[00:03:52]  I didn't get him into skating, but I'm from Baltimore and Bucky Lasek, who's another pro skateboarder, legend.
[00:04:01]  Totally.
[00:04:03]  He's from Baltimore as well.
[00:04:04]  And he was older than I.
[00:04:06]  And he kind of recognized, I guess, the talent that I had at a young age.
[00:04:09]  And he took me under his wing.
[00:04:10]  And he was the one that got me sponsored by PAL.
[00:04:13]  And that's how my career into that world began.
[00:04:16]  But before I really kind of started forging my own future in it, We would go to the skate park called Cheapskates in Pennsylvania.
[00:04:26]  And I walked in and I saw Bam, and I'm like, this kid's going to be a problem.
[00:04:33]  Hey, everybody.
[00:04:33]  I just want to drop in to remind you all to please hammer the subscribe button below the video.
[00:04:38]  That is the one thing that makes this channel and these podcasts grow and enables us to keep making more of them, flying in guests all over the world, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:04:48]  Thank you to everybody who has been subscribing.
[00:04:51]  It has been helping a lot.
[00:04:52]  The reach has been growing.
[00:04:53]  We're now up to like, 60% of the viewers of these podcasts are subscribed.
[00:04:58]  There's still like 40, 45% who are not yet subscribed.
[00:05:01]  So if you're a regular watcher of the channel and you enjoy these podcasts and you want to help, all I ask is that you just hammer that subscribe button below these videos.
[00:05:11]  Thank you again.
[00:05:12]  I love you all.
[00:05:13]  Back to the show.
[00:05:14]  For me, because we were just alike.
[00:05:16]  We skated alike.
[00:05:17]  We dressed alike.
[00:05:18]  We acted alike.
[00:05:19]  We talked alike.
[00:05:21]  We were into the same kind of setup skating transitions, you know.
[00:05:25]  Contest skater consistency tricks.
[00:05:30]  And we became Thickest Thieves, best friends at that point.
[00:05:33]  And he wasn't sponsored at the time, but I was already by PAL.
[00:05:37]  And Bucky was pro.
[00:05:38]  So he had asked us to try to help him get sponsored.
[00:05:42]  And it didn't work out with PAL at the time.
[00:05:45]  But nonetheless, every year we'd enter this skate contest called the Bricktown Scape, the NSA is the Bricktown Scape.
[00:05:56]  Park contest, and either he would win or I would win.
[00:05:59]  And one year he was there, Bucky had gone, and Bam was like, Yo, where's Novak?

=== Forging Paths at 44 (11:53) ===

[00:06:05]  And Bucky's like, I think he's on heroin.
[00:06:07]  And Bam's like, What's that?
[00:06:08]  You know, at such a young age, he didn't even know what the word meant.
[00:06:11]  And that's kind of where his career continued to excel.
[00:06:15]  He became a household name with the CKY videos that then turned into, you know, Viva LaBam's later on.
[00:06:23]  And he pursued that route in life, and I thought it was a much more logical approach to.
[00:06:29]  Pursue heroin.
[00:06:30]  Yeah.
[00:06:33]  How did you first discover heroin at such a young age?
[00:06:37]  What were you, like 16 or 17?
[00:06:39]  At the end of 16, turning 17, I was like a fully addicted heroin addict.
[00:06:45]  And it's early.
[00:06:46]  Yeah.
[00:06:47]  The progression took place way, way, way quicker than I ever anticipated it to do so.
[00:06:56]  And at the time, I had no idea what was happening.
[00:06:59]  Now it's very evident and clear as day for me to kind of.
[00:07:02]  Look back and recognize the synchronicity in life's events that took place that landed me there, then, and here now, right?
[00:07:11]  And A, I was genetically predisposed, right?
[00:07:15]  My father was an addict, his father was an addict.
[00:07:18]  My mother, my brother, and sister by a different gentleman have no issues.
[00:07:22]  I, on the other hand, followed in the footstep of my father and his father.
[00:07:26]  That paired with I was kind of being groomed without me even knowing I was being groomed in that culture.
[00:07:35]  Of promiscuous behaviors, addiction, um, drug dealing, uh, drug using.
[00:07:43]  You know, I remember being a you know, a six, seven year old kid.
[00:07:46]  My father, he never worked a day in his life.
[00:07:50]  He taught me one thing, if and when I went to prison, how to conduct myself.
[00:07:54]  And he ran with the Hells Angels.
[00:07:55]  He was a pretty gnarly kind of guy.
[00:07:56]  And he was around just enough to let us know he was not around.
[00:08:01]  And, you know, I remember as a kid, my mother, right, she had just got a job at Mercy Hospital, like drawing blood for $5 a pop, a phlebotomist.
[00:08:13]  And then she literally worked her way up the ladder to become a nuclear physicist on the board of Mercy Hospital.
[00:08:17]  Pretty big deal.
[00:08:19]  And so, in doing that and pursuing that career, like she was consumed by climbing that ladder.
[00:08:27]  And my father, unfortunately, was the one that kind of took care of me, not a lot, but when he was around.
[00:08:32]  And he would take me to the strip joint and he'd be in the back conducting business.
[00:08:36]  And the pretty dancing girls would put me on a stool at the bar and pour me shots of Ginger Ale and Coca Cola.
[00:08:42]  And I would, you know what I mean?
[00:08:43]  So I was just kind of like being raised in that world, which was rather ironic because.
[00:08:53]  One would think that, like, I'd recognize that this is not a healthy path to pursue, right?
[00:09:02]  You would think that, but the reality is, as a matter of fact, I made it a point to excel at everything I did in my life to not become my father, right?
[00:09:10]  Because Jerome was a great guy, my father.
[00:09:12]  Everyone loved Jerome, but when he didn't show up at 5 30 to make dinner for us, and we heard him and his biker buddies pulling at 3 or 3 30, and the keys hit the lock, we shook like leaves.
[00:09:24]  Because we knew what we were in for, and it was nothing that a child should ever have to endure.
[00:09:28]  So, you would think logically that I'd be like, Whoa, drugs are bad, kid.
[00:09:33]  Stay the f away.
[00:09:35]  But I think, paired with the genetic predisposition and being cultivated within that society, you normalized it earlier.
[00:09:43]  Yeah, the disconnection from reality had already started taking place.
[00:09:47]  Paired with the fact that I was already a really successful skateboarder at such a young age.
[00:09:51]  So, from others' perspectives, from the outside looking in, it looked like there was a method to my madness.
[00:09:57]  Right at 14, I'm being endorsed by Gatorade.
[00:10:00]  At 15, I'm touring the world with Tony Hawk.
[00:10:03]  You know, I'm ending up in Thrasher and Trans World.
[00:10:05]  I have video parts in the Powell videos.
[00:10:07]  Like, I'm doing some pretty rad shit.
[00:10:11]  Yeah, so like people are like, ah, he's cool, he's got it.
[00:10:13]  Like, he wouldn't.
[00:10:14]  And then I think when people started to take notice, I was so like disconnected from reality andor abnormality that it was like, how?
[00:10:24]  And and yeah, that was so like, what year?
[00:10:29]  Was that roughly when you started taking off with skateboarding?
[00:10:32]  To put into perspective how my timeline of brain works, my second book had come out a year or two ago, the sequel to Dream Seller.
[00:10:44]  And my life, for the better part of 18 years, just looked like spring break on methamphetamine, right?
[00:10:53]  Like I was just 24 7.
[00:10:55]  So we went and hired this private investigator and we said, hey, I need you to dig up every arrest record.
[00:11:02]  Every confrontation with every police officer, every jail stay, every incarceration bit.
[00:11:08]  And he looks at me, he's like, Why?
[00:11:11]  Most people try to bury this really deep.
[00:11:13]  You're asking me to unearth all these things.
[00:11:15]  I'm trying to remember it.
[00:11:16]  Yeah, I know.
[00:11:17]  Because when I would see things like that, I could put in my mind where I was at at that time.
[00:11:21]  Right, right.
[00:11:22]  Like my brain compared to your brain, two different brains.
[00:11:26]  Here we go.
[00:11:26]  Example A Where were you at?
[00:11:29]  Well, okay, here's where I was at.
[00:11:32]  New Year's Eve, 1999.
[00:11:35]  All right.
[00:11:36]  Do you remember where you were at New Year's Eve, 1999?
[00:11:38]  Hell no.
[00:11:39]  99, yeah.
[00:11:39]  It was Y2K.
[00:11:40]  Yeah, I knew it was at my grandparents' in Pennsylvania.
[00:11:42]  Okay.
[00:11:43]  Waiting for that ball.
[00:11:44]  That was Y2K drop, right?
[00:11:45]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:47]  I have no recollection.
[00:11:48]  Okay, cool.
[00:11:49]  So you're about halfway there with me.
[00:11:50]  So I know exactly where I was at.
[00:11:54]  I was at that point in time renting a room on the corner of Broadway and Eager in East Baltimore in an abandoned house from this crackhead named Slim who kind of took over the house and we'd pay him 10 bucks a night.
[00:12:07]  I'm shitting and I'm pissing into a bucket and it's freezing out.
[00:12:11]  And Y2K is about to hit.
[00:12:13]  So me and the two people I'm sharing that room with, Caleb and Alexia.
[00:12:19]  We each get pillowcases and we have a crowbar, and we're standing outside of the Rite Aid in East Baltimore because at 1201, when the power goes out, we're going to rob it and hit the pharmacy of all these.
[00:12:32]  And it's going to be like, I've hit the mega millions.
[00:12:35]  It didn't happen.
[00:12:36]  I went to rehab the very following morning.
[00:12:39]  That's how my brain.
[00:12:40]  So, you asking me a timeline is like, fuck.
[00:12:44]  I was just trying to put it in my own perspective.
[00:12:47]  Because I remember when I was, we were getting like, I was like obsessed with.
[00:12:50]  All of this stuff, like my life was skateboarding and watching skate videos.
[00:12:54]  And it was like, I remember the first, I think it was the first skate video I ever saw was the Baker 2G video, yeah.
[00:13:01]  And then after that, it was the Flip Sorry videos and all those videos, and the piss drunks, dude.
[00:13:07]  And these guys were just hammered, smashed, dude.
[00:13:10]  I remember one time the piss drunk guys, all my they're all good people, and the majority of them are sober, yeah.
[00:13:15]  They're almost all sober, dude.
[00:13:16]  Blue Lala had a pretty tragic story, yeah.
[00:13:19]  He just came out with a pretty rad documentary, I have not seen, but I've seen pieces of it.
[00:13:22]  Have you seen it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:23]  I love Ali, he's a.
[00:13:24]  Great guy.
[00:13:25]  It's pretty cool.
[00:13:26]  Sad story, but super cool.
[00:13:27]  But they came through, and my very first tattoo of all my tattoos, and I'm pretty covered, is this one right here.
[00:13:35]  And it says, No more fucking heroin.
[00:13:37]  Uh huh.
[00:13:38]  And I didn't get it.
[00:13:39]  Like, it was, I got it, but it wasn't by my design.
[00:13:42]  It was when Bam brought it.
[00:13:43]  Yeah, it was in the video, wasn't it?
[00:13:44]  Yeah, I think we talked about it.
[00:13:45]  And I couldn't stop getting high.
[00:13:48]  And he was doing the best that he had with what he could do.
[00:13:52]  And he's like, The next time you get high, we're going to get you a tattoo.
[00:13:55]  And it's going to say, No more fucking heroin.
[00:13:56]  The next time you want to get high, I want you to look at this tattoo, and it's going to stop.
[00:13:59]  You, yeah, of course, that's gonna work.
[00:14:01]  You fast forward, I didn't get sober till 2015, so you could do the math.
[00:14:06]  I know that timeline, it's fucked.
[00:14:08]  Oh my god, um, that was my very first tattoo.
[00:14:12]  And the pissed drunk guys came shortly thereafter.
[00:14:15]  And Andrew and Ollie, they were like, dude, raddest tattoo ever, you're coming on tour with us.
[00:14:20]  Bam's like, no, he's not, yeah, dude.
[00:14:24]  That was so ingrained in the culture, too.
[00:14:26]  It was just like for me, being I was like probably 16 years old, watching these guys just get hammered and fucking jump down 20 stairs was like.
[00:14:34]  Inconceivable to me.
[00:14:35]  And then there was that kid, Knox Godoy.
[00:14:37]  He was like 15, super young.
[00:14:39]  He was like drinking 40s and like, where's he at today?
[00:14:43]  I have no idea.
[00:14:44]  I've heard that from him.
[00:14:44]  He's still skating, I think.
[00:14:46]  But it's crazy to see him grown up in the picture.
[00:14:50]  I remember him from the Baker 2G video, like screaming at the camera, like cussing at the camera, and then just like the camera's like talling him, and then he jumps down like a 12 stair or something.
[00:14:58]  I love watching the transition because I always wondered, like, how's Andrew going to carry it?
[00:15:02]  Like, he was the piss drunk guy, and that was some of the rat.
[00:15:05]  For me, my favorite.
[00:15:06]  Style of skating and still always will be.
[00:15:11]  Him getting sober, like, and still that being like the pinnacle of everything for the Baker at the point in time, how's that going to transition?
[00:15:18]  And he did it so beautifully.
[00:15:20]  Like, he wasn't like, oh, sober, this isn't the way to go.
[00:15:23]  He just let like the newer, younger crew kind of forge their own path.
[00:15:28]  Straight up.
[00:15:28]  And if that's your deal, that's your deal.
[00:15:30]  Yeah.
[00:15:31]  And that's what skateboarding is it's individuality.
[00:15:33]  Individuality with like kind of a.
[00:15:36]  I actually really, you know, give all credit.
[00:15:39]  To who I am today, the life that I live as a direct result of skateboarding, right?
[00:15:45]  Skateboard with my sobriety, with my work ethics, with what I've been blessed to create.
[00:15:50]  And it's, you know, failure is not an option and no is unacceptable.
[00:15:56]  And think about that a skater will try a trick for days, weeks, months, years.
[00:16:00]  Yeah, same trick.
[00:16:02]  Over and over and over.
[00:16:03]  And that's literally how I've got to where I'm at today.
[00:16:09]  Dude, and how old are you now?
[00:16:10]  44.
[00:16:11]  I just, you still rip, dude.
[00:16:12]  I was looking at your Instagram.
[00:16:14]  Check this out.
[00:16:15]  I'm putting this, I'm going to post this in a couple days.
[00:16:17]  But I'm going to give you a sneak peek.
[00:16:19]  I'm so stoked on this trick, dude.
[00:16:22]  Check this bad boy out.
[00:16:24]  He's like, it's worth it.
[00:16:36]  Holy shit.
[00:16:38]  That was sick, dude.
[00:16:40]  I fought with that thing for a minute.
[00:16:45]  Where is that at?
[00:16:46]  My buddy's mini ramp in Baltimore, 410.
[00:16:49]  Whoa.
[00:16:49]  Skate company, Matt Martin.
[00:16:50]  That's sick, man.
[00:16:52]  And it's just a sick ramp.
[00:16:54]  Was it Switch 5.0?
[00:16:55]  No, it's just a front side 180, fakey nose grind, and then bring it in forward.
[00:17:05]  Very like Bob Burnquist kind of deal.
[00:17:07]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:09]  Hell yeah.
[00:17:10]  I love that, man.
[00:17:11]  Love the mini rack.
[00:17:12]  But, dude, skateboarding is like.
[00:17:15]  I just realized you would have thought that I came to this realization years ago when I did it like full time for a living.
[00:17:23]  But I didn't.
[00:17:24]  I didn't realize it until I just put a part out not too long ago.
[00:17:27]  And, you know, I'm 44.
[00:17:30]  My brain says that I'm like 16, my body says I'm like 99.
[00:17:35]  And I'm trying this trick and I'm trying and I'm trying and I can't make it.
[00:17:38]  And I'm like so angry.
[00:17:40]  I think I sprained my ankle.
[00:17:41]  I'm like throwing my board and.
[00:17:43]  And I walk away and I don't get it, but it dawned on me like, this is why I love it.
[00:17:47]  While trying that trick, being filled with just frustration and negativity because I couldn't land it, it did exactly what it was supposed to do.

=== The Mind of a Ninety-Nine-Year-Old (15:13) ===

[00:17:58]  It shut this off.
[00:18:00]  I wasn't thinking about work, I wasn't thinking about her, him, it.
[00:18:05]  I was in the moment.
[00:18:07]  Like in it, in it, in it, in it.
[00:18:09]  And I've fucking spent a lot of money, went a lot of places, and.
[00:18:14]  Just hung out with a lot of women trying to fulfill that void and skateboarding.
[00:18:19]  And I did, I realized that at 43, like so later.
[00:18:23]  Like, think about it.
[00:18:23]  It's so, everyone tries, I think.
[00:18:25]  I mean, I really try to be in the moment and it's fucking difficult.
[00:18:29]  No doubt.
[00:18:30]  Yeah, man, that's therapeutic.
[00:18:31]  Yeah.
[00:18:32]  And you can see, I mean, even with Bam, you can see on his Instagram now that he seems like he's skating more.
[00:18:37]  And I don't know anything about him or what he's doing, but it seems like he's got his head, his shit together more that he's actually like trying stuff now and like skating and landing shit.
[00:18:47]  Posting it on his Instagram, and he's yeah, it's more that like positive reinforcement.
[00:18:51]  It is, it's so good for the mental health, it is.
[00:18:54]  Um, and that's how I can tell when anyone in the skateboarding world is doing good or bad, you know, whether they're actually skating, not just like you know, shoot a photo of me posing this trick, you can see that, but like, and that's really with it comes back to everything.
[00:19:11]  Um, it's the behaviors, right?
[00:19:14]  Alcoholism, addiction, shopping, gambling, food, porn.
[00:19:20]  Sex, that's the solution to the underlining cause and condition, the real root of the problem.
[00:19:27]  The behaviors lead to those endings or solutions or narratives, if you will.
[00:19:32]  So, you know, I can tell by someone's behavior change or lack thereof where they're really at.
[00:19:40]  So, understanding that, I really don't need to hear much about what you have to say, honestly.
[00:19:46]  As long as I just sit back and kind of, and as a direct result of this spiritual experience that I have.
[00:19:52]  Had.
[00:19:53]  I'm like insanely hypersensitive.
[00:19:55]  I'm aware, I'm alert and attentive to my surroundings.
[00:19:58]  Too much so, like, hypersensitive.
[00:20:00]  Like, fuck.
[00:20:01]  Is it hard for you to get through life being sober and not do?
[00:20:05]  I mean, you've said it a million times that you just love drugs and alcohol.
[00:20:08]  Yeah.
[00:20:09]  Is it hard for you to stay away from it?
[00:20:10]  Do you think about it or is it kind of like, no, you've sort of like hit a switch and now it doesn't really bother you?
[00:20:16]  Dude, I've had this like profound experience of this spiritual experience.
[00:20:23]  And the definition of a spiritual experience is simply a psychic change, meaning that I, Brandon Novak, today no longer look at things how I did then during the CKYs, the Viva LaBams, the Jackasses.
[00:20:37]  And what that looks like for me is that without trying to get all like fucking zen on everything here, my poison has become my medicine.
[00:20:47]  Right.
[00:20:47]  And I am like completely free from the chains of bondage of addiction and alcoholism.
[00:20:54]  I poison being sobriety, just being like, yes, but in a way of like it's so consumed to me that not only does it like save my life on a daily basis, it allows me the ability to get through to so many others.
[00:21:10]  Yeah.
[00:21:10]  Where generally they we build this really high, deep, thick, unpenetratable wall.
[00:21:17]  Because the demographic or wheelhouse for which I'm most or widely known is simply addicts and alcoholics.
[00:21:27]  And what are we?
[00:21:29]  Defiant by nature, hate authority, refuse to conform, right?
[00:21:33]  Because we possess this job that consists of knowing everything.
[00:21:36]  So when you suggest what I should do to potentially save my life, I suggest why you should fuck off.
[00:21:42]  Because I know.
[00:21:43]  And because of my story being so widely viewed, read, you know, publicized in the public format.
[00:21:53]  There's depth and weight, you know, there's experience, hard won experience that's earned me a position of understanding as opposed to being understood.
[00:22:05]  So when I have the ability to work with somebody, they know that, like, I get it.
[00:22:10]  Like, I understand it.
[00:22:12]  I'm great at playing devil's advocate.
[00:22:14]  And the beautiful thing about it is my life is just as, maybe if not more, consumed by drugs and alcohol today.
[00:22:25]  But the only difference is I don't use them and it provides me an amazing, beautiful, blessed life.
[00:22:33]  Yeah.
[00:22:33]  It makes no sense anywhere else in the world.
[00:22:35]  Yeah.
[00:22:37]  And it's nothing shy of a miracle and magical that only makes sense within the sober community of what at one point in time I looked at as like this fucking cult.
[00:22:47]  Like I wasn't buying what you're selling.
[00:22:49]  I'm not drinking your Kool Aid.
[00:22:50]  I'm not fucking like, dude, I love life and I don't want to live mine sitting in some weird church basement with these weird old people.
[00:22:58]  Yeah.
[00:22:59]  And I'm like, dude, then I, you know, for me, the pain had just become so great.
[00:23:04]  A whole lot of things aligned to where I was willing to do the unthinkable, which was like maybe conceive to my innermost personal self that, like, you know what I do know?
[00:23:16]  Is that I don't fucking know.
[00:23:18]  Because prior to that date, my resume stated that I did know some shit because I had done some things.
[00:23:23]  So it's just such a mind fuck.
[00:23:25]  Yeah, man.
[00:23:26]  You know, how do I go from like being a pretty successful guy by an outsider's perspective?
[00:23:31]  To the reality of understanding that the very best of my thinking places me in a position where I'm walking into my 13th inpatient treatment center and I'm standing in the basement with this weird 19 year old boy as he's thumbing through a donations box looking for some used underwear.
[00:23:49]  And I'm praying to God that he finds him.
[00:23:51]  How the fuck did I get here?
[00:23:54]  One and one was not equal in two, boys.
[00:23:58]  But what I didn't realize then, because I was so consumed by the mess that I was incapable of seeing the message.
[00:24:04]  That day that I thought was the worst day of my life, true story, has literally turned out to be the best day of my life.
[00:24:12]  Like that day, and I've had some really rad days in my life.
[00:24:16]  I've done some of the most amazing things, even under the influence, that I would never take back.
[00:24:23]  But that day, legit, standing in my 13th rehab, a Catholic charities facility that cost me $2 to get into, I walked in with the clothes on my back, literally tied on by a shoestring.
[00:24:38]  Everything I owned consisted of eight scarves, two jackets, three socks.
[00:24:45]  A stick of deodorant.
[00:24:47]  It fit into this bag that doubled as my pillow, a needle, a spoon, and a restraining order.
[00:24:52]  That's all that I owned, legit.
[00:24:54]  And a passport, oddly enough.
[00:24:58]  And I'm in the basement with this 19 year old kid, and he's thumbing through these donation boxes looking for some used underwear for me.
[00:25:04]  And I'm like praying to God that he finds them.
[00:25:08]  And he does not find them.
[00:25:09]  But what he does find is a pair of size 40 women's sweatpants with no drawstring, a woman's tank top, and a pair of size 13 Jesus sandals, right?
[00:25:20]  That's a hell of a fit right there, bro.
[00:25:23]  That's like Florida's finest, man.
[00:25:25]  No disrespect, which is why I love Florida.
[00:25:27]  You just get in where you fit in here.
[00:25:29]  It's just some big Von Zippers.
[00:25:31]  You saved me for me.
[00:25:34]  God bless Florida, man.
[00:25:35]  But at the time, I was like, dude, I go from skateboarder, jackass, Viva LaBam, a New York Times author who's done some shit, man.
[00:25:52]  Yeah.
[00:25:53]  And I'm.
[00:25:53]  In this basement with this weird boy fucking handing me women's clothes.
[00:25:58]  Like, how?
[00:25:59]  I didn't even come.
[00:26:00]  And my father was like, you know what I mean?
[00:26:02]  Like, I should have known.
[00:26:04]  Look, I didn't end up in addiction.
[00:26:08]  It's funny.
[00:26:09]  I didn't end up in addiction because I took the short bus to school.
[00:26:13]  Right?
[00:26:13]  Quite the contrary.
[00:26:14]  I ended up in addiction because I was too smart for my own goddamn good.
[00:26:19]  And every time I'd land in a psychiatrist's office, a doctor's office, a treatment center, a 12 step program in a seat that had the ability to save my life.
[00:26:28]  I would outthink myself right out of it.
[00:26:30]  I'd seen me do it so many times.
[00:26:33]  And it's funny because, quite the contrary, and I just, this just dawned on me.
[00:26:36]  I didn't end up in recovery until I took the short bus to that meeting.
[00:26:42]  I literally had to dumb my way into sobriety.
[00:26:46]  Wow.
[00:26:46]  Straight up.
[00:26:48]  You know, you had a really unique, like, your perspective had to have been so much different than everyone else.
[00:26:56]  Like, you were kind of unique in the sense because you, It was almost like during CKY and Jackass and Beaver, Alabama, and all that stuff.
[00:27:04]  You had one foot in this crazy fucking world with Bam and like the spotlight being on that street.
[00:27:10]  The National Kingdom, for sure.
[00:27:11]  And then you had another foot in this fucking just hell.
[00:27:14]  Dude, I'm glad that you pointed that out.
[00:27:17]  And it's really ironic because, shameless plug here, but the book that I was just telling you about that I did the audio version for, the narration for the audio version, The Streets of Baltimore.
[00:27:30]  It really chroniclizes that whole thought process of knowing that.
[00:27:35]  Like, that was a, you know, because no matter how amazing and beautiful the experience was and how much I loved it and wanted to take advantage of it, I knew, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I burnt it to the ground as a direct result of my addiction because, like, I was unable to control, you know, it.
[00:27:57]  When I am drinking and drugging, I lose the pleasure of having a say so in any matter anymore.
[00:28:04]  And I didn't understand it then.
[00:28:06]  But, right, my book is all, I mean, my life is all in retrospect.
[00:28:10]  Live forward and learn backwards.
[00:28:12]  Right.
[00:28:13]  So, now when I had written that book after I had made it through that, I could like really see the reality of my situation.
[00:28:20]  And truth be told, the reason why I ended up in those positions for so long is because I refused, I refused to give addiction or alcoholism andor recovery the time, attention, or respect that it deserved.
[00:28:34]  Right.
[00:28:35]  Because I knew, you know what I mean?
[00:28:36]  Like, come on.
[00:28:37]  Like, I wanted what you had, but I wasn't really willing to do what you suggested in order to obtain this new life that you have.
[00:28:44]  There has to be a quicker, easier way for me to get there.
[00:28:48]  Right, right.
[00:28:49]  It's probably an easier way than that.
[00:28:51]  Right?
[00:28:51]  I was just too smart for my own good.
[00:28:54]  I swear to God.
[00:28:54]  I always say my life for fucking like 18 years was basically me rearranging the furniture on the Titanic.
[00:29:04]  That could just be this whole podcast.
[00:29:06]  You knew it was going down.
[00:29:08]  But I always, with the best intentions, like if I just put This here, and you come here, and she goes there, and be married.
[00:29:15]  Like, it's gonna be different.
[00:29:17]  Oh my god.
[00:29:18]  And I believed it.
[00:29:19]  I really believed it.
[00:29:20]  And then I'd wake up tomorrow, right?
[00:29:22]  The behaviors.
[00:29:23]  I'd wake up tomorrow and repeat yesterday's actions, and I'm stuck in Groundhog's Day for like another 10 years.
[00:29:30]  Whoa.
[00:29:30]  Like, that was legit it.
[00:29:33]  What the fuck is that?
[00:29:34]  I can't get over that Alf tattoo.
[00:29:35]  It keeps drawing me to it.
[00:29:37]  Dude, so do you know.
[00:29:37]  What's the story behind that?
[00:29:38]  Do you know?
[00:29:39]  There is a story behind it.
[00:29:40]  I'm sure there is.
[00:29:42]  The creator of Alf.
[00:29:44]  You're a fan of Al, you remember?
[00:29:45]  Oh, yeah, I remember.
[00:29:48]  The creator of Alf, Michael, I think his name is Michael something.
[00:29:53]  Look it up.
[00:29:53]  I remember.
[00:29:54]  There's a book written about it called Permanent Midnight, which they then made a movie about it.
[00:29:59]  And Ben Stiller plays him.
[00:30:01]  But he was a strung out heroin and crack addict while developing the treatment plan of Alf, which makes sense if you think about it.
[00:30:09]  This weird shit.
[00:30:11]  Watch the movie or read the book.
[00:30:13]  It's one of the most amazing things I've ever read.
[00:30:16]  And Ben Stiller plays it and plays a great drug addict.
[00:30:18]  He played.
[00:30:19]  Oh, wow, dude.
[00:30:20]  I had no fucking clue.
[00:30:21]  That explains a lot.
[00:30:23]  He was like an alien from a male back in the day.
[00:30:25]  Yeah, that's what it stood for.
[00:30:26]  Alien life form.
[00:30:27]  That's what else is.
[00:30:28]  And all he did was just like try to eat the cat, the family.
[00:30:31]  It was such a weird show.
[00:30:32]  That was when I was really young.
[00:30:35]  If you watch the movie, it makes complete sense.
[00:30:38]  Oh, my God.
[00:30:39]  So I ended up, that's not why I got this, though.
[00:30:43]  I wish I was that smart.
[00:30:44]  It's just aligned.
[00:30:46]  But I was at this tattoo convention and they're like, yo, we'll pay you to get a tattoo.
[00:30:51]  I was a judge or something.
[00:30:52]  I'm like, okay.
[00:30:52]  And I think maybe Bam came up with the idea for Alf.
[00:30:55]  And I'm like, all right.
[00:30:56]  So I get the tattoo.
[00:30:58]  And then these chicks come up, like, we have some blow.
[00:31:00]  You want to come?
[00:31:01]  And I'm like, yeah.
[00:31:01]  So we go out to the parking lot and the security follows.
[00:31:04]  People are following.
[00:31:05]  I'm in the car doing this blow.
[00:31:07]  And because I breached my contract, they'd never paid me for the convention or the tattoo that I was supposed to get.
[00:31:13]  You breached your contract for doing blow?
[00:31:15]  For leaving.
[00:31:16]  Oh, for leaving and like avoiding my responsibilities of being a judge because chicks had cocaine.
[00:31:21]  That was way more important.
[00:31:23]  Come on, guys.
[00:31:24]  Obviously.
[00:31:24]  I mean, yeah, you can't blame yourself for that.
[00:31:26]  Yeah.
[00:31:27]  Sorry to interrupt, but this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Verso.
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[00:31:42]  That is why I use Verso.
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[00:33:01]  Back to the show.
[00:33:02]  What was it like during the heyday of obviously the CKY videos were the first, but that didn't really like that?
[00:33:08]  That kind of kicked off Viva LaBam, right?
[00:33:11]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

=== NAD Plus and Metabolism (06:43) ===

[00:33:12]  What was it like in the heyday of filming that shit?
[00:33:15]  And I know I heard his interview on that guy, Cowhead, the other day, and he was talking about all the money they had and just every week they had an insane budget and flying all over the world and just coming up with the craziest shit ever.
[00:33:27]  It sounded like it was too good to be true for you guys.
[00:33:30]  It was really intimidating for me, very overwhelming because.
[00:33:36]  The very first like 300 grand a week or something, I think.
[00:33:39]  Yeah, MTV's budget was just stupid.
[00:33:41]  It was stupid.
[00:33:42]  But the very first episode that I appeared in was where they demolished Don Vito's house and they like threw trash through the window.
[00:33:53]  It just like really demolished it.
[00:33:56]  And I had just gotten off a bus from Baltimore.
[00:34:00]  And at this point, I'm like clean, but by force, not by choice.
[00:34:06]  And I've Burnt all my options there, and I'm living in this like halfway house.
[00:34:10]  I'm like the only white kid in this halfway house, and it's in the hood.
[00:34:14]  I was really just so confused about me and who I was like, I had no idea or self confidence.
[00:34:20]  It's got to be a weird situation to be in.
[00:34:22]  And then I'm thrusted to there.
[00:34:24]  I show up, it's this whole set.
[00:34:26]  There is the cast, there's just shit everywhere, money everywhere.
[00:34:29]  And he's filming, and all these professionals, and Bam's like the man.
[00:34:33]  I remember him as being this like little skate rat.
[00:34:37]  And I wanted to be a part of it.
[00:34:38]  And I knew Dunn from then.
[00:34:39]  I knew Rab.
[00:34:41]  I knew all those guys, but not in this light.
[00:34:44]  And they wanted me to be a part of it.
[00:34:46]  But I was just such an out.
[00:34:49]  At that point in time, I was just such a stranger in my own skin, trying to figure out who the fuck let me in and why.
[00:34:54]  And all I wanted was a release, which was to get high.
[00:34:57]  And that wasn't allowed.
[00:34:58]  So it was just this struggle.
[00:35:00]  Yeah.
[00:35:02]  And then the producers, they didn't really want me in it because I just was like this odd, like.
[00:35:08]  Person that didn't really fit their storylines, but Bam kept insisting that I be in it.
[00:35:14]  And again, we talk about all this in the streets of Baltimore.
[00:35:16]  We're really getting the thick of it.
[00:35:17]  But he'd like write me in scenes and then they'd cut me out when it made the editing and just wouldn't.
[00:35:25]  And that makes me even more depressed and like just this weird little redheaded stepchild that no one was accepting on their end.
[00:35:32]  Like Bam and Rab and Rake and Dunn and all those, they love me.
[00:35:35]  But and then finally, I'll never forget it, the one day broke where like, I said something and it was like comical gold, and they all darted and died laughing.
[00:35:46]  And the cast, the crew, and like it was like the best day of my life.
[00:35:52]  And right there.
[00:35:52]  And then, so that paired with the fact that I was Bam's best friend and I could do no wrong, right?
[00:35:59]  And now at this point, I was allowed to drink and do blow, but I couldn't do like any downers because then, like, that's not cool.
[00:36:05]  I'd steal your wallet.
[00:36:06]  Uppers are good.
[00:36:07]  Yeah, that's so, so acceptable.
[00:36:08]  And like, life of the party.
[00:36:09]  When I'm doing downers, I'm going to steal your shit.
[00:36:11]  I'm going to lie.
[00:36:12]  I'm going to disappear to Baltimore for like weeks.
[00:36:15]  I'll possibly die in your living room.
[00:36:18]  It's kind of frowned upon.
[00:36:19]  Yeah, a little bit.
[00:36:20]  But throughout this time, I'm starting to kind of feel who I am, a little bit more direction.
[00:36:26]  Spent more time there and I'm kind of just finding my way.
[00:36:31]  And but I'm just becoming such a major pain in the ass to the production team because like Bam would want me to do funny, they couldn't control me because I wasn't on payroll.
[00:36:40]  I'm Bam's best friend, he's never, I'm like, you, like, I walk out like naked with a heart on jerking off if that's what I did.
[00:36:47]  I've never used any of those guys, but Bam just brought you along so I had to deal with it, yes.
[00:36:52]  So, but it's funny, I say this one line and it was during one of the episodes, and we do this thing and it's called like Maniac Pool, and it's me done.
[00:37:00]  Rab, Ray, Rake might be in there, Deco, and we're just like, it's a mosh pit, but playing pool, and they're all getting ready to fly to Europe.
[00:37:08]  And they asked me if I could go, and I'm like, I can't, I have warrants.
[00:37:13]  And everyone just starts dying, but it was really the truth at the time.
[00:37:16]  So the producer lady, I'm not going to say her name, she pulls me aside after, and she's like, Look, Novak, it's inevitable that you're now going to become a character on this show, but we can't control you.
[00:37:30]  So, We're gonna pay you, and now that we pay you, you have to listen to us.
[00:37:36]  I'm like, deal, yeah, yeah, perfect.
[00:37:39]  But again, most people be like, Wow, that's a really smart strategy to end up on the payroll and make a living out of this.
[00:37:44]  No, I just dumb my way into that, which is anything good in my life, really.
[00:37:49]  Today, it's just like not done by my doings.
[00:37:53]  Where were you guys when there's a story where Bam was like, You're like, I need some money, and Bam's like, Go shove a rock up your ass, and I'll pay you.
[00:38:01]  Yeah, that was in Europe.
[00:38:02]  That was in Europe.
[00:38:02]  That was in Europe.
[00:38:03]  That was.
[00:38:04]  That, you know, that paired with many other things that I had shoved up my anus for a lot of years while traveling to, you know, get under the radar of police, not detecting what I was trying to consume, which were narcotics, ultimately led to me having like this hemorrhoid surgery because, like, I just blew my anus out.
[00:38:28]  I say a lot of things, and even saying that, I'm like, dude, this just rolled off the tongue wrong.
[00:38:36]  It's not what you're used to.
[00:38:38]  I don't think there's a more self deprecating thing you can say about yourself.
[00:38:43]  Well, it's one of those magical things.
[00:38:45]  Name to me another male who's not a homosexual who's had his anus blown out.
[00:38:51]  Right.
[00:38:52]  Not many fit that.
[00:38:53]  Who brags about it on podcasts?
[00:38:56]  It could be 101.
[00:38:58]  It's all perspective.
[00:38:59]  It could be worse.
[00:39:00]  Yeah.
[00:39:00]  Well, I mean, you got the most use out of it.
[00:39:03]  I did.
[00:39:04]  But again, these are, right?
[00:39:06]  And the reason why.
[00:39:07]  Because this generally wouldn't be stuff that I'd want to really focus on because I'm a very changed, different man today.
[00:39:16]  But all perspective, these are the things that I personally enjoy talking about because it gives depth and weight to the story.
[00:39:25]  The transformation that's taken place is a direct result of me kind of reaching out and asking for help, which is what I'm all about today helping people who are where I once was.
[00:39:38]  So.
[00:39:38]  You know, those defects have become my assets.
[00:39:41]  Right.
[00:39:42]  That poison has become my medicine that I can now share with countless others.
[00:39:47]  So it's given me purpose.
[00:39:48]  It's given me drive.
[00:39:49]  It's given me meaning.
[00:39:51]  It's given me love.
[00:39:52]  Right.
[00:39:52]  It's taught me compassion, empathy, sympathy.

=== Turning Defects Into Assets (14:49) ===

[00:39:56]  And it all spawned from skateboarding.
[00:39:58]  Really did.
[00:39:59]  So you guys were in Europe when that happened?
[00:40:01]  Yeah.
[00:40:01]  And then didn't you have to go to the hospital after that?
[00:40:04]  I did.
[00:40:04]  I went to the hospital.
[00:40:05]  Because you guys were on.
[00:40:06]  Oh, that was when he had the band, right?
[00:40:08]  Uh huh.
[00:40:08]  Fuck Face Hustle.
[00:40:09]  Fuck Face Hustle.
[00:40:10]  Which I was the most important person in the band, but I didn't even play any musical instruments.
[00:40:15]  I wasn't even in the band.
[00:40:16]  Again, being his best friend, traveling, his kind of form of entertainment.
[00:40:22]  He used to say I was like his walking television.
[00:40:24]  They couldn't really like kick me off the tour.
[00:40:27]  Yeah.
[00:40:27]  Until.
[00:40:28]  Yeah.
[00:40:29]  And then they put me on the tour, like opening for them as Pill Collins.
[00:40:34]  It was a whole other thing.
[00:40:35]  So then I had some relevance to the tour at that point.
[00:40:39]  But we have all that footage.
[00:40:40]  So again, all of that footage we have.
[00:40:43]  And, you know, I have a documentary that will be coming out that, unbeknownst to me or us, has been in production since the CKY days.
[00:40:52]  So that's like 20 some years.
[00:40:54]  We have the actual real time footage.
[00:40:56]  So everything that I'm talking about.
[00:40:58]  For the majority of this episode, we have the actual footage too.
[00:41:02]  Oh, wow.
[00:41:03]  That's so cool.
[00:41:07]  We are putting it out, so we have complete creative control.
[00:41:10]  It's in production editing now.
[00:41:12]  Joe Franz, who filmed the CKYs, he's doing this project.
[00:41:16]  Is he really?
[00:41:17]  Yeah.
[00:41:17]  Oh, wow.
[00:41:18]  Yeah.
[00:41:18]  So when we're done, then we'll look at how we're going to, you know, the avenues in which to release it.
[00:41:25]  So where do you live right now?
[00:41:26]  Philadelphia.
[00:41:27]  Oh, you live in Philly right now?
[00:41:28]  And Joe's still there?
[00:41:29]  Yeah, he's still there.
[00:41:30]  Wow, dude.
[00:41:31]  I was watching this morning.
[00:41:33]  I was like reminiscing a little bit watching one of the old CKY videos.
[00:41:36]  I watched this scene where you guys were playing poker.
[00:41:39]  Yeah.
[00:41:40]  And Deco takes your cross.
[00:41:41]  He's like, What did your grandmother give you this?
[00:41:44]  And that was right around the.
[00:41:46]  If you remember that, maybe you couldn't tell, but I was so uncomfortable.
[00:41:52]  Like, I come out of Baltimore, I have this big gold cross.
[00:41:55]  Like, that was.
[00:41:55]  Yeah, I was just so unsure of myself.
[00:41:57]  I just really didn't know anything about me.
[00:42:01]  And that was even filming that because Ben would like put me in these skits and like you guys are drinking wine at a shot glass.
[00:42:08]  I was still like, in my mind, all I wanted to do was keep doing heroin, but I knew that it wasn't like sustainable.
[00:42:15]  And I'd burned all these bridges in Baltimore, so he was like letting me live with him.
[00:42:18]  Yeah.
[00:42:18]  So although physically I was there doing what a lot of people would think was really rad shit, in my mind, mentally, all I was obsessing about was how can I get back to Baltimore to get heroin?
[00:42:28]  Yeah.
[00:42:29]  Wow, dude.
[00:42:30]  It's insane.
[00:42:31]  Looking back, but that's literally where I was at during that scene.
[00:42:35]  I could have given a fuck less about that.
[00:42:37]  I just wanted to get back to Baltimore to get heroin, but without any repercussions, which was impossible.
[00:42:44]  So I was like in this weird purgatory state, and that lasted for the better part of like a lot of years.
[00:42:49]  God damn.
[00:42:50]  What was the worst shit you ever saw, like on the streets trying to score smack?
[00:42:54]  Dude, there was just a lot of things that I wouldn't recommend or suggest anybody ever have to witness.
[00:43:05]  And really, what it was is just the pain that our loved ones received as a direct result, right?
[00:43:13]  Because they get the short end of the stick.
[00:43:16]  They get like the addiction, except they get everything that comes with addiction, except for the physical act of drinking or drugging, which allows you to escape reality.
[00:43:23]  And it's kind of like this, okay.
[00:43:26]  They get like the pain, the death, the destruction, the heartbreak, the heartache.
[00:43:31]  And that to me was, you know, watching my mother like just have to.
[00:43:36]  We had this big glass door, and I went home one day.
[00:43:39]  A common theme in my stories is that locks stop working.
[00:43:45]  I put the key in, it doesn't work, and she's just there crying, crying, crying.
[00:43:50]  And she said, Brandon, I can't.
[00:43:52]  I can no longer allow you to live here.
[00:43:55]  I will no longer love you to death.
[00:43:56]  You have to go.
[00:43:58]  And I'm like, You're my mother.
[00:44:00]  And it's so sick, but I would take it to like, You allowed my father to do this for years.
[00:44:05]  If it wasn't for my dad, I wouldn't be the way that I was.
[00:44:08]  You know, I'm really projecting this evil, vile stuff that is not true.
[00:44:15]  And that's to me the worst shit.
[00:44:18]  Now, to viewers who are like, Oh, wow, your mom's crying.
[00:44:20]  That's not that sad of a thing.
[00:44:21]  I've seen like the.
[00:44:23]  The stabbings, I've seen the shootings, I've seen like babies in crack houses.
[00:44:28]  You know, it's just, but at that point in time, it's just kind of like par for the course.
[00:44:34]  It's a Monday morning.
[00:44:35]  Yeah, that's stuff you see every day.
[00:44:36]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:38]  That's not the stuff that sticks with me.
[00:44:39]  What sticks with me is, you know, my mother literally praying to God that I die, legit.
[00:44:50]  Just because then she could finally have a peace of mind knowing that I was safe once and for all.
[00:44:54]  She told you that?
[00:44:55]  Yeah.
[00:44:56]  She bought me a plot.
[00:44:57]  I have a plot waiting, legit, which is for sale now.
[00:45:02]  So, if anyone out here would like to purchase this plot, which is in Baltimore, the proceeds from said plot will go to the scholarship foundation that I've created, which provides sober living for any man in need.
[00:45:16]  I refuse to let price be a deterrent as to why someone can't follow through with sobriety after completing an inpatient program.
[00:45:23]  Wow, dude.
[00:45:24]  But yeah, like that's fucking dark.
[00:45:26]  That's where it went for me.
[00:45:28]  Fuck, most fucked up thing I've ever heard on here.
[00:45:30]  And to me, that's just like pretty.
[00:45:31]  It's like, yeah.
[00:45:31]  It's like, yeah.
[00:45:34]  Have you ever watched that YouTube channel, Soft White Underbelly?
[00:45:37]  I've heard.
[00:45:38]  Dude.
[00:45:39]  Never watched.
[00:45:39]  It's this dude, Mark Lade, who's a photographer who lives in LA, but he bought a studio, a photo studio in Skid Row.
[00:45:46]  And then he was just constantly surrounded by all these pimps and prostitutes and crackheads and like the most fucked up human beings on earth.
[00:45:53]  One dude had like half of his face blown off by a shotgun over like a crack deal gone wrong.
[00:45:59]  And like he just started bringing them into his studio and talking to them.
[00:46:02]  And like asking them about their lives.
[00:46:04]  And it is, it is gut wrenching to watch some of those interviews, bro.
[00:46:08]  I mean, and he says like the number one, I don't know if it's true for like you or the people that you were around, but he says out of all the people he interviewed, the number one common denominator is like fucked up childhoods and like fucked up parenting.
[00:46:22]  I mean, well, that's the thing, right?
[00:46:24]  Like the byproduct, the thing that gets our attention is the skid row drug addict crackhead.
[00:46:30]  Yeah.
[00:46:32]  Beyond that, you know, past the thing that we're seeing, the solution to the real problem, there's some kind of traumatic experience that took place within that individual's life.
[00:46:42]  Right.
[00:46:42]  And that's what's so important with getting.
[00:46:46]  I'm a big fan of treatment.
[00:46:50]  You know, I don't trust anyone that doesn't seek outside advice or counsel through some form of therapy, personally.
[00:46:57]  And I'm a big fan of helping someone find an appropriate program that fits their diagnosis because what happens is then.
[00:47:07]  Say, you know, that bottle of wine is my addiction, right?
[00:47:11]  And I put it down.
[00:47:13]  If I just simply sit this thing down and that's all I've done, it's not a matter of if I pick it back up, but when I will pick it back up.
[00:47:21]  Why?
[00:47:22]  Because that's not the problem, that's the solution.
[00:47:24]  The same alcoholic will drink again.
[00:47:26]  Why wouldn't I just pick that back up?
[00:47:28]  So if I can get someone into an appropriate program and create a big enough gap between me and the last time I've picked up my solution, then we can get to the root of the cause.
[00:47:39]  We can uncover what the problem is.
[00:47:42]  In order to discover what the problem is, if there's any hopes to recover from the problem.
[00:47:47]  Because a lot of times people don't even fucking know what the problem is.
[00:47:50]  It's never been uncovered.
[00:47:52]  Right, right.
[00:47:53]  It's so buried.
[00:47:54]  Yeah.
[00:47:55]  So ignorance is bliss.
[00:47:56]  Why wouldn't I fucking smoke crack on Skid Row and have half my face blown off?
[00:48:00]  Like, what?
[00:48:02]  Foolish you for thinking that there's something wrong with my story.
[00:48:05]  Right.
[00:48:06]  Straight up, yeah.
[00:48:06]  Yeah, man.
[00:48:07]  Like, that's the disconnection from reality is mind blowing.
[00:48:13]  Yeah, I liked what your quote was.
[00:48:14]  You said, I forget, I think it was on Bird's podcast.
[00:48:18]  You said, I'm a big fan of.
[00:48:20]  Hard times.
[00:48:22]  Yeah, totally.
[00:48:23]  You know, there has to be some repercussions from the actions, right?
[00:48:26]  Yep, yep.
[00:48:27]  I was always very grateful to have been surrounded by really good people in my new way of life that I'm on and journey.
[00:48:39]  And they would instill these things in me like you never get between an alcoholic and their bottom.
[00:48:44]  Mm hmm.
[00:48:44]  Right.
[00:48:45]  And there has to be some repercussions from their actions or else why would I stop?
[00:48:51]  Right.
[00:48:51]  Why?
[00:48:51]  Yeah.
[00:48:52]  Why?
[00:48:53]  Mm hmm.
[00:48:54]  I, me personally, but that's the fucked up convoluted thing about alcoholism and addiction, which is why it looks like we're fighting this really unwinning battle.
[00:49:05]  If you look at the analytics, if you look at the statistics, the cold hard fucking data collected from whatever they're, you know, pooling this from, it states that I, a person in recovery, or an addict and alcoholic, should be high or dead right now.
[00:49:23]  The fact that I'm not is A, miraculous, equally a miracle, and B, it defies logic.
[00:49:32]  It looks like we are fighting an unwinning battle.
[00:49:36]  But if you ask my mother, she'll tell you different.
[00:49:40]  Because, like, I'm not in that plot that she bought me years ago.
[00:49:44]  So I work with the DEA now.
[00:49:47]  Which is pretty fucking insane.
[00:49:49]  Wow.
[00:49:50]  The DEA came to me.
[00:49:52]  I didn't go to the DEA.
[00:49:53]  The DEA came to me and they said, look, Novak, we understand that we cannot.
[00:50:00]  A West, we understand that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem anymore, right?
[00:50:06]  Wow, took them long enough, right?
[00:50:08]  Yeah, where you been, man?
[00:50:11]  And the just say no thing didn't work, shocker.
[00:50:15]  But they said, We understand that we can no longer recognize, you know, arrest our way out of this problem.
[00:50:21]  We are going to create this thing called the opioid summit, the 360 degree opioid summit, and we're going to have it in every state.
[00:50:28]  The DEA is the DEA, but under that umbrella are all these different.
[00:50:32]  Different factions of the DEA.
[00:50:34]  It's like the VA, right?
[00:50:35]  The VA is the VA, but then you have all these other VAs in different states, and they're all kind of ran differently.
[00:50:40]  They're not under the same guidelines.
[00:50:43]  And the DEA is very similar.
[00:50:45]  So, what they did was they brought me on to be the speaker, the keynote speaker for these events that they throw because they want to try to instill change in the approach that they're headed in with addiction and the crisis that we're in.
[00:51:07]  So, they interviewed Pablo Escobar and they were telling me about this.
[00:51:11]  They said, We went to Pablo and they said, How do we stop the supply?
[00:51:17]  How do we stop the supply?
[00:51:19]  And Pablo looked at them at real matter of fact, nonchalant, didn't even blink his eyes.
[00:51:24]  He said, You stop the supply by stopping the demand.
[00:51:26]  Right.
[00:51:27]  So simple.
[00:51:27]  So simple that most miss that.
[00:51:30]  What I can tell you is, me being a person who's coming up on nine years sober, I literally spent the majority of every living breath in my body.
[00:51:38]  Coming up with ways to find as much money to consume as much heroin into my arm as possible for a lot of years.
[00:51:46]  And the fact that I'm no longer living that way, just me as one human in the 7.3 billion people in the world, I've stopped just myself a lot of the demand.
[00:51:59]  Just me, right?
[00:52:00]  So when someone took the time to help me, what happened was I accepted the help.
[00:52:07]  Now I help another two times.
[00:52:10]  Turn into four, four turn into eight, eight turn into 16.
[00:52:13]  And before you know it, the narrative is changing, meaning that the outcome is changing.
[00:52:18]  So that's the approach that, you know, but if you look at the numbers, we're losing this battle.
[00:52:26]  Yeah, well, I mean, doesn't, isn't, like, I don't believe it.
[00:52:28]  Isn't the pharmaceutical industry one of the biggest problems with this too?
[00:52:31]  It's so disgusting.
[00:52:32]  I mean, we're the only country in the world besides, we're not even half as bad as New Zealand, but they're the only other country that allows advertising of pharmaceutical drugs on television and everywhere else.
[00:52:43]  And, like, even with those recent documentaries that came out, the painkiller documentary and then the Purdue Pharma, all that shit is like, that is, I mean, you want to talk about a cartel.
[00:52:53]  Oh, yeah.
[00:52:54]  It's insane.
[00:52:56]  They are, as a complete fact to my belief, they are worse drug dealers than the guys out here on the corner that are just like legit selling whatever they're selling.
[00:53:08]  Yeah, I don't.
[00:53:09]  Those are the real gangsters.
[00:53:11]  Yeah.
[00:53:12]  But if you could stop those companies.
[00:53:17]  Being able to make so much goddamn money and skirt so much regulation and like being literally in lockstep with lobbying fucking politicians to be able to get away with whatever they want.
[00:53:27]  Yeah.
[00:53:28]  I mean, that seems to me like the lowest hanging fruit to the problem.
[00:53:33]  So I, well, yeah, but it's just so complex, so, so convoluted, so layered that my feeble mind doesn't see a solution to that.
[00:53:44]  But what I can wrap my head around, what I can conceive is like, Helping another individual.
[00:53:49]  Two turn into four, four turn into eight, eight turn into 16.
[00:53:53]  The narrative changes because the demand is stopping.
[00:53:55]  The supply is no longer needed.
[00:53:57]  The outcome is fuck, like, I'm cool.
[00:54:01]  I don't even, I'm not interested in what you're selling.
[00:54:06]  That's my outlook on a grim situation that I can wrap my head around and really believe things will change over.
[00:54:15]  Do you know anything about the program they have in?
[00:54:20]  I forget what country it is right now.
[00:54:22]  I want to say it's like Finland or something where they actually made heroin legal.
[00:54:27]  To where, if you have a problem with heroin, a doctor will work with you and titrate down your dose.
[00:54:33]  And you can actually go to the doctor to get your heroin, make sure it's clean and make sure you don't get any infections or whatever.
[00:54:41]  And then they slowly work with you and try to wean you off under medical supervision.

=== Miracles in Safe Injection Sites (04:33) ===

[00:54:46]  I'm a big fan of that approach.
[00:54:48]  I know just a little bit.
[00:54:50]  Not nearly enough to sit here and act as if I do.
[00:54:53]  Do you think that would work here?
[00:54:55]  Here's the deal, right?
[00:54:56]  In this world of harm reduction, there's no margin for error, yet it's impossible to do perfect.
[00:55:05]  Yeah.
[00:55:05]  No one has a fucking answer.
[00:55:07]  Right.
[00:55:07]  If we did, we bottle it, we sell it, we'd be a billionaire a billion times over.
[00:55:11]  I believe and I want to hope within my heart of hearts that we're all coming to this with the most sincerest of intentions and we want the best outcome.
[00:55:20]  I really want to believe that.
[00:55:22]  Probably not true, but that's what I choose to believe.
[00:55:24]  And we're just doing the best with what we have.
[00:55:28]  And if we all come together collectively and continue to not buy into, which could be, you know, just political propaganda, look at this war on drugs that you're fighting that you're never going to win.
[00:55:43]  Yeah.
[00:55:44]  You know, that just deepens certain parties' pockets for sure.
[00:55:48]  Right, right.
[00:55:48]  You know, if you don't buy into that narrative and just stay in this for the right reason, like the right outcome will prevail.
[00:55:58]  I'm a big, they were going to open the first safe injection site in Philadelphia.
[00:56:03]  I don't know where because they have those, but like in PA, I think the first one was going to be in the city of Philadelphia.
[00:56:10]  And it was this close to being passed.
[00:56:13]  And at the midnight hour, they pulled it.
[00:56:15]  Really?
[00:56:17]  And some of the arguments were you know, what if my son walks past there and he sees them in there injecting?
[00:56:25]  Because, same thing, they were going to have doctors in there, they were going to have people administering fentanyl.
[00:56:33]  Test kits to see if there's fentanyl, a very safe space for which you can inject your drugs, give you clean needles, clean cookers, clean water, clean cottons to bring the disease spreading to a minimal.
[00:56:51]  And they said, well, what if my son walks past there and he sees that?
[00:56:56]  And then also, it could be used as a portal to where, if you're in there and you want help, here's all these resources available.
[00:57:03]  Let's get you from there to treatment.
[00:57:05]  Right, he was going to do all this great, but then their big concern was like, Well, what if my girl, what if my son, what if my daughter?
[00:57:11]  And my thought to that was the majority of the men and women that are in there doing that don't want to be in there doing that, right?
[00:57:18]  Like, my mother, 83, God bless her soul, is never going to walk past the safe injection site and see some guy with a needle hanging out of his arm and be like, That looks pretty fucking fun, right?
[00:57:27]  Like, that's not how generally that's not how it works, right?
[00:57:32]  But then, fuck it, I'll just say it like.
[00:57:36]  Being an owner of properties, I wouldn't want it next to my house.
[00:57:42]  Yeah.
[00:57:45]  If you're really going to be sincere, would you mind?
[00:57:47]  You know, right.
[00:57:49]  But who's to say?
[00:57:49]  I mean, I would give up my property value in order to save countless people for sure.
[00:57:55]  But my very first thought was like, no, you don't want to lose it.
[00:57:58]  I love it, but I love it over there.
[00:57:59]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:58:00]  If the truth be told.
[00:58:01]  Yeah.
[00:58:03]  So it's like, yeah, what you don't see doesn't affect you, right?
[00:58:06]  Yeah.
[00:58:08]  But again, I just believe in miracles because I am a walking, talking miracle, and I know a lot of real life miracles that are amongst us all day and night.
[00:58:20]  So I'll continue to fight this, what a lot of others would say is an unwitting battle.
[00:58:25]  Yeah.
[00:58:26]  What do you think about all the fentanyl and shit being trafficked over here and mixed with everything, like in cocaine and drugs?
[00:58:33]  So that's insane, too.
[00:58:34]  I had a big talk with the DEA.
[00:58:36]  I just did an event with them, the DEA, and I had.
[00:58:39]  Asked them about that.
[00:58:39]  They talked to me.
[00:58:40]  They said cocaine is making a very big comeback.
[00:58:43]  Not crack, but cocaine.
[00:58:44]  They're seeing tons of cocaine again.
[00:58:46]  Yeah.
[00:58:47]  Methamphetamine, obviously, which is kind of known.
[00:58:51]  And they said what happened is because they banned China from being able to export the ingredients that it takes to make fentanyl, right?
[00:59:01]  Like they really put a safeguard on shutting that down as best as they could do.
[00:59:06]  But what's happening now is remember, like when they were making the backyard meth, like in a bathroom in a little like Soda bottle can.
[00:59:15]  They're doing the same thing here with fentanyl, doing that.

=== Factor Meals Without the Hassle (02:35) ===

[00:59:19]  And they gave me this chocolate chip analogy.
[00:59:23]  Because you have these guys in the woods with a Home Depot bucket and a two by four mixing up fentanyl, like for real, and then they're putting it into whatever product they're cooking up, it's turning into this.
[00:59:37]  Imagine you're baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
[00:59:42]  Do you have the ability to control how many chocolate chips go in each design cookie?
[00:59:47]  No.
[00:59:48]  Same thing with fentanyl.
[00:59:49]  So that's why you get a batch where one guy you buy from the same dealer, one person.
[00:59:55]  Might totally be fine, but the other person dies immediately.
[00:59:58]  It's that whole chocolate chip cookie thing.
[01:00:02]  So they're doing that so that they understand.
[01:00:07]  So what they're doing now, and you'll start to hear this if you pay attention, they're going to start changing the narrative and the wording of it.
[01:00:14]  You're not going to hear overdoses anymore.
[01:00:16]  You're going to start to hear poisonings.
[01:00:19]  Because I said, well, why are they putting it in cocaine?
[01:00:21]  Why are they putting it in Xanax?
[01:00:24]  Why are they putting it in ecstasy?
[01:00:26]  And they said, to create that.
[01:00:29]  What addicts call the speedball effect.
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=== Cartels Fighting Fentanyl Laced Cocaine (03:47) ===

[01:01:55]  It's linked below.
[01:01:56]  Now back to the show.
[01:01:57]  I loved speedballs.
[01:01:58]  There was nothing more I love than shooting up heroin and cocaine at the same time, right?
[01:02:02]  Yeah, how do you do a speedball?
[01:02:03]  You just have heroin and cocaine mixed up, cook it up, and shoot it.
[01:02:06]  Together in one shot, but it gets you real high, and you just get this sensation, this smell, this feeling, and then it brings you like you just stop in your tracks.
[01:02:17]  Um, but it kind of produces that same effect within these kids who are going to buy a little bit of blow, right?
[01:02:26]  Or whatever it gives you that without even knowing that you're going to get that in hopes to create this new phenomenon, um, and just to help spike sales really is what they're doing it for.
[01:02:36]  So addicted quicker, yeah, always.
[01:02:38]  Thought that the fentanyl in the cocaine, because these people that are doing it are dying instantly, right?
[01:02:43]  I know.
[01:02:43]  So I always thought that I read something about this where people that are dying.
[01:02:48]  But not all are dying because of the chocolate chip effect, right?
[01:02:50]  So there's so many people dying.
[01:02:52]  Depending on how much.
[01:02:53]  Yeah.
[01:02:53]  And you can't control that.
[01:02:55]  So I thought it was like shitty street dealers who sold heroin that you can mix heroin with fentanyl on purpose, right?
[01:03:02]  Like, because it's a whatever.
[01:03:05]  But they're mixing it on the same table or whatever as they're mixing the cocaine.
[01:03:09]  So they're accidentally getting some like.
[01:03:12]  No.
[01:03:12]  Some side residue of some fentanyl in there.
[01:03:14]  Yeah.
[01:03:14]  But you think they're intentionally putting it in there?
[01:03:17]  No, that's what I was told by the DEA.
[01:03:21]  Right.
[01:03:21]  People.
[01:03:22]  And it's not, remember, the DEA is like a very big facet.
[01:03:26]  It's a big organization.
[01:03:27]  So it's not like they have a speaker that speaks for them.
[01:03:30]  I just talked to some people that are employed by them.
[01:03:32]  But if I'm selling Coke and I'm mixing with fentanyl and it's killing people, that's not good for business, right?
[01:03:38]  Yeah.
[01:03:38]  You want your clients to die.
[01:03:40]  True.
[01:03:40]  But then the ones that don't die are like, ah, what's this?
[01:03:44]  That's like extra good.
[01:03:46]  Oh, okay.
[01:03:46]  You know what I mean?
[01:03:47]  Like, that's different.
[01:03:48]  I like that high.
[01:03:49]  And then go back to that person.
[01:03:51]  Can you, Stephen?
[01:03:52]  There's an article.
[01:03:52]  I don't know if you can find it, but there was a recent article where the boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
[01:04:00]  Those are the two main cartels that are fighting over everything.
[01:04:02]  This is also what they told me.
[01:04:03]  It's the Sinaloa and the Xi Jinping.
[01:04:06]  Whoever they are.
[01:04:06]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:04:07]  Those are the two that are like the ones that are in charge of everything.
[01:04:12]  The new generation cartel.
[01:04:13]  Yes.
[01:04:13]  Those are the two that have a say so in everything.
[01:04:17]  So that, yeah, it was the boss of the Sinaloa cartel who made some sort of statement to all of their proxies that.
[01:04:23]  If anybody finds fentanyl in any of their coke, that they're going to kill them on site.
[01:04:30]  Or there will be massive repercussions for them.
[01:04:33]  So that could very well have happened.
[01:04:35]  I don't know the day to day work.
[01:04:37]  It was crazy to see that in an article to see that the cartels are super against their shit being cut with fentanyl and they're going to be punishing people for mixing their coke with fentanyl.
[01:04:46]  So then the approach to the prosecution side of this thing, again, what they're doing is they're changing the verbal from overdoses.
[01:04:54]  To poisoning because if I arrest you because you sold a batch of heroin or cocaine that killed some people with fentanyl, I'm arresting you for uh, you know, possession, distribution, maybe some form of homicide for a second, third degree.
[01:05:10]  But if I can say that you're poisoning people, the outcome of that sentencing is way worse, way worse.
[01:05:17]  So you're going to hear less overdosing, more poisoning is how that's going to start playing out.
[01:05:22]  Do you think you could handle fentanyl?
[01:05:24]  You could handle some no, I would have for sure died.
[01:05:27]  I mean, I literally my day.
[01:05:29]  Consisted of me coming up with as much money humanly possible to stick a needle into my arm and ingest it.
[01:05:35]  I mean, I did that.
[01:05:36]  Like, this is one of my tattoos.
[01:05:39]  Where's my needle?
[01:05:40]  I know.
[01:05:41]  Oh, there it is.
[01:05:41]  Like, that's what I did.

=== Handling Poisoning Sentences (13:26) ===

[01:05:43]  Like, I really did that thing.
[01:05:45]  And I'm not bragging by any means, but that was how I got there.
[01:05:48]  There it is.
[01:05:49]  What does the top say?
[01:05:49]  Go scroll down up a little bit.
[01:05:50]  Mexico Sinaloa cartel say gang has purportedly sworn off sales of fentanyl.
[01:05:57]  Yeah.
[01:05:58]  Banners appear Monday.
[01:05:59]  Oh, wow.
[01:06:00]  Prosecutors in Sinaloa confirmed that the banners appeared on.
[01:06:03]  Over passes and near roadways, but could not say whether they were authentic or who had hung them up.
[01:06:11]  Yeah, or is that just a tactical play to say we're not doing it?
[01:06:14]  Leave us alone a little bit, yeah, right?
[01:06:16]  That could easily be that.
[01:06:17]  It's like very similar as politics, right there.
[01:06:19]  Yeah, who put it on?
[01:06:21]  We don't like that stuff.
[01:06:22]  Yeah, what side is basically a political party in Mexico?
[01:06:25]  It is, it's like CNN or Fox.
[01:06:28]  Which narrative are we pushing out here?
[01:06:30]  It's like you just never know.
[01:06:33]  Um.
[01:06:34]  Yeah, it's a very difficult, uncharted territory.
[01:06:40]  What was the story with you guys?
[01:06:43]  I don't know if you were with Bam, but you were telling a story about like some Samoan tranny, some Samoan trans dude in a hotel room.
[01:06:51]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:55]  I was on the Howard Stern show, and, you know, I'd been up for several days doing cocaine, and the Howard Stern show was done in New York at the time.
[01:07:05]  Mm hmm.
[01:07:07]  It happens very early, like 5 a.m. to be in the studio.
[01:07:10]  And of course, the logical approach to being there at 5 in the morning is just to stay up and do Coke all night.
[01:07:17]  Right.
[01:07:17]  Still go to sleep.
[01:07:18]  Totally.
[01:07:18]  So I did that, and we go in, and the show came out amazing.
[01:07:22]  It did really well, like insanely high ratings.
[01:07:26]  And the ratings were like great.
[01:07:29]  And I talked on there about wanting to get blown by a transsexual because I was like, you know, it seemed like a great idea.
[01:07:38]  It seemed like, you know, everything would be amazing about it.
[01:07:42]  That's probably what they do the majority of their experiences, you know, when they're portraying a woman, is just give them lots of blowjobs.
[01:07:48]  They'd be great at it.
[01:07:50]  Whatever.
[01:07:52]  They'd be better at giving blowjobs?
[01:07:54]  I think they'd be, you know, more in tune with it.
[01:07:57]  Right, because they understand what it takes to get a good blowjob.
[01:07:59]  And, you know, they're men, you know, disguising themselves as women.
[01:08:04]  Right.
[01:08:05]  So obviously they're not going to fuck a lot.
[01:08:08]  So I'd imagine their go-to would be oral.
[01:08:11]  Mm-hmm.
[01:08:12]  It's my guess.
[01:08:13]  And so we're in Australia and we're doing a fuckface tour.
[01:08:17]  And one of the promoters asked if we needed anything.
[01:08:21]  And that was another tour that I got kicked off of for just being way too high and buying Oxycontins, and I got caught with them.
[01:08:30]  But nonetheless, Bam's like, Yes, we need a transsexual that's willing to grow Novak.
[01:08:37]  And we get back to the hotel, and lo and behold, there's a knock at the door, and there's this transsexual, and the transsexual's pimp.
[01:08:45]  And in my mind, what I envisioned a transsexual to look like was this very attractive woman that, you know, remember that Maury.
[01:08:52]  Show the talk show.
[01:08:53]  Is it a man or is it a woman?
[01:08:55]  Remember that talk show, like how it's like Jerry Springer?
[01:08:59]  Like really good looking men that look like women.
[01:09:02]  And I'm in my mind, that's what it was going to be if it ever came to fruition.
[01:09:05]  You wouldn't even be able to tell, it's so good.
[01:09:07]  Yeah, like you'd be jealous for not partaking.
[01:09:10]  In my mind, is how this was going to look if it ever happened.
[01:09:13]  Yeah, totally.
[01:09:15]  And lo and behold, it happened and it did not play out at all like I predicted it would.
[01:09:20]  The transsexual was just like this.
[01:09:23]  Like a Samoan guy that didn't really look like a girl and looked like he played like a linebacker for a football team.
[01:09:31]  And there was like a pimp there, and it was just really weird.
[01:09:36]  And I had been on cocaine for like days, and I'm like paranoid and delusional at this point.
[01:09:41]  And I used to watch that TV show, Cops, a lot.
[01:09:44]  And I love when they would do the prostitution stings.
[01:09:46]  They'd get a hotel room next to an adjoining room.
[01:09:49]  Next door.
[01:09:50]  Yeah.
[01:09:50]  And then John would come in with the chick, and then all of a sudden the police would barge through the door.
[01:09:56]  And I'm like, Fuck.
[01:09:57]  That's what's going on.
[01:09:58]  It's just going to happen.
[01:09:59]  Before that, everyone went into the bathroom.
[01:10:01]  The pimp included.
[01:10:02]  Everyone from the party.
[01:10:03]  Because I was there?
[01:10:04]  Yeah, he had to go to the bathroom.
[01:10:06]  Everyone had to go in the bathroom because I was engaged at the time.
[01:10:08]  And I didn't want word to get back to my fiance that I'm getting blown by not only a hooker, but like a transsexual hooker.
[01:10:17]  So everyone's in the bathroom so no one can see or take pictures.
[01:10:21]  Wait, why?
[01:10:21]  What was in it?
[01:10:22]  Why did you agree to do it?
[01:10:24]  Just because.
[01:10:25]  Well, because I was on the Howard Stern show, and that's a good goddamn story to tell.
[01:10:29]  Oh, okay.
[01:10:29]  That I would love to do that.
[01:10:30]  You know, just like, and at the time, I was like, yeah, whatever.
[01:10:34]  Sure, it'd be rad.
[01:10:35]  But basically, my mouth wrote a check, my ass did not want to cash.
[01:10:41]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:10:41]  It's what it came down to.
[01:10:42]  You found yourself in deep.
[01:10:43]  Yeah, you know, you're just consumed by the moment, the energy.
[01:10:46]  You're like, I'll do it.
[01:10:47]  And you're like, no.
[01:10:48]  Didn't want to be a coward.
[01:10:49]  Yeah.
[01:10:50]  I walked way too far to get out of this one.
[01:10:53]  And so everyone's in the bathroom, and I'm like delusional.
[01:10:58]  I'm starting to become paranoid.
[01:10:59]  I haven't slept for almost five days, and I'm believing.
[01:11:03]  I sit on a chair and she sits on a chair, and I don't know what to say or do.
[01:11:09]  And I'm like, if you're a cop, just arrest me now because I am envisioning the doors and the police.
[01:11:14]  She said, I'm not a cop.
[01:11:17]  She said, let's go to the bed.
[01:11:18]  And I'm like, well, why would we go to the bed?
[01:11:19]  There's nothing to do in the bed.
[01:11:20]  Like, no.
[01:11:22]  And then she kind of starts to crawl over and perform the acts.
[01:11:28]  But I like to talk dirty, like, when in that position.
[01:11:31]  And that's not really my mind can't get there.
[01:11:34]  And I just want this.
[01:11:35]  I just want it over with.
[01:11:37]  So bad.
[01:11:39]  So, so bad.
[01:11:40]  Oh.
[01:11:41]  Somehow it didn't take long.
[01:11:44]  It did.
[01:11:45]  I pulled it together, man.
[01:11:46]  I pulled it together.
[01:11:47]  I've been in uncomfortable situations before.
[01:11:49]  So it's not like the fur.
[01:11:50]  And I've had.
[01:11:52]  During addiction, you know, men blow me for money before.
[01:11:55]  Right.
[01:11:56]  But that was by force.
[01:11:58]  This is almost by choice in a weird roundabout way.
[01:12:01]  They were friends in the bathroom.
[01:12:04]  And the pimp, this big pimp guy in the bathroom.
[01:12:07]  It's just, I'm going to blow.
[01:12:08]  I'm in Australia.
[01:12:10]  Oh my God.
[01:12:11]  So the deed is done.
[01:12:13]  They come out.
[01:12:14]  And then to make matters worse, when they're leaving the hotel room, one of them swipe, bam, had this big platinum hardogram.
[01:12:22]  Necklace that this jeweler like made and gifted him, like really expensive platinum, and they swipe that too.
[01:12:29]  So, this whole thing costs probably like at least 20 grand worth of just adding the cost of the necklace.
[01:12:37]  Jesus Christ, dude.
[01:12:40]  Yeah.
[01:12:42]  So, the moral of the story is do not get blown by a tranny in Australia.
[01:12:47]  No, they don't look like what you think they look.
[01:12:49]  Everyone has a king, man.
[01:12:51]  That's someone's, not mine.
[01:12:55]  Oh, God.
[01:12:56]  But you were a veteran at that point, though.
[01:12:57]  You knew kind of like how, like, is there a process for you to like get yourself out of your head when that's happening?
[01:13:04]  Like, I just need this guy to blow me so I can get some heroin.
[01:13:06]  Like, it's going to be over in five minutes.
[01:13:10]  It is.
[01:13:10]  It's just kind of like, you know, you disconnect.
[01:13:14]  You know, I disassociate like really.
[01:13:16]  You know, I've spent, you know, I've been in solitary confinement where I was locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, loud out once an hour, one time a day for an hour.
[01:13:27]  Monday through Friday, and handcuffs and shackles.
[01:13:29]  And, you know, I've done that.
[01:13:31]  I've been homeless.
[01:13:32]  I've slept in abandoned houses.
[01:13:34]  I've had to like piss and shit into like one of those Home Depot buckets.
[01:13:38]  I've done the prostitution thing.
[01:13:40]  I've completely destroyed, you know, my mother's hopes and dreams to have a safe child.
[01:13:50]  Yeah, I've been around the block a lot of times.
[01:13:52]  So I'm pretty good at like, thank God I'm not like that now.
[01:13:55]  I don't have to disassociate from anything.
[01:13:57]  And I actually really appreciate and am grateful for the process.
[01:14:02]  In which things take place, and I'm so much in that zone now that when the littlest of things gets me off my game, I almost shake physically.
[01:14:14]  I can tell.
[01:14:15]  I'm just so disconnected from being that guy that I once was.
[01:14:22]  I'm just such a changed man.
[01:14:24]  Wow, dude.
[01:14:25]  Hey, whatever happened to Dico?
[01:14:28]  He's around.
[01:14:29]  I don't know.
[01:14:30]  He disappeared.
[01:14:31]  Everyone wondered.
[01:14:32]  Everyone speculates where he went, but he just like fell off from disappeared into the darkness.
[01:14:37]  He was the one that I was the least closest with.
[01:14:39]  Oh, was he really?
[01:14:39]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:14:40]  He was literally the one I was the least closest with.
[01:14:43]  Huh.
[01:14:43]  Do you and Bam still talk now, or are you guys still kind of on the outs?
[01:14:46]  We're not speaking at the moment.
[01:14:49]  I don't have any issues.
[01:14:50]  I've never been angry or, you know, had an issue with him.
[01:14:54]  I will always love him to death.
[01:14:55]  I'll always be there for him.
[01:14:57]  I think we were just going in two different directions for a while, so we didn't have much in common, you know?
[01:15:02]  But I see like the stages.
[01:15:03]  Because you were like on the Rise and he was kind of like spiraling out of control.
[01:15:07]  Yeah, we were just headed in two different directions.
[01:15:10]  And I don't ever come from a place of like standing on the top of this mountain preaching as if I have the answers because I actually don't.
[01:15:17]  I don't have any answers at all.
[01:15:18]  What I know is this my narrative and where I'm at and the direction I'm headed in.
[01:15:23]  And if anyone out there wants to be a part of it, then right on, let's do this together.
[01:15:28]  And maybe if there's more similarities than differences, it might make sense to pay a little bit of attention.
[01:15:33]  But if not, that's totally okay.
[01:15:35]  So I don't know if his direction was the right or wrong one.
[01:15:39]  Who am I to say that?
[01:15:40]  I just know it wasn't the direction that I was headed in.
[01:15:43]  And looking back for me, depending on how deep you want to dive or go down that hole, If anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone would have robbed me of my process, like allowed me to spend one less night homeless, allowed me to spend one less night in a cell or in a really bad position or predicament, odds are I would not be the man that I am today, who is literally a child of God who devotes my life to helping people who are where I once was.
[01:16:13]  So, like, again, because all I did was just had a series of me knowing now that I was being divinely inconvenienced.
[01:16:23]  Over and over and over until I could like recognize it and say, okay, like here we go.
[01:16:30]  This is it.
[01:16:32]  So I don't know if I believe we're all exactly where we're supposed to be.
[01:16:36]  Right.
[01:16:36]  I genuinely believe that in my heart of hearts.
[01:16:39]  So you cut him off, right?
[01:16:42]  This last time, I didn't cut him off.
[01:16:44]  I just, we just, I just chose not to communicate with him because he was just in a place where I wasn't.
[01:16:54]  And he was, You know, he was just saying a lot of hurtful things.
[01:17:00]  Yeah.
[01:17:00]  Some rants and shit.
[01:17:01]  Yeah.
[01:17:02]  So I was like, that's just not where I'm at.
[01:17:04]  And it's, I'm an empath and I take on people's energy.
[01:17:07]  And that was a very, very, very, someone I love who's, you know, I literally devote and, you know, I thank him for giving me the opportunity to get out of Baltimore.
[01:17:23]  If I stayed, I would have been in that plot that my mother bought me for sure.
[01:17:26]  So, you know, I'm forever indebted to him.
[01:17:28]  And it was really tough to see someone who I love and who had helped save my life countless times then battle with his own demons.
[01:17:38]  So I've always been there.
[01:17:40]  I'll continue to be there.
[01:17:41]  And I would love to skate with him now.
[01:17:44]  He looks like he's skating and having a blast.
[01:17:47]  And I hope that that happens sooner rather than later.
[01:17:50]  Skateboarding is the glue between all of our relationships and just in general.
[01:17:56]  Yeah.
[01:17:57]  And just for like from an outsider's perspective, it's just like crazy to see two best friends, like not at least in a public setting, like publicly being mad at each other, not talking to each other.
[01:18:07]  And it's just like from our perspective, it's like sad, you know, for sure.
[01:18:11]  And I would have no problem, like, there's nothing more I'd love than to connect with him, but it just hasn't happened yet.
[01:18:17]  Yeah, you know, it'll happen eventually when it's not true.
[01:18:22]  Timing and alignment is everything, don't force it, right?
[01:18:25]  Yeah, yeah, literally.
[01:18:27]  You know, the world works so much better when I just kind of stay out of it and just go along with the process that's being kind of pushed in my direction.
[01:18:37]  Yeah.
[01:18:38]  When I try to interject because I believe I know what's best, I fucking fail miserably.
[01:18:43]  Straight up.
[01:18:44]  So I just remain teachable, I remain humble, I remain open minded, and I remain willing.
[01:18:49]  Good, bad, or indifferent.
[01:18:50]  Every morning I start my day with thanking God for everything I've been given, everything that's been taken, and everything that's in store for me.
[01:18:57]  And I mean that.
[01:19:00]  Until like 10 o'clock a.m.
[01:19:02]  Then I gotta recalibrate, recenter, readjust, reevaluate, reassess.
[01:19:07]  Right.
[01:19:08]  But the beautiful thing is, I have this awareness now.

=== Accountability Over Ignorance (12:10) ===

[01:19:10]  Ignorance is no longer bliss.
[01:19:12]  I've been given this information, which now means I'm to be held accountable for my actions.
[01:19:19]  And I choose to understand as opposed to being understood.
[01:19:25]  That's it.
[01:19:26]  Yeah.
[01:19:27]  It's so simple that for me, I missed it for so long until, again, not to fucking be a weird asshole, but until I took the short bust of school.
[01:19:38]  Right.
[01:19:39]  Right.
[01:19:39]  Until I just admitted that what I know is I don't know.
[01:19:42]  And the moment I admitted complete defeat was the second I secured the ultimate victory.
[01:19:47]  It's so fucking contradictory to the way I lived my life prior to.
[01:19:51]  Yeah.
[01:19:51]  It's the exact opposite of everything.
[01:19:55]  Right.
[01:19:56]  Yeah.
[01:19:56]  What's that famous quote?
[01:19:58]  The hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men.
[01:20:07]  Yeah.
[01:20:08]  Well, I was smiling because mine is a hard head makes for a soft ass.
[01:20:12]  And I promise you, my ass is the softest in this room.
[01:20:16]  I just bumped it over and over and over.
[01:20:19]  Oh my God, dude.
[01:20:21]  So, how does your business work?
[01:20:26]  Where you bought a bunch of houses in Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware.
[01:20:30]  In Wilmington, Delaware.
[01:20:32]  Okay.
[01:20:32]  So, how does that whole thing work?
[01:20:35]  Well, it's not even like, again, I didn't, I got kicked out of high school in the 11th grade as a direct result of my addiction.
[01:20:43]  I got my GED in the penitentiary.
[01:20:46]  I didn't go to like real estate school.
[01:20:47]  I didn't.
[01:20:48]  I told you what I walked into treatment with.
[01:20:54]  But somehow I promised myself because of what my mentors told me in the beginning.
[01:20:59]  They said, if you stick to the basics, you'll never have to go back to the basics.
[01:21:04]  And they said, if you want what you have, you have to give it away.
[01:21:12]  Right?
[01:21:13]  If you want what we have, do what we do and you can get what we got.
[01:21:19]  Right?
[01:21:19]  They said all these weird things that like.
[01:21:21]  We're like mind fucks and riddles.
[01:21:23]  And I didn't understand them until I understood them.
[01:21:28]  But I promised that, so I went to an inpatient treatment center for 90 days.
[01:21:32]  And from that inpatient treatment center, I went to a sober living house where I lived for one year.
[01:21:37]  And the reason why I did that was not because it was my idea, it was because my sponsor, who had 19 years sober at the time, suggested that I do that because he did that.
[01:21:47]  It didn't take a genius to figure out if I recreate what he did in the past.
[01:21:51]  Could get what he has today.
[01:21:52]  So I followed suit and I went to the Sober Living House for a year.
[01:21:55]  And that Sober Living House did for me what no other program had ever really done.
[01:22:00]  Because I'm institutionalized.
[01:22:03]  I can fall in line.
[01:22:04]  I can conform really easy.
[01:22:06]  I can go to a jail and do a sentence.
[01:22:08]  I can go to a treatment center and make you think I'm running the place.
[01:22:11]  I can run the groups.
[01:22:12]  I can repeat the rhetoric.
[01:22:14]  I do that.
[01:22:17]  But where the ball was always dropped for me was once I. Completed said program or sentence, and I'm just thrusted back into this community of quote unquote normal people and human beings.
[01:22:29]  And because I was so disconnected from reality, like I didn't understand how to make that transition.
[01:22:35]  And I'm living in this sober living house after completing my 90 day inpatient treatment center.
[01:22:40]  I'm a big fan of following through with the continuum of care, which is why I said what I do now, and I'll get into that.
[01:22:46]  But in this sober living house, I now have a job washing dishes at Marianne's Diner.
[01:22:53]  I washed dishes for $6 an hour under the table next to a 14 year old kid named Brian.
[01:22:58]  And I had heard about what humility looked like, but I never knew because I never experienced it.
[01:23:05]  That was humility, right?
[01:23:07]  Successful individual I was prior to finding recovery.
[01:23:10]  I'm now a 38 year old man who has four months sober and I'm working at Marianne's Diner washing dishes for six dollars an hour under the table next to a 14 year old kid.
[01:23:22]  Like, what the fuck?
[01:23:23]  In my mind, I should have been at least the president of the United States at the bare minimum, right?
[01:23:29]  Like, for starters.
[01:23:32]  And, um, little did I know that job literally was creating the foundation for not only my sobriety but me as a human being today.
[01:23:42]  And I was washing dishes.
[01:23:47]  Every night I had a black outfit, black button up shirt, and black pants, and I would put my clothes in the washing machine and they would come out bleached.
[01:23:55]  And I didn't know why.
[01:23:56]  And I was too embarrassed to ask someone what the deal was.
[01:23:59]  And one of my housemates walked past and they saw that I was washing my clothes with dishwashing detergent.
[01:24:04]  And they're like, What are you doing?
[01:24:07]  I didn't know.
[01:24:08]  I was really disconnected from reality.
[01:24:11]  But simple things like that were.
[01:24:13]  Taught to me through the community from which I lived with, of all these sober guys just trying to obtain the same thing.
[01:24:20]  Another day sober while assimilating back into this weird thing called the fucking world without drinking or drugging is like a lot.
[01:24:28]  And I stayed in that sober living house for a year and I learned, I opened up my very first own ever bank account.
[01:24:36]  Just me, not one with a chick or someone who had like a say, like mine.
[01:24:41]  And I got a checking account and I got a A debit card, and then I worked that up to a pre secured credit card.
[01:24:48]  I started paying my own way the $165 a week off of the money I was making washing dishes, and then I started paying bi weekly.
[01:24:56]  Right?
[01:24:56]  It was no fucking guess or to anyone's surprise, I lacked self esteem and I didn't know how to obtain it, or else I would have done it on my own and not ended up in a 12 step program.
[01:25:05]  Right?
[01:25:07]  Again, all these things happen to me unbeknownst to me.
[01:25:10]  I'm showing up for work on time, I'm becoming self sufficient, I'm taking pride in washing those dishes.
[01:25:14]  I miss one day.
[01:25:16]  For a whole year, and that's because of a snowstorm, not because I didn't show up, because I started taking other people's feelings into consideration.
[01:25:22]  And I was like, if I don't go to work, who's going to fucking help Brian wash all these dishes, right?
[01:25:27]  The behavior started to change.
[01:25:30]  And through these behavioral changes, that lack of self esteem through doing these esteemable acts turned into like this insane amount of self esteem, right?
[01:25:43]  All of a sudden, I started doing these esteemable acts, and I gained this sense of self esteem unbeknownst to me.
[01:25:47]  And one day, I just started looking at you in your eyes.
[01:25:50]  I started speaking with conviction and believing what I was saying.
[01:25:54]  And I recognized how important and significant this part of my process was.
[01:26:00]  Fast forward on my fifth year anniversary, my fifth year sober anniversary, I got back to where I was financially put together and credit score built up off of that pre secured credit card.
[01:26:16]  You know, like I own a property, I own my own house.
[01:26:18]  And I'm like, me and a guy that I met in that treatment center, who's now one of my best friends.
[01:26:24]  George, we bought a house and we opened up Novak's house.
[01:26:29]  And that was one house with 10 beds.
[01:26:33]  And oh, you bought the first house you bought was for other people, like for sober living.
[01:26:38]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:26:38]  Wow.
[01:26:39]  My own house.
[01:26:39]  I bought my own house.
[01:26:40]  So I was living in my own house.
[01:26:41]  Oh, got you.
[01:26:41]  Okay.
[01:26:42]  And I bought that one on my three year anniversary.
[01:26:44]  I bought my own personal house.
[01:26:45]  Okay.
[01:26:46]  But then on my fifth year, we bought one home, named it Novak's house, Wilmington, Delaware.
[01:26:53]  One house, 10 beds.
[01:26:55]  And we just celebrated our three year anniversary on November 4th.
[01:26:59]  And today we have six houses with 65 beds.
[01:27:03]  Damn.
[01:27:03]  That's awesome.
[01:27:04]  And I didn't go to real estate school.
[01:27:07]  I didn't come from this background.
[01:27:10]  All I did was get the fuck out of my way.
[01:27:13]  I just learned that the common denominator in my problems were me.
[01:27:16]  And if I surrounded myself with genuinely good hearted, like minded people, I could get to where I'm trying to go with the assistance from some people that knew, not me.
[01:27:28]  And now what I do is I just travel around.
[01:27:30]  I'm a motivational speaker and I raise money to provide a scholarship fund.
[01:27:36]  And the why behind my whole purpose, all these fucked up stories that you heard about, is to show you that change is possible and that your history does not have to dictate your future, but it can absolutely guide and direct it.
[01:27:50]  And now I just raised lots of money to provide a scholarship fund.
[01:27:54]  Therefore, any man, because I only have men's houses, upon completing some form of an inpatient program that wants to continue their journey but don't have the finances to do so, We will give you a bed.
[01:28:07]  Wow, dude.
[01:28:09]  Until you can kind of transition into paying your own bills and becoming self sufficient, helping.
[01:28:14]  I'm just doing what was done for me.
[01:28:17]  Yeah.
[01:28:18]  Right?
[01:28:18]  I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel or solve world hunger here.
[01:28:21]  I'm just, that's my story.
[01:28:23]  And my story produced this outcome.
[01:28:25]  So how dare I, how fucking dare I safeguard it and not share it with the world?
[01:28:31]  Because this is the beautiful, magical thing about recovery.
[01:28:33]  In our weird world, anywhere in business, anywhere in business, if I come up to you and I give you something that I have, I am to walk away with less.
[01:28:43]  Fact fact fact, fact prove me wrong.
[01:28:47]  But in my world of recovery, if I walk up to you and I give you something that I have, I walk away with more.
[01:28:56]  It only makes sense within my world hmm, and other people that live in my world, recovering people, can attest to it.
[01:29:05]  Well, that's something that's weird.
[01:29:06]  It's like a in Great embedded in the human psyche is that when people help each other, you would never know.
[01:29:13]  It was such a weird thing, too, right?
[01:29:15]  Like when you give away, you get this weird sense of gratitude or like fulfillment from it, right?
[01:29:21]  And you would never think that it doesn't really, it's kind of counterintuitive to what people think when you think of like from the perspective of scarcity.
[01:29:32]  Like, there's only so many, I only have so many of these apples, I can only give away, I can't give away any because they're not going to last me or whatever.
[01:29:39]  But when you think of when you actually do.
[01:29:41]  Do that act of giving away some of the shit you have, there's this weird psychological sense of fulfillment from it that you would never expect was there.
[01:29:49]  And the universe always prevails and gives you exactly what you need.
[01:29:54]  There's a saying within our sober world that if financially you're going through some issues and you go to a 12 step meeting and they pass the basket around, throw in an extra 20.
[01:30:04]  I think that's what's impressed upon, you know, from my lineage of mentors.
[01:30:10]  Like, you're financially strapped.
[01:30:12]  You're going through these difficulties financially.
[01:30:15]  I want you to throw an extra 20 in the basket.
[01:30:17]  Like, what?
[01:30:19]  Right.
[01:30:20]  Yeah.
[01:30:21]  That's a Tony Robbins thing.
[01:30:22]  He always talks about that.
[01:30:23]  Yeah.
[01:30:25]  I don't know much about him.
[01:30:26]  You don't?
[01:30:26]  I know.
[01:30:27]  You could be the next Tony Robbins.
[01:30:28]  I know who he is, but I just stay in my own lane.
[01:30:31]  You give Tony Robbins a run for his money.
[01:30:33]  I just stay in my own world.
[01:30:34]  Flying around in my jet helicopter.
[01:30:37]  Yeah.
[01:30:37]  He's a pretty extreme guy.
[01:30:39]  Yeah.
[01:30:39]  No doubt.
[01:30:40]  But then, so then the six houses, and I just.
[01:30:43]  I know from where I came from in the world that I revive myself in and surround myself with, I can create any environment that I seek.
[01:30:56]  I truly believe if I wanted to be a brain surgeon, I could be a brain surgeon.
[01:31:00]  I just have to devote the time, attention, and energy it takes, but I can do that.
[01:31:05]  So, with that mentality, what I've learned again, mentality creates reality.
[01:31:10]  That's a fact.
[01:31:11]  I know that to be true with my world.
[01:31:14]  I was like, dude, I could be doing more.
[01:31:16]  I could be helping more.
[01:31:17]  I could do better, help more in a much more efficient manner.

=== Driving to Methadone Programs (07:21) ===

[01:31:20]  So, I created my own treatment center.
[01:31:24]  I opened up Redemption Addiction Treatment Center, which is basically like my house's, pardon the expression.
[01:31:32]  But on meth.
[01:31:33]  It's just this bigger, like, place where we can help more.
[01:31:37]  And there's like a psych practitioner.
[01:31:38]  Now I have, I have like a psych practitioner that works for me.
[01:31:42]  I have a medical director that works for me.
[01:31:45]  That's crazy.
[01:31:46]  Are all the dudes that work for you, like, recovering addicts too?
[01:31:50]  I'd say eight out of 10.
[01:31:52]  Eight out of 10 of them.
[01:31:52]  Yeah.
[01:31:54]  Yeah.
[01:31:54]  And when I say work for me, that sounds so egotistical.
[01:31:57]  And I don't want to frame it in that manner.
[01:31:59]  It's just, I'm just saying that a difference a day can make, provided just the right amount of willingness.
[01:32:04]  That for me came as a direct result of pain.
[01:32:07]  Right, right.
[01:32:08]  So, like anything is possible.
[01:32:09]  And, you know, I always impress upon, you know, my employees, our employees, however you want to say that, it sounds so weird saying, that the moment that we forget the bag for which we've built this organization on, fucking light it on fire, right?
[01:32:28]  Because the client's care must come first.
[01:32:32]  But the moment it becomes financially driven and incentivized, and it's not the very first thought is, How would the clients feel about it?
[01:32:40]  How would it affect the clients when it's more like, oh, then it's like, pack it up, man.
[01:32:45]  Yeah.
[01:32:45]  Pack it up.
[01:32:46]  He is not genuine anymore.
[01:32:47]  No, no.
[01:32:48]  Are methadone clinics still a thing?
[01:32:50]  Uh huh.
[01:32:51]  Really?
[01:32:51]  I'm a big fan of all that.
[01:32:53]  You are?
[01:32:54]  Because at the very least, right, the chocolate chip analogy, Matt, medicated assistant treatment, methadone, Suboxone, Subitex, Vivitrol.
[01:33:05]  It's not what I do.
[01:33:07]  But who am I to say what the right way to live is?
[01:33:09]  Fuck, I was.
[01:33:10]  The homeless almost nine years ago, letting men blow me for heroin.
[01:33:13]  All of a sudden, I'm walking on water and I have the answer to everyone's crisis.
[01:33:17]  No, man.
[01:33:18]  Truth be told, if you think going to the methadone program every day provides you a life that you believe is worth waking up for and getting out of bed, looking forward to the day, I'll fucking drive you.
[01:33:31]  And at the very least, if you decide that you want to come off of that one day, you'll at least be alive to have the chance to do so, as opposed to just rolling the dice with.
[01:33:43]  Right.
[01:33:43]  What was the problem with the methadone?
[01:33:45]  There were documentaries and shit made about it saying like vilifying it.
[01:33:49]  I think the problem with it was, if I remember correctly, there were dudes.
[01:33:53]  I know there's a dude in Florida specifically who had like a ton of those methadone clinics here.
[01:33:58]  And he also was like responsible for selling the actual opiates.
[01:34:03]  So he was doing both.
[01:34:04]  But again, that's the financially incentivized.
[01:34:07]  He's making money off it.
[01:34:08]  Yeah.
[01:34:09]  Which is the problem.
[01:34:10]  It's an absolute problem.
[01:34:12]  It is a problem.
[01:34:15]  And unfortunately, And look, I'm an abstinent guy.
[01:34:20]  I don't partake in any form of a drink or a drug or a medicated assisted treatment in order to make it through another day.
[01:34:26]  I'm not talking bad on any of these things, but.
[01:34:29]  You did do methadone, though, right?
[01:34:30]  You tried it?
[01:34:30]  Oh, tons, yeah.
[01:34:31]  I loved 180 milligrams of methadone and three or four Xanax bars.
[01:34:36]  Guaranteed overdose every time.
[01:34:37]  And it didn't cost that much money.
[01:34:39]  So I was like, that was a good one.
[01:34:40]  Guaranteed overdose?
[01:34:40]  Yeah, that was a good one.
[01:34:43]  So I'm not far into any of these approaches.
[01:34:46]  I just never took it in the appropriate way.
[01:34:48]  I know some people who live a very happy, productive life on methadone.
[01:34:52]  Unfortunately, I know more that don't.
[01:34:54]  Yeah.
[01:34:55]  But who am I to say?
[01:34:58]  Right.
[01:34:59]  Again, I deliver my message in a form of attraction rather than promotion.
[01:35:06]  Right.
[01:35:06]  So if you out there, the viewer, the listener, find what I do appealing enough that you want to be a part of it, let's do it.
[01:35:14]  Yeah.
[01:35:15]  If not, and the methadone clinic looks more appealing, right on.
[01:35:18]  Right.
[01:35:18]  Give it a go.
[01:35:20]  So when you were doing it, you were aiming to overdose.
[01:35:23]  Oh, I was not doing it appropriately.
[01:35:25]  I wasn't going to a clinic.
[01:35:27]  I wasn't being monitored or given doses.
[01:35:29]  I was buying it off the street corner.
[01:35:31]  Oh, okay.
[01:35:32]  Yeah.
[01:35:32]  Yeah.
[01:35:33]  So, I was always very scared to get on methadone because it has a really strong shelf life.
[01:35:40]  And it's very, very difficult to come off of.
[01:35:43]  You mean, like, stays in your body a lot?
[01:35:44]  Yeah.
[01:35:45]  Oh.
[01:35:46]  Yeah.
[01:35:47]  It's a gnarly process.
[01:35:49]  But, like, even doing any drugs, you would be aiming to go over the line.
[01:35:54]  For sure.
[01:35:55]  Yeah.
[01:35:55]  You're more scared of underdosing than overdosing.
[01:35:58]  Yeah, dude.
[01:35:59]  There's nothing more that angers me than when I see somebody going to the bar and have.
[01:36:04]  A glass of wine, I want to smash it over your head.
[01:36:08]  What's wrong with you?
[01:36:09]  Or leave half of it, one line, and go to bed with the bag.
[01:36:13]  Fuck you.
[01:36:14]  Like, you don't deserve to be alive.
[01:36:16]  Get your ass kicked.
[01:36:17]  Yeah.
[01:36:18]  Like, get out of it.
[01:36:19]  Yeah.
[01:36:20]  That's what makes me part of that 30% of the world that is not normal, who cannot use without repercussions.
[01:36:27]  Well, that is more unnormal, I think.
[01:36:31]  To have somebody who does that, just has one drink or does one line, you're a fucking psycho.
[01:36:37]  Yeah.
[01:36:38]  In my eyes, I think in my eyes too.
[01:36:41]  And I'm not even, you know, I don't have a drug problem.
[01:36:44]  Or do you?
[01:36:45]  Maybe I do.
[01:36:45]  You think I'm here for a podcast, aka intervention?
[01:36:49]  Are your bags?
[01:36:49]  Did you bring his bags?
[01:36:50]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:36:52]  Joke's on you, pal.
[01:36:54]  Oh, God, dude.
[01:36:55]  But that's a funny thing, though.
[01:36:56]  Like, everybody does Coke nowadays.
[01:37:00]  Everybody.
[01:37:01]  Like, even young people I know.
[01:37:03]  Before I even ever saw it in real life, I know people that are like 10 years younger before I ever saw it today.
[01:37:10]  Like people in their early 20s, like late teens, that are just like they go out and coax like a normal everyday thing.
[01:37:16]  It's like having a Bud Light.
[01:37:17]  Wow.
[01:37:18]  And that was at least when I was growing up, that it wasn't like that.
[01:37:21]  See, I'm so disconnected from that world that, like, before when I was in it, I felt the same way.
[01:37:26]  Like, oh, everyone does it.
[01:37:28]  And now it's really rare for me to see people like, because I'm just not in that world.
[01:37:34]  You know, I don't go to bars, I don't associate with people.
[01:37:37]  I'm in bed by like nine.
[01:37:39]  No one in my world's doing blow.
[01:37:43]  So I don't, it's kind of like you spot it, you got it.
[01:37:45]  I don't spot it much anymore.
[01:37:47]  Right.
[01:37:47]  Because I don't got it.
[01:37:48]  Yeah.
[01:37:48]  Like that way.
[01:37:49]  Interesting.
[01:37:51]  Yeah.
[01:37:51]  I feel like whenever I never go out, but when I do go out on the rare occasion I go to like a nightclub or a bar, it's just like I can see it in the back.
[01:38:00]  It's like everybody's taking turns in the year.
[01:38:02]  We went to the strip club a couple weeks ago.
[01:38:04]  Yeah.
[01:38:04]  I'd imagine you see a lot of recreational cocaine going on in the ship, Jill.
[01:38:09]  There's the guy who sits in like when you first walk in, he's the guy that sits there with like the deodorant and all the fucking mints and everything.
[01:38:16]  And then there's like three stalls and you're waiting in line and you just hear, Every fucking five seconds in the stall.
[01:38:23]  No one's even hiding it anymore.
[01:38:24]  There's a line in the bathroom, but nobody's at the urinals.
[01:38:27]  Yeah.
[01:38:28]  Just for the one with the priority.
[01:38:30]  Oh, we just got to pee.
[01:38:32]  I hear that in the stall.
[01:38:33]  Then I look at the guy sitting there and he's just like.
[01:38:37]  It's just abnormal.
[01:38:39]  Totally.
[01:38:39]  No one cares.
[01:38:41]  Yeah.
[01:38:41]  Yeah.
[01:38:41]  I don't.

=== Strip Clubs and Recreational Drugs (14:46) ===

[01:38:42]  I have no problem with people that do, but I'm just.
[01:38:45]  I don't.
[01:38:46]  You know, kind of show me who you walk with.
[01:38:48]  I'll tell you who you are.
[01:38:49]  My mother used to say this as a child all the time to me.
[01:38:52]  And I just.
[01:38:53]  I don't.
[01:38:54]  My social interactions with people are just so different than they used to be.
[01:38:58]  You know, I'm so consumed by like work and business and trying to like skate stuff.
[01:39:06]  Like, I just don't have time.
[01:39:08]  Shit, that's good for you?
[01:39:09]  Yeah.
[01:39:10]  How often do you skate?
[01:39:12]  Well, it's funny.
[01:39:13]  Again, after coming to this realization later in my life, now I try to make it a priority more and more for my mental health because this thing needs to be quiet sometimes.
[01:39:21]  Okay.
[01:39:23]  It's pretty heavy.
[01:39:23]  What else do you do for fun?
[01:39:25]  I like to work out.
[01:39:26]  Okay.
[01:39:26]  I got oddly great at quitting things.
[01:39:30]  I laugh with you too.
[01:39:32]  But I don't smoke anymore.
[01:39:33]  I don't eat red meat.
[01:39:35]  I only eat chicken and fish.
[01:39:36]  I only drink water.
[01:39:37]  I drink hot tea and water.
[01:39:39]  You only eat chicken and fish?
[01:39:41]  Yeah.
[01:39:41]  No vegetables?
[01:39:42]  I mean, I eat vegetables.
[01:39:43]  I eat meat wise.
[01:39:44]  Okay, gotcha.
[01:39:44]  But I like to work out.
[01:39:47]  I like to skate.
[01:39:48]  I like to ride my bike.
[01:39:49]  I like to do my life is really fucking monotone and bland to most.
[01:39:54]  I love to go to the grocery store.
[01:39:55]  I love to like have my house clean.
[01:39:59]  Like really simple shit.
[01:40:01]  And people are like, because for years that was not what I was doing.
[01:40:05]  Like there's nothing normal about the way I lived for so long.
[01:40:09]  Right.
[01:40:10]  That now, like, there's, dude, Friday night at 9 p.m. was a Dateline special that I wanted to see.
[01:40:17]  And I was so happy.
[01:40:19]  I was so excited.
[01:40:20]  To like, I had just my sweet, like, sleep clothes on, 9 p.m., a beautiful fall night.
[01:40:27]  Like, Hang out with my cats, lit some candles, and just watch this two hours.
[01:40:30]  I'm a cat fanatic.
[01:40:31]  I'm like, oh, you're so as he.
[01:40:33]  Yeah.
[01:40:33]  Yeah, I love cats.
[01:40:34]  Andy's from Pittsburgh.
[01:40:35]  Dude, that's why I'm one cat.
[01:40:37]  Oh, hell yeah, I got a black and white cat.
[01:40:39]  I have one of them too.
[01:40:40]  Tuxedo cat.
[01:40:41]  I believe I was a cat in my past life.
[01:40:43]  Oh, yeah?
[01:40:44]  Why?
[01:40:46]  I like to know what's going on with things, but without being in the mix.
[01:40:48]  Okay, yeah.
[01:40:49]  I like to pick and choose who I give my attention to.
[01:40:52]  I like to leave when I want to leave.
[01:40:55]  When I'm home and not traveling, I eat the same thing every day.
[01:40:59]  And uh, I keep weird hours sometimes, huh?
[01:41:02]  Very feline ish, yeah.
[01:41:04]  That's like legit.
[01:41:06]  Cats are psychos, dude.
[01:41:08]  I, there isn't, aren't they the one animal that just kills for fun, not for food?
[01:41:13]  I've heard that before.
[01:41:15]  Is there any other animal that just kills for fun, like lizards and I think I don't want to say they do it for see how code to defend them, but I think they do it to bring back to their owner to say, like, hey, look what I've done.
[01:41:26]  They definitely do that, yeah.
[01:41:27]  Oh, yeah, they just bring the mice back and put it on your door.
[01:41:30]  That's true, yeah, that's true.
[01:41:31]  I don't know if it's a fight.
[01:41:32]  What other fucking animal does that?
[01:41:35]  I don't know.
[01:41:37]  Do dogs do that?
[01:41:39]  I don't think dogs kill really.
[01:41:41]  Well, the ones, the hunting dogs that go, they pick the dead up.
[01:41:49]  I don't know.
[01:41:50]  Have you experimented with good drugs?
[01:41:54]  There's people out there who are super obsessed with hacking their body and making themselves stronger and more efficient.
[01:42:03]  There's people who are obsessed with all the.
[01:42:06]  The fucking red lights and the saunas and the cold stuff.
[01:42:09]  I do the cold plunges.
[01:42:10]  Do you?
[01:42:10]  And I do the saunas.
[01:42:12]  I do that at my facility with my clients.
[01:42:13]  The people go like the same way you went overboard, like down the dark road.
[01:42:17]  There are people that go crazy with it.
[01:42:18]  I take supplements.
[01:42:19]  I'm very mindful.
[01:42:21]  I try to, because I'll go crazy.
[01:42:23]  I'll count carbs.
[01:42:24]  I'll fucking, I'll go insane because I'm already insane.
[01:42:29]  So I don't let that dictate what my day or actions look like.
[01:42:33]  I just make a conscious effort to do a little bit better than the day before.
[01:42:37]  So, what I try to do is cut out processed foods.
[01:42:39]  My food to have like a life to where if I don't eat it within a week, it goes bad.
[01:42:43]  That I can wrap my head around.
[01:42:44]  Right, right.
[01:42:45]  Like, okay, this should be good for me.
[01:42:46]  Grocery stores stay around the edges, not the inside aisles where all the fuck.
[01:42:50]  Oh, that's a great point.
[01:42:51]  Yeah.
[01:42:52]  I never, yeah, the edges.
[01:42:53]  Yeah, stay on the edges where all the produce and the meat is.
[01:42:56]  That's where I stay.
[01:42:57]  Yeah.
[01:42:57]  But I've never heard that.
[01:42:58]  The cereal's in the middle.
[01:43:00]  Dang.
[01:43:00]  I don't eat cereal.
[01:43:01]  I ate cereal in my hotel this morning, but I don't eat that.
[01:43:06]  Cereal's so fucking bad for you, dude.
[01:43:08]  I eat oatmeal every day.
[01:43:10]  Do you really?
[01:43:10]  At home.
[01:43:11]  I saw this meme once like, if someone eats oatmeal for breakfast, stay away from them.
[01:43:15]  Yeah.
[01:43:16]  Because it's like nothing's appealing about oatmeal.
[01:43:18]  I've tried eating oatmeal for breakfast.
[01:43:20]  It doesn't do anything for me.
[01:43:21]  People say it's good, but like, I don't know.
[01:43:23]  I've also seen documentaries about like, The glyphosate and shit, and all the shit that's sprayed on the oatmeal when they process it.
[01:43:29]  It can't be bad, but.
[01:43:30]  But it could be worse.
[01:43:32]  You know, you could be eating a box of Twinkies for breakfast.
[01:43:35]  Right.
[01:43:35]  Could be.
[01:43:35]  So it's like, fuck.
[01:43:36]  Yeah, that's like the hammer.
[01:43:37]  You're asking me, I'll justify anything as long as I'm sticking a needle in my neck.
[01:43:41]  Straight up.
[01:43:42]  Like, I was king of justifying any behaviors.
[01:43:46]  Yeah.
[01:43:46]  I'm the wrong one to ask.
[01:43:48]  But I saw that, and I asked my.
[01:43:49]  I have a psychiatrist friend, this Dr. Yee.
[01:43:53]  It's an insanely intelligent Asian guy, friend of mine.
[01:43:57]  And, uh, He created supplements.
[01:43:59]  He puts my whole supplement thing in track.
[01:44:02]  And I'm like, dude, because I eat it every day.
[01:44:04]  I eat one pack of steel cut oatmeal and I put in organic blackberries and blueberries added every day.
[01:44:09]  Oh, nice.
[01:44:10]  And I'm like, what's the deal?
[01:44:11]  I got all nervous because I've ate that for like four years.
[01:44:13]  And he's like, dude, don't get caught up on the hype.
[01:44:15]  He's like, if you feel better or good upon eating it, then just follow suit.
[01:44:21]  Like, don't.
[01:44:23]  Because it's like, who's pushing that narrative?
[01:44:26]  Is it the right wing or the left wing?
[01:44:28]  Right, right.
[01:44:29]  Who's going to financially incentivize off of you?
[01:44:32]  Why don't you eat red meat?
[01:44:34]  I watched this documentary that definitely was pushing the narrative of vegan or die.
[01:44:39]  Yeah.
[01:44:39]  For sure.
[01:44:40]  But I did see some things that I thought were pretty beneficial from not.
[01:44:44]  So I gave it a go.
[01:44:45]  I don't know.
[01:44:46]  I stopped smoking.
[01:44:47]  I stopped all kinds of stuff.
[01:44:49]  Nicotine?
[01:44:49]  None at all.
[01:44:50]  Dude, I just picked up this habit.
[01:44:52]  Oh, man.
[01:44:52]  Have you seen these?
[01:44:53]  My nephew does them.
[01:44:54]  Really?
[01:44:56]  Apparently they're not.
[01:44:56]  So I had a doctor and I didn't.
[01:44:58]  I thought they were bad, right?
[01:44:59]  I figured this is probably just as bad as vaping.
[01:45:01]  But then I had this neuro fucking surgeon in here and he was doing them.
[01:45:06]  This guy from Tokyo, no less.
[01:45:08]  And he comes in with one of these all in fucking Japanese writing.
[01:45:11]  And I'm like, You do these?
[01:45:13]  Wow.
[01:45:14]  And he's like, Yeah.
[01:45:15]  He's like, They're neuroprotective.
[01:45:17]  It's good for your brain.
[01:45:18]  It's just addictive.
[01:45:19]  Which it very well may be.
[01:45:20]  I'm like, What's wrong with being addicted to something that's good for you?
[01:45:23]  I agree.
[01:45:24]  But I think there are some, there's probably some shit that's bad for you.
[01:45:26]  It's probably not good for your heart.
[01:45:28]  Oh, sure.
[01:45:29]  I just, yeah.
[01:45:30]  I have enough things to deal with.
[01:45:31]  I don't need to take on a new one.
[01:45:33]  Right.
[01:45:33]  Yeah.
[01:45:33]  I'm going to blame you.
[01:45:36]  But yeah, I quit watching porn, I've quit masturbating.
[01:45:39]  What?
[01:45:40]  Yeah.
[01:45:40]  Quit masturbating altogether?
[01:45:42]  Yeah.
[01:45:43]  Yeah.
[01:45:44]  Almost two years.
[01:45:45]  Wow.
[01:45:47]  I don't abstain from banging a woman, but I just don't jerk off.
[01:45:51]  Damn.
[01:45:51]  Yeah.
[01:45:52]  I got into the whole like spiritual question.
[01:45:54]  What's the longest you've gone without jacking off or banging a woman?
[01:45:58]  Oh, well, not long.
[01:46:00]  I still have sex.
[01:46:01]  Right.
[01:46:02]  I just don't jerk off or watch porn unless it's with a woman and watching porn.
[01:46:06]  Right, right, right.
[01:46:06]  But probably like a week.
[01:46:09]  A week?
[01:46:10]  Yeah.
[01:46:11]  I'd say.
[01:46:11]  Wow, man.
[01:46:11]  Good for you.
[01:46:12]  When I was incarcerated and there was no way that I could have human contact with a woman, it was much longer, but I was jerking off in there.
[01:46:19]  Yeah.
[01:46:21]  Yeah, I don't think I could ever do that.
[01:46:23]  I have sex and I go in the bathroom and jack off right after sex.
[01:46:25]  Really?
[01:46:26]  I am not that guy.
[01:46:28]  I'm like, a once a day is more than enough for me.
[01:46:32]  That's gnarly.
[01:46:33]  Yeah, it's a weird thing.
[01:46:34]  I don't know what it's about.
[01:46:36]  You want to dig into that?
[01:46:38]  The more sex I have, the more I want to.
[01:46:41]  Jack off.
[01:46:41]  See, you're coming is the byproduct of something much deeper.
[01:46:45]  That's your poison.
[01:46:46]  Let's get to the root of the cause here.
[01:46:47]  They're fucking deep.
[01:46:48]  Romeo.
[01:46:49]  Oh, fuck, dude.
[01:46:51]  Speaking of that, I'm trying to fill some void.
[01:46:53]  I have.
[01:46:54]  Can any of you guys guess what that is?
[01:46:59]  The white thing?
[01:47:00]  Yeah, the pool.
[01:47:01]  It looked like an ayahuasca root.
[01:47:02]  Okay.
[01:47:03]  Is that what it is?
[01:47:04]  A wave.
[01:47:05]  A water wave.
[01:47:06]  Water wave, ayahuasca.
[01:47:08]  A cum stain.
[01:47:09]  Fucking A.
[01:47:11]  So, yes, it's cum stain.
[01:47:13]  And here's how that came about.
[01:47:15]  Again, cocaine is a direct result of a lot of bad decisions.
[01:47:18]  Owned cocaine for multiple days at Bam's house.
[01:47:21]  Shooting a game of pool.
[01:47:22]  The castle?
[01:47:23]  Yeah.
[01:47:23]  Shooting a game of pool at 5 a.m. one morning.
[01:47:27]  Eh.
[01:47:27]  It's so fucked up.
[01:47:29]  I win the game of pool.
[01:47:30]  We've been awake for days.
[01:47:32]  I win the game of pool at 5 a.m.
[01:47:34]  I win the game of pool.
[01:47:35]  We have a tattoo artist with us.
[01:47:37]  We go into the bedroom.
[01:47:39]  I lay on the bed.
[01:47:40]  He puts a pillow over my head.
[01:47:41]  He pulls a laptop out.
[01:47:42]  He jerks off and comes onto my arm.
[01:47:46]  And then we had the tattoo artist trace it and then go over it and put the cum in.
[01:47:52]  So I've had his cum inside me without him actually fucking me, which is also in itself another magical trick.
[01:48:00]  And then tattooed it in.
[01:48:01]  The tattooed it.
[01:48:02]  Yeah.
[01:48:03]  Oh, fuck.
[01:48:05]  That's gnarly.
[01:48:05]  So there's a whole thing there if you want to unpack that, too.
[01:48:08]  I'd imagine.
[01:48:08]  That's going to be a clip.
[01:48:10]  Jesus Christ.
[01:48:12]  Yeah.
[01:48:15]  And I won the game of pool.
[01:48:16]  It's so wrong that it's fucking right.
[01:48:19]  Wow.
[01:48:20]  None of that makes sense anywhere in the world.
[01:48:23]  But it makes complete sense.
[01:48:24]  I want to be in the same sense all the time.
[01:48:26]  And see, I just, yeah, that was just like, all right, we're probably getting ready to rap.
[01:48:30]  And I just, you start talking about cum, and then I go there.
[01:48:32]  You know what I mean?
[01:48:32]  Like, fuck.
[01:48:33]  There's a lot of things like that.
[01:48:35]  I just, those were just days of, it's just like a Monday morning.
[01:48:39]  I used to bet at people if they could guess it, I'd give them $100.
[01:48:43]  And one time we're at the airport and drinking a glass of wine.
[01:48:48]  And I'm talking to the guy who serves it.
[01:48:50]  And he's just this flamboyantly gay guy.
[01:48:52]  He's an amazing guy.
[01:48:53]  And I'm like, if you guess what this is, I'll give you $100.
[01:48:55]  And he's like, sweetheart, that's cum.
[01:48:57]  And I'm like, God damn it.
[01:48:59]  My glass of wine was $8 and I had to tip $100 on top of it.
[01:49:03]  I'm like, never fucking again.
[01:49:05]  Wow.
[01:49:07]  That's fucking wild, bro.
[01:49:09]  Well, you got to catch a flight, dude.
[01:49:11]  It's three o'clock.
[01:49:12]  This was, um, this was illuminating, amazingly entertaining and very interesting.
[01:49:17]  I could sit here and do this for hours, dude.
[01:49:19]  Yeah, man.
[01:49:20]  This was fun.
[01:49:20]  Thanks again for doing it.
[01:49:21]  Yeah, come visit us when you're done, man.
[01:49:23]  I would love to.
[01:49:24]  I don't really have to make it over here much, this side, but this was, this was, uh, I really enjoyed it.
[01:49:29]  You got, you said you have a house in Lauderdale?
[01:49:31]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:49:32]  I did, but then I was opening my new facility, Redemption Addiction Treatment Center.
[01:49:37]  So, anyone out there, if anyone needs help, And anyone out there is struggling with addiction or alcoholism, call me directly, 610 314 6747.
[01:49:49]  And we'll do the best that we can to get you the help that you deserve.
[01:49:52]  If you could add that, that'd be great.
[01:49:53]  I'll put the phone number in the description.
[01:49:55]  Is there like a link or anything?
[01:49:56]  Yeah, Redemption Addiction Treatment Center.
[01:49:58]  Yeah, I'll link all your shit in the description.
[01:50:01]  That'd be rad.
[01:50:01]  But I had a place in Fort Lauderdale, and then I was so consumed with opening that.
[01:50:05]  That was always my dream, my endgame.
[01:50:06]  I always wanted to open a treatment center.
[01:50:08]  I wanted to be a part of people's daily process.
[01:50:10]  Like from when.
[01:50:11]  You walk in the door to when you leave.
[01:50:13]  I want to see the lights come on.
[01:50:15]  I want to see you start to have some ambition and drive and start to really have a reason to wake up and look forward to the day and families coming back into lives.
[01:50:27]  And I knew the best way I could do that paired with the fact that I fucking cannot be, I can't stand being told no, right?
[01:50:35]  I can't stand when someone says, oh, we can't give this person a scholarship because they don't have insurance.
[01:50:40]  So I'm like, fuck this.
[01:50:42]  Noah's not exceptional, right?
[01:50:43]  Like, failure is not an option.
[01:50:45]  I opened up my own treatment center and now no one can tell me no.
[01:50:48]  And I help, help, help.
[01:50:51]  So I did that and I see like these beautiful lives coming back together.
[01:50:55]  And it's, I don't even know why I got into that tangent.
[01:50:58]  That's beautiful, man.
[01:50:59]  Yeah.
[01:51:00]  I love it.
[01:51:00]  But that was the ending to where we're at now.
[01:51:03]  Oh, so while doing that, I was so consumed with that process that I wasn't utilizing my place in Fort Lauderdale.
[01:51:11]  So I put it all, I got rid of the place.
[01:51:13]  Everything's in storage.
[01:51:14]  So I'd say within the next year, I'll start looking for another place.
[01:51:17]  Little rental property to get.
[01:51:19]  You think you'd ever move to Florida?
[01:51:21]  Be honest.
[01:51:22]  I think when I get older.
[01:51:24]  Really?
[01:51:24]  Yeah.
[01:51:25]  Just when, like.
[01:51:25]  Not now.
[01:51:26]  I love the seasons too much.
[01:51:28]  I really appreciate the seasons.
[01:51:29]  Yeah, there's no season here.
[01:51:30]  Yeah.
[01:51:30]  It's just hot and hot.
[01:51:31]  I'm like an accessories whore.
[01:51:32]  I like layers.
[01:51:33]  I like hot tees.
[01:51:35]  Oh, yeah.
[01:51:35]  You like scarves, right?
[01:51:36]  Yeah.
[01:51:36]  I'm not even a big fan of summer.
[01:51:38]  Yeah.
[01:51:38]  I love fall, but yet I had a place here.
[01:51:40]  So who the fuck knows?
[01:51:42]  Yeah.
[01:51:42]  Can't call it.
[01:51:44]  People from up there are so much different than people down here, bro.
[01:51:48]  Like, oh, yeah.
[01:51:48]  People up there have so much.
[01:51:50]  In general, they have so much more character than people down here.
[01:51:53]  They're kind of like, if down here, you kind of, I mean, there's a lot of old people, but people are kind of flat, you know.
[01:51:58]  Up there, you have just like the one, what I love about people from like New Jersey and New York the most is that they'll shit on you with a smile.
[01:52:08]  You know what I mean?
[01:52:08]  My friend was just saying that last night.
[01:52:10]  I was out to dinner and she was telling me that.
[01:52:12]  Yeah.
[01:52:12]  And like, they just have so much more charisma up there.
[01:52:17]  I went to New York recently to see one of my favorite bands ever, the Libertines.
[01:52:22]  Pete Daugherty.
[01:52:23]  It's a London band.
[01:52:24]  And they played in New York, and I went to it, and I'm like, it's such a shame.
[01:52:28]  New York is beautiful.
[01:52:29]  I love it.
[01:52:30]  It's so charismatic.
[01:52:31]  It's so eclectic.
[01:52:32]  There's so many different vibes.
[01:52:35]  Yeah.
[01:52:36]  But the people are just not nice.
[01:52:37]  Yeah.
[01:52:38]  That's what I. That's what I. Turns me off.
[01:52:40]  Yeah.
[01:52:40]  Yeah.
[01:52:41]  But they're not nice, but you can be not nice back to them.
[01:52:44]  But I'm just kind of funny.
[01:52:44]  But I'm just kind of funny.
[01:52:45]  Not that guy now.
[01:52:46]  Oh, really?
[01:52:47]  Yeah.
[01:52:48]  I'm just.
[01:52:49]  I cringe at the thought of confrontation.
[01:52:51]  You know, I literally.
[01:52:52]  And that comes from traumatic shit as a child with my father.
[01:52:54]  Right.
[01:52:55]  So that kind of bleeds into like, When I'm off my square, just like I don't get angry, but I just get really, I shake, I start shaking.
[01:53:02]  But what do you like better?
[01:53:03]  What would you rather have?
[01:53:04]  Would you rather have people be surrounded by people in New York that just aren't nice, or would you rather be surrounded by people that are in like LA and they're just fake nice in order to gain?
[01:53:14]  I wouldn't surround myself with either.
[01:53:16]  That's the beautiful thing with sobriety, I have choices and options.
[01:53:20]  So, and both those places I would not live.
[01:53:22]  It's not black and white, right?
[01:53:23]  No, but if I had to, I would probably, because I like seasons, I would take New York.

=== Sobriety Gives Us Choices (01:03) ===

[01:53:29]  Yeah.
[01:53:30]  Um, But, you know, California, I go often.
[01:53:34]  Just, it depends on what the reasoning behind it is.
[01:53:37]  I never, I don't even like something about the place in Florida.
[01:53:40]  It's something about the climate, too.
[01:53:41]  Like, that changes you when you're in the cold weather.
[01:53:44]  I'm getting older.
[01:53:44]  I'm getting older, and I'm like really liking the easier, softer, slower way of things going, which I think's added to Florida becoming appealing.
[01:53:54]  Yeah.
[01:53:54]  No doubt.
[01:53:55]  And then I come here, I had everything else set up.
[01:53:56]  I had a place, I had clothes, and it was like no thought to it.
[01:54:00]  Just jump on a plane, cruise, and I have, you know, it was nice.
[01:54:02]  Yeah.
[01:54:03]  So, I'll do that again.
[01:54:04]  I will.
[01:54:05]  It's the next year.
[01:54:06]  Then maybe we could do a part two.
[01:54:07]  Yeah, man.
[01:54:08]  That'd be awesome, bro.
[01:54:09]  When's the documentary coming?
[01:54:11]  I don't know.
[01:54:11]  I don't know.
[01:54:12]  That's above my pay grade.
[01:54:13]  Where's Franz?
[01:54:14]  Get Franz on my phone.
[01:54:15]  Yeah, that's a Franz question.
[01:54:18]  Joe Franz, the people are asking.
[01:54:19]  You got some fucking editing to do, buddy.
[01:54:22]  That's awesome.
[01:54:23]  It's amazing, though.
[01:54:24]  It's a beautiful thing.
[01:54:25]  Cool, bro.
[01:54:26]  Well, thanks again, everybody.
[01:54:27]  I love you, boys.
[01:54:27]  You know what it is.
[01:54:28]  Links are in the description.
[01:54:30]  And good night, folks.
[01:54:32]  Cheers.