On this episode of "Breakfast of Choices," I share another powerful story of recovery. As my guest Daniel Steeds joins me, listeners will hear his harrowing journey battling substance abuse from a young age. Daniel recounts his struggles beginning with marijuana use at just 8 years old, and how his drug problems escalated after his parents' divorce. He also courageously opened up about illegal activities he engaged in as a teenager and traumatic experiences like near-fatal drug and alcohol poisoning.
Additionally, Daniel discusses overcoming prison time and his difficult battle for custody of his children. Most importantly, he shares the lifestyle changes like meditation and addressing past trauma through yoga therapy that helped lead him to sobriety. It is my hope that Daniel's story provides inspiration that recovery is possible for anyone willing to put in the work, no matter how far they have fallen.
Tune in to hear Daniel's journey from addiction to wellness and new beginnings as he shares his experiences on this impactful episode of "Breakfast of Choices."
From Rock Bottom to Rock Solid.
We all have them...every single day, we wake up, we have the chance to make new choices.
We have the power to make our own daily, "Breakfast of Choices"
Resources and ways to connect:
Facebook: Jo Summers
Instagram: @Summersjol
Facebook Support: Chance For Change Women’s circle
National suicide prevention and crisis, hotline number 988
National domestic violence hotline:
800–799–7233
National hotline for substance abuse, and addiction:
844–289–0879
National mental health hotline:
866–903–3787
National child health and child abuse hotline:
800–422–4454
CoDa.org
12. Step recovery program for codependency.
On this episode of "Breakfast of Choices," I share another powerful story of recovery. As my guest Daniel Steeds joins me, listeners will hear his harrowing journey battling substance abuse from a young age. Daniel recounts his struggles beginning with marijuana use at just 8 years old, and how his drug problems escalated after his parents' divorce. He also courageously opened up about illegal activities he engaged in as a teenager and traumatic experiences like near-fatal drug and alcohol poisoning.
Additionally, Daniel discusses overcoming prison time and his difficult battle for custody of his children. Most importantly, he shares the lifestyle changes like meditation and addressing past trauma through yoga therapy that helped lead him to sobriety. It is my hope that Daniel's story provides inspiration that recovery is possible for anyone willing to put in the work, no matter how far they have fallen.
Tune in to hear Daniel's journey from addiction to wellness and new beginnings as he shares his experiences on this impactful episode of "Breakfast of Choices."
From Rock Bottom to Rock Solid.
We all have them...every single day, we wake up, we have the chance to make new choices.
We have the power to make our own daily, "Breakfast of Choices"
Resources and ways to connect:
Facebook: Jo Summers
Instagram: @Summersjol
Facebook Support: Chance For Change Women’s circle
National suicide prevention and crisis, hotline number 988
National domestic violence hotline:
800–799–7233
National hotline for substance abuse, and addiction:
844–289–0879
National mental health hotline:
866–903–3787
National child health and child abuse hotline:
800–422–4454
CoDa.org
12. Step recovery program for codependency.
Welcome to Breakfast of Choices, the weekly podcast that shares life stories of transformation. Each episode holds space for people to tell their true, raw and unedited story of overcoming intense adversity from addiction and incarceration, mental illness, physical and emotional abuse, domestic violence, toxic families, codependency and more. Trauma comes in so many forms. I'm your host, jo Summers, and also someone who hit my lowest point before realizing that I could wake up every day and make a better choice, even if it was a small one. So let's dive into this week's story together to learn from and find hope through someone's journey from rock bottom to rock solid, because I really do believe you have a new chance every day to wake up and make a change, to create your own. Breakfast of Choices. Good morning and welcome to the Breakfast of Choices podcast real-life stories of transformation from rock bottom to rock solid. I'm your host, jo Summers, and I am here. Well, actually, I should say Daniel Steeds is here with me today doing something a little different.
Speaker 2:I had Daniel come over and we're doing the podcast from my location today. So we're going to discuss drug use from a very, very young age, some lack of supervision, the ins and outs of navigating the lifestyle through the use of his drugs, some of the crazy things that happen just by association, life-altering things that can happen by where you put yourself with people, places and things, and how that affects the outcome and choices we've made.
Speaker 2:Daniel has some great insight on recovery, healing, working on himself and what has worked for him these last few years. I appreciate Daniel's insight and wisdom and his words of hope and encouragement. I hope you hear that one little thing that sticks today. I hope you find this podcast of some value. If you or anyone you know is struggling, please reach out. Asking for help is absolutely the first step. As always, if you would like to share your story, please reach out. It is not only healing but hopeful and helpful. So I'm just going to go ahead and let Daniel get to it and tell his story today.
Speaker 3:Good afternoon, jo. Appreciate you having me over and giving me the opportunity to tell you my story. I've never actually sat down and told anyone the story of my drug use throughout my life, so this is going to be the first time for that.
Speaker 2:Wow, I feel honored. I appreciate that so much. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 3:You're welcome. So drugs for me kind of started at a very young age. While I don't really consider marijuana as a drug per se, that was my first go with it. All the people that I was introduced to marijuana with ended up being my friends, to do all the other drugs too.
Speaker 2:The gateway, so to speak. Yeah.
Speaker 3:There were people at the end of my street that one of my friends was trying to buy bowls of weed from, and I remember thinking or telling him man, my mom has weed in the top of her bathroom cabinet, I'll just go steal some from her. And that was kind of the beginning. I think I was probably 8, 9, 10 years old, something like that.
Speaker 2:Were your friends the same age.
Speaker 3:No, so I was pretty much the youngest kid in the neighborhood. Everybody in the neighborhood was 2 to 5 years older than me, and I'm 40 right now Seems to be a theme. Yeah, but it was never really a big deal. But I remember my parents split up the summer I turned 13. And it wasn't. I mean, it wasn't that that was hard for me, it was just that, you know, my mom wasn't there and my dad was at work, so I just got to do whatever.
Speaker 2:So your mom was now out of the house? Yeah, ok. Yeah, I'm now out of the house, yeah, okay, and stayed with your dad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he was like I said. He was, you know, running the well and shop, so he was always gone, he was always at work. You know, he was totally against my driving use the whole, every step of the way, all throughout my life, so it was just the fact that he had to be at work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I had free reign to do whatever I wanted to do, and I had a bicycle. Oh, you know, you could go anywhere. That's how we traveled back, that's how we did it and that's how we did it.
Speaker 2:I hitchhiked a lot Right. Our friends rode bicycles.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, that summer, though I remember I tried crank. Some of your listeners may be too young to know what that is, but that's what we had before y'all had meth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just laughed about that. Y'all were saying I'm going to start talking about clen-pung here, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I believe that same summer was the first time I had tried acid.
Speaker 2:She's got me to it. I thought we'd right, do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a, it was. It was uh all available. You know, it was just uh.
Speaker 2:It was just timing and people you knew and if you got in time, you had to do that.
Speaker 3:Time alone and time no, no, no, supervision yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it was a thing. It was pretty much I was really good at concealing and lying, the skills that we learned, manipulating, to get my way. I'm not really sure if anyone really knew and they just didn't say anything, or if I was just that good so your dad really? Never said anything. Uh, no, and like I said, I don't, I don't know that.
Speaker 2:You know in my early days that he knew well, you were pretty young and it's not really the first thing somebody suspects, right? Right you can get away with a whole lot more when you're that young right so I don't think people really understand that. It's not the first thing you're thinking when your child's eight or ten years old, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, even you know 13, but so that's that pretty much. Uh was the on off thing from the time I was 13 till I was 15, you know, when I was 15, I figured out that you could sell it and then you wouldn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and you could make a little money. Yeah, yeah, good times.
Speaker 3:So that's what I started doing. I was riding around on my bike and I ended up getting caught. My dad found out that that's what I was riding around on my bike and I ended up getting caught. My dad found out that that's what I was doing. He tried to put a stop to it and I just went and lived with my mom.
Speaker 2:How did?
Speaker 3:you get caught? Who did you get caught by and how much? My dad found it. In my room I had a futon bed that had plastic push-in things that went in the tube. You know that's still off the tube, okay, and I had stuffed well three or four ounces of weed in it.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like he might have known a little bit. Yeah To that trouble to find it right yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know, my friends, out in front of our house we lived on the corner, all of everybody. They put wax on the curb so they could grind their skateboards on it.
Speaker 3:And it probably didn't help that they would smoke joints out there. And anyways, he ended up finding my stash in my room and I had been out running the streets and came home and, uh, he wanted to talk, you know, and he took me straight in my room. He already had it pulled out and had it sitting on my bed and he was like what's this? And I just remember I got mad. You know, I couldn't really say word for word exactly how it went down anymore. That was a long time ago, but it all boiled down to I just wanted to live with my mom and, uh, it, I didn't talk to my dad for a while. After that I lived over with my mom for a while and I ended up, uh, getting getting my hands on. I started selling volumes and getting volumes and selling volumes at school, you know, and hell we would, we would bring uh blunts to grant high school and smoke them in the bathroom before we went to class different times, right yes different times and uh, you know, and this the acid was always around.
Speaker 3:Crank was a short-lived thing back then.
Speaker 3:My spirit kind of kept me away from that back in those days, but it was the weed and the values and the acid and the ecstasy all around that year, year and a half that I was living with my mom, and I ended up one day I was late for school it was a me day and I had, uh, mr houston, samuel Walker, houston III, he had a beard about this long and the old, swish of sweet, and he was my biology teacher and I was running late, you know, and I could sit at mr houston's desk like he was, he was just cool as a fan, and so I took that for granted and I remember I was running late and I had, uh, stuffed my black and mild with my weight and everybody was already in class and I went to the bathroom anyways, and smoked it all and went to class and I opened the door, you know, and I have this big shitting grin because I'm really stoned, and uh, there's what's to be principal sitting in where and where I'm supposed to be sitting, and uh, so I was like, oh shit, you know, and I, I walked on in and I walked by her and the only desk that was available was like right behind next to her.
Speaker 3:So like I sit down and I kind of scoot into the desk a little bit, try to face a little bit away from her, and I'm sitting there and got my hand up, you know, like oh shit.
Speaker 3:Because like you don't smell it? Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even wash my mouth out with water, you know. And she was there I mean, it wasn't even 10 minutes, I guarantee you and she just got up and left the room and I was like man, that was a close one, you know. And about 15 minutes later she came back with the school officer gruber and they pulled me out of class and they searched me right there in the hallway, made me take my socks and shoes off and empty my pockets and took me down to the office and called my mom. And my mom came up and I remember they told me because I was like I haven't been smoking, I'm just tired. Yeah, I've been smoking, I'm just tired, yeah, I've been smoking, I was just tired. They was like, okay, well, you can take a drug test. And I was like I'm not going to take a drug test. They were like, well, you can take a drug test and we're going to kick you out of school. And I was like, okay, fine, kick me out of school. And they kicked me out of school.
Speaker 3:Was it ninth grade? Ninth grade? This was at the very beginning of 10th grade. Okay, yeah, I went all the way through ninth grade. Somehow I passed I don't know how, because all my most like 80% of my friends were seniors when I was a freshman and all most time all I ever did was go to school to meet people and leave, right. But somehow I passed the ninth grade and the beginning of the 10th grade is when that happened and I started going to a safe alternative school. Yeah, you couldn't really mess around there like you could at public school. It was a little bit more More strict, yeah, a lot more strict. And you know, I went there for a short while I mean it wasn't terribly long because I was always breaking the dress code or you know stuff like that and the principal would always call my mom and make my mom come to school, because I would walk in school with my belt hanging low or something like that, and my mom finally got tired of it, pulled me out of school and emancipated me.
Speaker 2:You will.
Speaker 3:And I was 16, I believe I may have been a little off on my days All my ages. I may have been 14 in the beginning and then 16. Yeah, that wasn't no good, because then she told me she's like all right, well, you're going to have to get a job. So some friends of mine that I used to do some dumb shit with, you know they were doing drywall and so I started going to work with them and my friend would come by and pick me up and take me to work and hell, I think I was spottingting nails and I think I was making like a hundred dollars a week or something. You know, like it's some stupid little amount of money, but hey, it was. It was a job.
Speaker 3:My mom got off my back but one of one of my friends that worked there, uh, in particular was was one of my uh friends that I would do things with and plug and whatnot. We started not going to work, doing cocaine, drinking and partying every day. Damn cocaine, you'd do some of it and you wouldn't even be able to swallow. We'd just be it just fucked up every day. And I finally, you know my mom and my mom had had enough and I was about at the end of my road and, um, she had told my. She called my dad and told my dad what was going on.
Speaker 3:And my dad ended up giving me a job. Yeah, and I moved back over to my dad's and there may be some bits and pieces missing there that I just don't remember I'm sure. Yeah, and I moved back over with my dad and started working with him. I ended up getting me a branding car. I was a 2001 Grand Am GT gt. It was silver chrome wheels and I put mirror extended windows on. I like the county of syracuse that well, that was just. It was a mag, a trouble magnet that's what it was, oh yeah, girls in trouble, it's all attracted.
Speaker 3:and I I remember I I've would drive around with the sunroof open smoking a blunt because you couldn't see me Just doing dumb shit.
Speaker 2:Now you have a car to do dumb shit in, so yeah, oh yeah, there's no stopping me now.
Speaker 3:I don't have to rely on anybody else for a ride. Right, and that was right around the time that I met my kid's mom. I was 17 at this point and she's eight or nine. She's nine years older than me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But it's a stand a chance. So I was over there and you know I was not sure how long, but I don't know One night we had been drinking and they were into pills and we had been drinking and the last thing I remember was having a beer and then, all of a sudden, I woke up and I was fighting paramedics.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 3:And they had given me. I had taken too many pills and mixed with alcohol and they took me to the A-Bart showroom and popped my stomach and all that Did she call in then. No, there was another person there that called him saving lives, though yeah absolutely yeah because he wouldn't even found me. I wasn't breathing and he couldn't find a pulse. So he, he called the, he called 911 and they came and I kind of remember that like I was in, so like it was water.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And I was sinking and I couldn't swim up to the top.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And then all of a sudden, I was fighting paramedics.
Speaker 2:They gave me the I guess Narcan yeah, to bring me out of it, and so you actually were like flipping in, you were dying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and I did it and it was just crazy. You would think that you know, at that point I would have learned my lesson.
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 3:I remember my mom wanted me to come home with her so bad from the hospital, and I was like nope, and I ended up going back over to my girlfriend's and I ended up getting a job over there. Well, no, she ended up getting pregnant. That's what the deal was. Yes, she ended up getting a job over there. Well, no, she ended up getting pregnant. That's what the deal was. Yes, she ended up getting pregnant. You were 17? No, at this point I was 18.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's like 26, 27?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And she ended up getting pregnant and I remember, you know she was always on pills and it was crazy. I just felt like she'd been messing around with other people. So I left and I was like she wouldn't let me have any of my stuff. So, uh, I remember my dad was trying to help me out and, uh, she finally convinced me that that the baby was gonna be mine and taught me to how to go to the doctor. So I went to the doctor, I left work I was working with my dad. I left work and went to the doctor with her and we got out of the doctor and I was going to run by my house. They grabbed something and I went inside and I came out and my dad was there.
Speaker 2:Oh shoot.
Speaker 3:And he took the keys to that car and then I ended up walking off. Oh shoot, that was calling me dad and stuff, and so I started painting because her dad was a painter and I just, you know, I don't know if you do, but and I don't, you know, I don't mean to speak ill about anybody, you know it was. My experience was, you know, all the painters were either drunks or drug addicts, so that just kind of threw me right back in the mix with everything as far as availability and being around people.
Speaker 2:Do you have any kind of relationship with your parents at this time?
Speaker 3:My mom had reached out. My mom, I was seven or eight. I was talking with my mom and all that. My dad never actually told me to leave. He just took the keys and I walked. So you were trying to help, yes, yes, and he was. He was trying to help, you're right. Well, did you not kill yourself or someone else? Yes, or be with, be with her, her. Yeah, because I couldn't see it. Of course not, you know. All I seen was this yeah, yeah, so yeah it was one of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I never, never, yeah, never got a girl like that.
Speaker 2:A lot of it was like hey so you know, and that's funny because that's that situation, reverse happens all the time older guys, you have a girls. You don't hear it as much with older women. I mean, you were essentially a young and now you're not only a boy, but you were a young man, and it's the but. You were a young man and it's the same situation. You know what I mean? There's no difference. She is the older party and you can say take advantage of it or not, take advantage of it. You can say it however you want to. You didn't feel like it at that time.
Speaker 3:She totally, she was a stripper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she totally took advantage, but I enjoyed it then of course and you know I've studied that your dad took your keys. My dad wouldn't even let me get a license. I didn't, I wasn't allowed to get my license. I became my license when I was 23 and I was out of the house, out of prison, the whole thing. He would never let me get my license when I was 16, 17. So I'm glad he took your keys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And so we have a kid while we're at it. So we have our kid and we're introduced to Crank the paying job. That's what everybody was doing.
Speaker 2:And they were all older also.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, these guys were all 40, 50, 60 years old, you know yeah and so I got reintroduced to crank and I you know I was I tried to stop doing and she, or my, my baby's mom, she found out and, uh, she didn't like it. You know, I really tried. I didn't want to, but it was there and I had no willpower.
Speaker 2:That's a tough drug. Yeah, it's a tough drug. If it's being done around you and you haven't done it or been imparted to it and you don't change your playground, that's a tough one to play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So eventually you know I'm on drugs at that point. You know I'm on drugs at that point and I ended up leaving. My cousin was the production manager for a place called EFCO Technologies that did pipe bursting on an Air Force basis down in Texas and my mom had been talking to him and, uh, this cousin was like the definition of cool in the 80s.
Speaker 3:He used to come by and see me. He was a lot older, so he he gave me a job and I was able to move uh from here down to there. It was a furnished apartment. We didn't get per diem but we, everything was furnished, we had a bed, the bills were paid and we got paid every week. We had a ride on the base and I was down there for a while and a couple months and real sober, I'm doing great. And then I had some beer one night and my supervisor, me and him, shared a three-bedroom apartment and he hadn't been there before, he had worked for a company for a while, so he had been there and a few other places and came back. Well, he was a crackhead and uh, so one night we'd been drinking and uh, he went out and picked up one of his friends and brought him back to the park. And here I go again.
Speaker 2:And here we go again, here we go again. It's that fast too, isn't it? It's that easy and that fast, and it just happens like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it's crazy to think of all those times and then to think about how many times I've rejected it in the last since 2019. Yeah, but uh. So you know, one thing led to another and started meeting. You know more people. I was in wichita falls and you know my. My experience down there is there's nothing but crackheads and airmen. I know there's not. I know there's more people down there is there's nothing but crackheads and airmen. I know there's not. I know there's more people down there, but that's just At the time. That was your experience.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, there was another guy, a young guy. He was a local and he wasn't. He had been a drummy, but he had been sober for a while by the time he got a job working with us. He had been sober for a while by the time he got a job working with us and I started hanging out with him and he liked to smoke pot, but I knew I'd been warned not to smoke pot because they might drug test. Yeah, you're on a base. Yeah, so I would go and hang out and I'm 20, by the way, at this time Every once in a while, I would go and stay over at his apartment with him and his girlfriend to try to stay sober, to just get away from that environment again. That's good.
Speaker 3:And we got paid on Monday or Tuesday or Thursday it was in the middle of the week was when we got paid. We didn't get paid on Monday or Tuesday or Thursday. In the middle of the week was when we got paid. We didn't get paid on Fridays.
Speaker 3:So my usage had gotten so bad that I was still spun out when it was time to go to work. So I was like I'm not going, can't go, sorry, I'm sick, you know, sorry, I'm sick, you know like, and it got, it happened at a certain point. It had happened so much that, uh, the superintendent of the whole job, he lived in a few buildings down in another apartment and, uh, the next day when I went to work, he was sitting outside in his truck too and he was like, if it happens again, you're fired. And I was like okay, I've really I've got to stop. And aaron was like man, you can just come over. And he was like you stay with me for a little while. And uh, so that's what I did.
Speaker 3:And he lived clear across on the other side of wichita falls and his mom, uh, brought him to work. He was a little bit older than he was, 20 months. Yeah, there was this little bar down the street from where he lived. He lived in this three-story apartment. I'd been doing it. It'd been a couple of weeks. We weren't set out to just get smashed, but that's what we ended up doing one night and his mom I guess his mom came to the door and tried to get us up. We didn't wake up until like 3.30.
Speaker 3:So you did have a hot day and I was like fuck, I was like borderline alcohol poisoning. I was like borderline alcohol poisoning. That next day the superintendent, he was sitting there whenever we pulled up and he was like, clean, get your shit out of my apartment. And I remember Aaron was like, well, fuck, if Daniel's fired, I'm quitting.
Speaker 2:You know all of that.
Speaker 3:So I called my dad and told my dad. My dad came down there. Uh, that same day big man brought me back, gave me a job. I got my car back. Uh, he didn't know that I had been okay, so that was done right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, job is over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, soon um, yeah, my car back, everything's everything good and uh, so I'm back, everything's going great. I went to target. I don't remember what I was there for, but I went to target and I seen an old friend of mine from school and she was like, oh my god, so I'm gonna see you. Like you gotta come over, I've got my, got my own place over here. I was like, all right, cool, yeah, I'll come, I'll come over. He went over there and she was bawling out of control. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, and at this point I am 21 now, or no, I'm about to turn 21. And ice just is a brand new thing right now. Just, it's a brand new thing right now. You know, they had really started cracking down on Sudafit and all that, so that was when I started chilling. And here we go again.
Speaker 2:That fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember it was just crazy. There was just a lot of wasted time. That is unfortunately not. You're not able to get it back. You know my dad. He is at this time my dad has, he's got a girlfriend and he's actually living with her and not in your dad's house. Yeah, and in my. No, no, no, no, there was dad's house three bedrooms.
Speaker 3:Oh no, yeah, he's not in it and he's not there. Yeah, I mean, in three bedrooms he had his room and it was locked up like you couldn't go. And uh it was, uh, you, my little sister, was moved out. I don't even know what she was doing, she wasn't there.
Speaker 3:And I just started meeting all these people, and you know, doing drugs, having sex. You know, I met this one girl and she was, you know, trying to be a dealer. I ended up meeting her, mexican, and uh, it was just, it was she hadn't been, she hadn't been getting stuff and not paying him all the money. And she tried to take me and have me give him money and something. If I believe right, she was spinning it that uh, I was gonna pay for her and and then she was going to get some more.
Speaker 3:And I just remember I was like, no, I'm not doing that. I was like, if you want to front me, I'll buy some right now. And that was the end of that. It just took off from there. So you know, people that were doing down shit, the whole stolen cars and I never actually stole cars or anything, but it was just part of the crowd, you know, and I fall in sleep would would be awake. I swear I'd be awake for three weeks and then I would just fall out uncontrollably and know what? You wouldn't be able to wake me up or any of that. No, I don't know until I didn't die so obviously not working.
Speaker 2:This is what you're doing now. Yeah, this is your life and your lifestyle.
Speaker 3:You know, and for a long time and for a long time, uh, you know, I stayed up all night and I went by rick donald's and got everybody breakfast and showed up at work and I did that for a while. But you know, just just like anything else, like eventually, yeah not sustaining. No, it's not sustainable you're in it now.
Speaker 2:You are in a lifestyle. This is how you're making your money, this is what you're doing, all your friends doing the things that they're doing, that when we're in the middle of that, you look at, it's totally normal. Yes, oh yeah, stealing cars or doing whatever they're doing, robbing, you know whatever it is and we're like, oh, whatever, we're not doing that, but you know, it's just normal in your life right, yeah, and it uh, it got pretty, uh, pretty bad, you know, but it's uh, it's trying to.
Speaker 3:It went from being able to supply to having to hustle and rip people off. It was just.
Speaker 2:It gets pretty dangerous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to buy a deal all the way around. And then one day I knew a guy who ran from the cops on a motorcycle and one of the pursuing officers ended up getting hit with another vehicle at an intersection and his car flipped over and caught on fire and he did not survive.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness.
Speaker 3:And there was people at my house, you know, and one of them knew this guy, I, I knew who the guy was, but we didn't associate, we weren't friends or anything. And then said, hey, you know, he, uh, he wrecked his motorcycle. You think that he could come over and take a shower? And I was like, yeah, sure, you know, I wouldn't call her. And then he got there and he started telling us what had happened after he took a shower. And I was like, yeah, right, and he said, turn the TV on. So I turned the TV on, sure enough, there it was A damn car smoking and everything. So he fled the scene. Yeah, nothing, well, they did ejection, right. And he ended up wrecking, not far from there. But you know, know, I was like, man, you gotta go, you gotta get the fuck out of here. So he left, and everybody else kind of left too.
Speaker 3:At this point I remember I got in the shower. I was always. I was always real big on hygiene, like really big on hygiene. Like people would rag on me, but I didn't give a fuck. I was always like washing my face, brushing my my teeth, taking a shower every day, like no matter what. And so I had been, you know, in the shower. And I got out of the shower and was walking through the living room and I tell, and I noticed there was hands like cupped around the face looking through the kitchen window. And this kitchen window, you know it's know it's pretty far up off the ground. You have to be about 6'5", 6'6" to do what this person was doing. I was like motherfucker.
Speaker 3:And I started to turn and say something and I remember, doo-doo-doo, oklahoma City Police open the door, we're going to kick it in. And I went over to open the door, you know, and I'm butt naked, and they brought me in. It was a SWAT team and they were looking for that dude. And they brought me in and sat me down, started going all through the house. I remember I had to call my dad. They had the whole air section, the whole blocks from everywhere all blocked off. You couldn't come nowhere close. And, uh, they had. I had to call my dad because they were.
Speaker 3:They were, they thought he was in this room where I told you, my dad's room was locked all the time and I was like I swear it's not in there. I was like, just call my dad, my dad will come open that door for you. There ain't nobody here. I, you know, at first I at first I was like I don't know what you're talking about. And he had left his bloody shirt in my extra bed and they found it and they had it from description, yeah, so, and then they thought that he was in the room and my dad had to come over and open his room and let him go in there. Then they got me for possession of paraphernalia. I think my original bookends were trafficking methamphetamine and accessory murder. But it wasn't. You know, it wasn't nothing Like that, was not.
Speaker 2:Right, but that's how they're going to start it.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, they were trying to juice it up a lot.
Speaker 2:They had to, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't have a bond. Yeah, yeah, for like two weeks I didn't have a bond. They had me there. My dad ended up going to hire an attorney for them to give me a bond and get me out. And well, no, yeah, it was possession of paraphernalia and accessory murder, and so I've been out. Yeah, so well, I'm going to tell you where the trafficking thing came from. So I got out and I was supposed to be staying over at my dad's girl fruit with him, and you know, I tried. I mean, I wasn't there very long and I started staying over at his yeltsin because he wasn't terribly far away and uh, the a guy that I've known for a long time hit me up and like hey, you know what? What the fuck? I've seen you on the news and like yeah, that's yeah, it was a bunch of bullshit. No, listen to news, just the news that said all kinds of shit.
Speaker 3:It was just flat out lie right you know there was, uh, my dad actually had a vhs tape that he recorded a lot of the shit that they said and they had the news actually walked right up into our backyard and like did a clip, walk right up to our house to this is where it was hiding out and like all kinds of Christian money, like that was not what happened.
Speaker 2:They experienced something very similar to that with uh, the news, the media, the newspaper, even the detectives.
Speaker 3:And so this friend of mine. You know he's over there and he leaves a bunch of shit with me and it was pretty dammer, it was all cut. It was not what I had been accustomed to. You know, at this time I'm main band things. How old are you around them? I'm 22.
Speaker 3:And so he leaves this stuff with me and naturally I get in there and make me a big like like 80, thick, you know, and I do it and I just remember, like I just get, I got really tired Like I could, just couldn't stay awake anymore and I I fell asleep and the next thing I know the police have waken me up, they're in the house and the cops are waking me up and they have this it was like 56 grams and they took me to jail and had a trafficking charge on there and my dad wasn't got me out on bond making really good money. Him and my mom got me out on bond. I, I turned, uh, you know I got out. I started working with his father-in-law at the time and I worked with his father-in-law. My, my, my kid's mom had filed child support on me while I was in there and I got out on a 13 and my first payment was due on the 20th. So I was real fortunate to get out and go right to work cleaning hoods in restaurants in the middle of the night. I was able to make my first child support payment on time and I never once got behind on that. Dad was doing real good at the shop and one day I was walking around the block and I him and he ended up offering me one job and I went back to work and everything was great.
Speaker 3:I was going to these drug classes, counseling classes and all this stuff so that I could see my kid. Uh, my kids had been with my mom. Um, my, uh, the the man that my kid's mom had left me for ended up breaking my youngest daughter's arm, so they got yanked from her out of that deal, and so I'm trying to get to where I can see my kids and you know I'm sober and then I eventually I ended up moving in with my mom. We got a house together so that I could get my kids and there was no, no drugs. There was the occasional going out to the bar and then somebody would get some cocaine, but I was. There was no like issues really. Uh, as far as you being sterling out or not going to work or not taking care of my priorities I'm like how old I am at this time. But I went through all of the steps and on June the 5th 2008, I got custody of my kids.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah 2008, I got custody of my kids, oh yeah, and that year I was one of three men out of over 2,000 that was able to jump through the impossible hoops. It was all because I worked for my dad and get custody of their kid, brius, and they called us all in for a meeting to figure out what they could do better and what we all three of us let them have in real, proper life. It was kind of a treat to be able to get to go in and do that.
Speaker 2:Good for you, vino, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:My mom had an apartment over off of Shields. My mom stayed with her boyfriend a lot and I lived on the couch pretty much and lived there for shit a while and I ended up getting my first house in 2012. I was smoking weed selling weed, you know, frequently and I ended up not long after I got the house I'm getting my next girlfriend and I hadn't been doing pills or anything like that. You know, I was on a good track. I would just smoke a pot, you know, sell a pot here and there. I met this girl and she was going off pills and stuff and she wanted to do pills. And I just happened to know somebody and started eating pills.
Speaker 3:At this point, other than Valiums, I never really ate pills and you know these were Lortabs and Roxies, oxycontin, things like that and we went through a hell of a bender of pills and sex and myths, all the things, yes, and then you know I'm all, I'm all in at this point. One day she was like I think you want to stop doing this. Are you going to stop with me? And I was like no, I'm not ready to stop. You know like, hey, you know I told you I didn't want to. I didn't really want to do this. When we got started, I remember I did tell her that I was like I really don't want to do this and you know I should have been better. But hey, I wasn't and that's what happened. So she ended up stopping. She really did, she quit, and you know I was. Of course I was lying a lot, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh no, I'm not. Were you telling her you'd quit? Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, no, I'm okay, I'm a fucking angel, yeah yeah, yeah you know a hot dead shit. I was talking about um. But she always knew. Yeah, she was native american, she knew you do.
Speaker 3:She had lit, she knew, but, um, you know, and it just what it what it. What it ended up doing was I would, you know, be eating pills and then I wouldn't be able to find any and I would be coming down and it would cause severe strain and we would fight Not great on a relationship, stop selling pot, uh, because she was going through uh things with her kids and her ex. So I made a decision to stop selling pot and all that back then and it was uh, it was a pretty rocky, rocky road and we, we were like on again, off again, and I started, uh going out on saturdays with one of my friends. He was making really good money running a drywall crew and, uh, every saturday we'd go have lunch. I'd be over there knocking on his door ready to go because he needed a driver knocking on his door ready to go, because he needed a driver, yeah, knocking on his door ready to go.
Speaker 3:We'd go to the other person, we'd get smashed, and then we, we'd uh end up getting some, either some pills or some some dough. And then every time you know, I would get caught, I hope, yes, every single time, to the point that she decided to get out and get her own place Every time, you know I would get caught At home.
Speaker 3:Yes, Every single time, To the point that she decided to get out and get her own place, and this went on and on and you know it should have. The relationship should have ended long before it did, but instead it didn't and it ran a pretty bad course and I ended up getting back on dope. Pretty bad. Back to shooting. Yes, and this is like 2016.
Speaker 2:So now we're talking a span from we started when this is like 2014.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just kind of dabbling around at it, I didn't know you know what I mean. And then you know you know what I mean. And then you know it's like 2015, 2016. I would say, probably more likely, 2016. A couple years, yeah. And then I, you know, I got back to doing it. You know I would just get high and work. You know, for games, well, I just, yeah, I would just get high and work and I would work all night, work all day and all night, all day and all night, all day and all night. See, I had my own place, uh, with my dad and uh, it was probably more enabling than anything to be in that position. That's probably why it was such a bad thing. But I remember it was Valentine's Day and I had went out and bought some stuff for her. You know, she was all the time calling me. She's like why are you working? I mean, I've got all this stuff to do, I've got to get this stuff done.
Speaker 3:It's like yeah, it's 1030. And I went to try to take her her valentine's day gift. I drove up to her house in norman and, uh, I went in and she was on the phone I'm good with her stuff. I remember she was like I don't want to be with you anymore and of course, I'm fucked up. I don't know there's of a knock me on the right and uh, I left and then, uh, this is on valentine's day of 2018 and uh, I was on a hell of a bender from that point on. Um, it was really bad. Um, I my, uh, my daughter ended up going to live with my mom and I remember it was her 16th. My daughter's 16th birthday was 2019. It was September 27, 2019. She turned 16.
Speaker 3:And I tried to call her. I was trying to get a hold of her. I couldn't get a hold of her and I sure fucking broke my heart it's just because you know, tanner was gone. Everything just seemed like it was fucked up. Oh, my heart, yeah, and I couldn't get a hold of her and I remember it just crushed me. I couldn't get a hold of her for her birthday, to tell her happy birthday, literally.
Speaker 3:She was actively avoiding and I remember I got into the shower and I was just bawling about it. I'm just strung out like they they had. I've been been hurting for a while too. Uh, I find I, I got. I was hurting so bad and I couldn't walk, and I remember I went to the emergency room prior, prior to my daughter's birthday. I left, I forgot this part and they took my blood and everything and they was. They came back and they was like yeah, there's like, uh, it's like you're dying. Your organs, yeah, your organs are shutting down. You have pre-diabetes and you have your blood pressure is about the highest we've seen in a month. And uh, I did, uh, I had that on my mind and this is all right.
Speaker 3:At the same time, you know, and my daughter not call a lot, not accepting my call on everything. It was the real low point. Yes, so I I'm just crying my eyes out in the shower and I remember like talking to god and just like talking to god and just begging like for help. Uh, and all of a sudden I woke up and the water was ice cold and I was laying in the shower it was still on. I have no idea how long I'd been in there, but the water was ice cold and I was fucking freezing and shivering and, uh, it was all I was trying to work. And and so we're on, on sept 28, 2019, I woke up from that shower, sober, and I've been sober ever since.
Speaker 3:Wow so just cold turkey sober. Well, so I've been working on this job ever building, uh, the, the inside framework in a great big building. But basically I built a structure inside a building, uh, for a longtime customer. They were starting a weed farm and, uh, the, the guys that were running that farm, they were always trying to get me to come up there on saturday. So I started going up there with m guys and uh, learning how to grow weed and and, of course, smoking pot and, like I said, and then we started.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't really consider weed a drug. I like people that have never actually done real drugs and kind of think that weeds and weeds that don't. But I, uh I, just I I started going up there and and I started spending time there every chance I got and they were all real welcoming to a couple of the guys there I had known for 15 years because I worked with them on other jobs for my customers in Bricktown. You know those guys, I love those guys. They helped me out a lot back then, so they weren't doing any hard drive. Oh no, oh yeah, they were actually growing weed. That one you get through, yeah, uh-huh. And so I smoked pot. You know, I went and got my medical marijuana license and legally now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm doing it legally. I'm not selling it out of a backpack on a bicycle. Legally, yeah, out. And you know, going to work and doing the things that I was supposed to be doing. And, uh, it was in 2019 and I smoked weed regularly until, um, today's, the 30th, uh, the 27th of march of last year, I stopped smoking weed too, so I've been completely sober now on nothing for a year.
Speaker 2:What made you stop doing that?
Speaker 3:I used to have a couple of dogs and these dogs were with me all through my business. At one point. If I hadn't had the dogs there, the responsibility of hey, they got to eat. You know they need to go outside. You know that's another contributing factor to one of the reasons why I believe I'm still alive.
Speaker 2:Something to take care of, yeah, something you got to do about.
Speaker 3:Yes, and they got into a fight. I I tried to save a dog a stray dog in 2020, and it it ruined their relationship. I tried to mic, I thought I could micromanage it, you know, because they were eating out of the same bowl and stuff their whole life. They they could. There's there's a picture of them on the internet that my ex a video. They have. Both of them have the same tennis ball and they're just sitting there. They're not growling, they're not doing anything, they're just looking around. But that's kind of relationship that they had. And then, after I had that stray dog there, it was uh no, that's my bush, you can't pee on it, I think. But now it's three. Somebody has to be in the alpha. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:And I was smoking out and fucking around on Facebook on March 26th of last year. It was a Sunday and it was really nice outside, so I had the door open and I knew that Reaper was outside and all of a sudden I was like I looked over and Peanut wasn't there anymore and I was like what's going on? Oh shit, they're both outside. And I ran outside and they both started fighting. They fought for 45 minutes. I could not break them up and ripped each other all to pieces and I ended up losing Reaper. I it just. And ripped each other all to pieces and I ended up losing Reaper. I uh it just it ate at me. I couldn't smoke anymore because I would start thinking like I was. I was being. My demons were really.
Speaker 2:Getting you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was life-altering. Yes, yes. So then you were. You were fucking off smoking pot. What's the difference between were fucking off smoking pot? What's the difference between you fucking off and smoking pot and fucking off and doing drugs? Still, men, things were happening. Yes, yeah. So I made the decision to stop and I discovered beneficial mushrooms and other healthy things along my path that have really helped me turn my life around. I don't drink pop. I don't eat fast food. I don't buy my meat at Walmart. I try to always buy my stuff from a local farmer, all organic. I'm not being it or anything, but at this point I can say that you know, and I quit smoking cigarettes smoked cigarettes from the time I was 13 until I was 36.
Speaker 2:So you've made a complete lifestyle change.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Both places things all of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't really talk to anyone.
Speaker 2:It's hard to do that, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's got to be hard, because you've lived here your whole life and so yeah, I mean it is, but I mean I don't know, I was kind of a hermit for a while. There was a period of time that I lived at my shop in my break room when I was getting sober, just to stay away from my house. All you did, whatever worked, yeah, and I ended up selling the house and then I was taking showers here and there random people's houses, and then I was taking showers here and there, random people's houses, and then I was showering over at one of my friends and another one of our friends was there and he was like man. You know, when I got out of prison I was taking uh showers at the y, so I ended up getting a y membership and all the way until now now I got, got my trailer. Everything is going good.
Speaker 3:I'm the lead welder at Aerospace Place. I'm a recourse specialist and we do R&D for potential government contracts for fabrication. I still have my welding shop my dad retired in 2020 that I do every chance I get and then I'm actually I don't use the license, but I actually took the time uh in 2022 and I'm a licensed insurance adjuster here in oklahoma, but I don't do well, I thought I was going to, but nobody would hire me because I'd ever been to college, so yeah, so you and I talked a little bit last week and you know like getting into drugs at such a young age, and we kind of talked about something where, like you said, you felt different sometimes when you were younger, like you just felt like something was different about you, you know, mentality wise, something that's just different.
Speaker 2:Do you think that any of that had anything to do with why you got into using drugs? Were you trying to kind of mask something?
Speaker 3:yeah, in a way it's I just, you know, I kind of kind of felt like I didn't fit in somewhat. It was it's kind of a hard thing to explain, but now I embrace it. Yeah, yeah, it is so. It's like I. I look at it now like it's not super powered I agree, it's here.
Speaker 2:Well, it is here. I think we finally have to get to that point where we love ourselves, right? Yeah, start embracing all of the unique things about ourselves and start loving ourselves. Yeah, it's just great.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So what kind of self-care do you do now? I know you go to the gym and you're eating healthy and doing healthy. Do you meditate?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I do meditation and chakra activations every morning and I do my beneficial mushrooms daily the lion's mane that I gave you, and turkey tail cordyceps, chaga, reishi all of them have their own benefits. They really help for a number of things Energy, brain fog, ability to learn, your gut health, inflammation Just the list goes on and on and on of those benefits. I also um a regular beet consumer. I love my beets. They they boost your nitro, nitric oxide and create arterial elasticity. Basically, they, they help you to stop aging on the inside through your arterial network. So it's it's you something that I like to do the spring water and, you know, no processed food.
Speaker 2:That does a lot though.
Speaker 3:It really does. If you go through that cleanse of all of those things, it's pretty amazing. And you know one thing, going back to cigarettes, until I quit smoking cigarettes and I was actually, you know it, it hurt. I ran like four scum for cigarettes. Oh my god, it was the most I've of all the things that I've come down off of cigarettes were by far doing. Hey, oh yes, hands down the cigarettes once.
Speaker 3:I, you know, after after like two years of not smoking, you know, every once in a while I would still like I would smell somebody's cigarette or something and I'd be like, nope, you know, and this first instinct is man, you know, we want to smell our cigarette. But after I finally wasn't experiencing that anymore, I can say that cigarettes, smoking cigarettes, throughout all of this time frame that we've just been discussing, I personally think that they had a huge hand in my inability to recover properly because of what they do to your blood pressure. They have their, their chemicals in there. So you're, you are writing a chemical high that is not as intense, you know you, and especially if you smoke them like I would, you know, my dad smoked cigarettes and we worked right next to each other, so so if I didn't have a cigarette, he lit a cigarette and I would all have a cigarette, or vice versa.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, we smoke a pack and a half, two packs a day at work, that that temporary little fix with them, cigarettes, and go along, go along, getting that, getting that little fix. Then, uh, eventually something would happen, and is it, you know, something that would piss me off or hurt my feelings or or something like that, and I would just be like that's it, I can't, I'm going to get high, and that's what I would, I would do so, and it's it's like part of the routine too, right?
Speaker 2:yes, part of that. You wake up in the morning. This is what you do, or six years lightest era.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah and. But now you know, uh, now that I've successfully stopped everything in the lake, I, I literally have no desire. It just I have no desire to go and do any shit like that anymore. I swear it's because I'm not still smoking them cigarettes.
Speaker 2:That's great information, honestly, because I've never smoked cigarettes, ever in my entire life. I think I tried once when I was like, I don't know, maybe didn't like it, but I never have.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's interesting information because I do see the people that I've been around my whole life, all of them smoked it was that routine like and then you have your coffee, and then you have your cigarette, and then you want to light your joint, and then you want to go get your fix and then you want to. It's like this whole one after the other thing. So you were able to take all of that out and basically reprogram, retrain, reframe. What about dealing with? You know, all of those things cause trauma relationship issues, the lying, the manipulation, the all the things that we do when we're in that lifestyle right having done and you know counseling or anything like that so I was.
Speaker 3:I was pretty fortunate to meet someone um through a friend. It was she's a friend of a friend, now she's a friend, but uh, her name is paulie goringer. I might not be saying that right.
Speaker 3:I hope I am paulie if you hear this, but she does uh trauma release, that's her specialty and uh, she does it through uh yoga nidra and uh I, I went to her when she was having small or small classes in christian classes in moral home and it just it changed that. That too, it changed me, and that was really after I went to those trial release sessions is when people started noticing me Like they and not and I don't mean strangers, I mean people that I care about that know me.
Speaker 3:They started saying like man, what are you doing, what are you going to go? And they're different, what's up with you? And you're so calm. What are you, what have you been doing? I want some of that. Uh, uh, it it rid me of things that I think may have been holding me back somewhat? Yeah, absolutely, and I've sent other people to see a friend and they are changed too.
Speaker 2:It's great. I do breathwork with a mutual friend of ours which is now. I met you. I've done breathwork with Sherry and the whole premise of this podcast is basically to talk about trauma, to help maybe help encourage other people that it is possible right To go from where we were to where we are bottom, to rock solid some pretty low points right. And trauma is a huge factor that we have to get rid of. The store trauma, whether we think we have it or we don't, it's in our body, it's in our brain, it is part of who we are. If we don't learn to heal it and learn to get that out, it's very difficult to stay in recovery. It's very difficult to stay moving forward just as a person and be happy and find that joy and all those things. And I don't know that people that have never done drugs or anything like that, they still have trauma too no, yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 3:They don't, you know they don't. They don't realize it. Uh, and especially because they can they can, it's easier for them to say that nothing's wrong with them. But someone that that struggles with addiction, they know that something's wrong right and they're trying it. They're trying to. They're trying to do something about it, but it's just not what they should do, right, you know?
Speaker 2:right, they're using some form of release, but it's just not the right form of release, right. So I just, you know, want to really talk about that and hit that home, because trauma release is real and I'm really glad to hear that you've done that. And I'm going to throw this out there A lot of men don't do that. They think that you know, or counseling, or yoga, or trauma release or breath work or all of those things are, you know, silly or for girls or whatever, and that is absolutely not the case at all. So I'm really glad to hear that you're doing that and I did not know you before, but sitting here with you now, you're very calm and you are a super intelligent guy, very articulate, and so as you're telling your story, you know, you listen to where you were, what you were doing and you see where you are now. It's obvious you've done the work to get there, and so I really thank you for doing this with me today. I think it's been really helpful and insightful and you're that guy thank you, it was.
Speaker 3:It was really, uh, an honor to be able to come here and to tell my story. I've never actually sat down and told anyone all of the things I've shared with you today. It's all kind of been in my head. If you weren't witness to, you didn't know about it, I think. But I hope that you are able to get more people to come on here and, at the end of the day, I really hope that this is able to go into somebody's ear and help them Absolutely In the same fashion.
Speaker 2:How do you feel as far as helping you be able to tell your story? Do you think it's helpful to be on the queue? You've said you've never shared it before. It was a whole lot of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, while I've never told it before like this, at the same time I will. So all of these things have traveled through my brain a million times underneath that welling hood. So it's almost like I've told myself this story over and over and over and over and over again, to the point that it was just like having a conversation with myself to tell you all these things. It's almost like I was practicing for this.
Speaker 2:It's game day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, I'm glad you did this with me and I know I've just been telling my little story about the last year and, I'll be honest, there's been tidbits. There's a lot of things I haven't shared either. It takes a minute to start getting those things out and even remembering some things as you're telling your story. Like, well, I forgot about that, you know, but it's been really healing for me too. So I hope that somebody hears this today and if there's anybody out there that does want to share their story and be able to offer hope and encouragement, reach out, let me know. Thanks so much, daniel, for being with me today.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you day, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:I am so grateful that you joined me for this week's episode of Breakfast of Choices. If you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe, give it five stars and share it to help others find hope and encouragement. The opposite of addiction is connection, and we are all in this together. Telling your transformational story can also be an incredible form of healing, so if you would like to share it, I would love to hear it. You can also follow me on social media. I'm your host, Jo Summers, and I can't wait to bring you another story next week. Stay with me for more Transformational Thursdays.