Erick Allen, known as EA, is a motivational speaker and the founder of Affirmations for Recovery. Raised in Portland, Oregon, EA faced numerous challenges including growing up in a low-income household and spending significant time in prison. Today, he uses his past experiences to inspire others on their journey to recovery and personal growth.
In this second installment of a three-part series, EA delves into the turbulent years of his life, sharing stories about his involvement in the drug trade, time spent in prison, and the pivotal role his wife played in his journey. Through candid reflection, he reveals the struggles he faced and the resilience he developed to overcome them.
Listeners interested in the complexities of overcoming addiction, surviving the criminal justice system, and rebuilding one's life will find this episode particularly insightful. Key topics such as drug dealing, prison reform, resilience, and the power of supportive relationships are explored in depth.
**Potential Listener Questions:** 1. How can personal experiences with addiction and recovery shape one's approach to life and relationships? 2. What strategies are most effective for overcoming the challenges of rebuilding life after prison? 3. How can the support of loved ones influence the recovery process and lead to lasting change?
If you are recovering from anything, this recovery podcast is a daily dose of positivity. I speak on mindfulness, and share thought processes and affirmations to help with your recovery journey. Recovery is not just about substances, recovery is needed for all kinds of addictions and thoughts and ideas that you may be addicted to. This podcast is for you!
Erick Allen, known as EA, is a motivational speaker and the founder of Affirmations for Recovery. Raised in Portland, Oregon, EA faced numerous challenges including growing up in a low-income household and spending significant time in prison. Today, he uses his past experiences to inspire others on their journey to recovery and personal growth.
In this second installment of a three-part series, EA delves into the turbulent years of his life, sharing stories about his involvement in the drug trade, time spent in prison, and the pivotal role his wife played in his journey. Through candid reflection, he reveals the struggles he faced and the resilience he developed to overcome them.
Listeners interested in the complexities of overcoming addiction, surviving the criminal justice system, and rebuilding one's life will find this episode particularly insightful. Key topics such as drug dealing, prison reform, resilience, and the power of supportive relationships are explored in depth.
**Potential Listener Questions:** 1. How can personal experiences with addiction and recovery shape one's approach to life and relationships? 2. What strategies are most effective for overcoming the challenges of rebuilding life after prison? 3. How can the support of loved ones influence the recovery process and lead to lasting change?
If you are recovering from anything, this recovery podcast is a daily dose of positivity. I speak on mindfulness, and share thought processes and affirmations to help with your recovery journey. Recovery is not just about substances, recovery is needed for all kinds of addictions and thoughts and ideas that you may be addicted to. This podcast is for you!
The attention that I wanted from women, I was willing to do whatever it takes to be seen, including, you know, getting rich. I wanted money. I wanted fast cars. I wanted to be, I wanted to be the man. Welcome back for part two of getting to know EA, the man behind the affirmations. Part one, we discussed his childhood, how he grew up underprivileged and underserved. Yes. Today, we're going to talk about where things start to go astray and the choices that led EA to where he is today. So welcome back EA. It's great to see your face. Oh, it's great to be back. I'm telling you, man, this is therapy for me. Like being able to share my story because I have, you know, I'm a podcaster and I've been on several podcasts. I've probably been on several hundred podcasts actually, but I haven't had a chance to really just dive off the, you know, off the platform and just really talk about, you know, the early years and all that good stuff. And I, you know, it's, it's, it's good to be able to get this out. Yeah. So thank you for having me. Well, I can tell you since the first time I met you, your energy is fantastic. And we, we edit your podcasts and things like that. I've always wanted to dive deep into how you became who you are today, because it seems like no matter what your struggles are, you always have a positive outlook and are, you're just so energizing and uplifting. So I wanted to know, I'm so interested in knowing how you got to where you are today. So I want to first start by saying this. I, I thank you again for having me. I think the juiciest part, like the earliest thing that I can remember about getting in, you know, how the road turned was women. It was my desire to be seen the attention that I wanted from women. I was willing to do whatever it takes to be seen, including, you know, getting rich. I wanted money. I wanted fast cars. I wanted to be, I wanted to be the man. Right. So with that came all the, all the difficulties, all the pressures of being a man. Okay. Like gangs, like again, growing up in a, you know, in an area where we're 3% people of color, when you start making money, you start having things, people notice and they see that. So I had to find ways to either protect myself and still rise. So that was my, that was the biggest challenges for me, man. I'm talking about, I mean, I went through probably about 50 women during this time. And, you know, you know, sex was my coping mechanism. It was like a drug. I mean, it was definitely like a drug, man. Sex is one of the strongest drugs on earth. You know what I'm saying? Especially when it's done right. And we, you know, all the good stuff that comes with it, man, it can be very addictive. Yes. So I would guess too on that with the sex, it's not just specifically the action. It's the feelings that come with it. They were fulfilling, fulfilling a need that maybe you were lacking. Would you say that was a driver? Absolutely. It was the, for me, the feeling that was lacking more than just the sexual feeling was the control. Something about the control that I established through sex, through sexual relations was the driving factor for me to just, I want that, I want that kind of power. That power feels good. That's addicting. You know what I'm saying? Just to be able to, you know, I got this woman, I got this woman, I got her friend too. Okay. So that's, that's, man, that's some of the best, powerful energy that, that the world has to offer for me, to me. So that, that's what drove my, you know, my lack of discipline. I was very undisciplined. I was just throwing my dick a party for lack of better word. Like I was throwing my dick a party. I was, you know, I was throwing my dick a party a few times a day. Actually, you know what I'm saying? I was, I was literally driven by sex. You know what I'm saying? A woman can call me, Hey, I got this pussy. Okay. I'm on my way. Oh my God. Pussy, pussy, pussy. That was just, that was the way I live. But by the grace of God, I come from, you know, grounded roots. So God always had a plan for me, you know, and then, you know, my beautiful wife, even with all those bad, even with that bad energy, she was right there. She was right there. She, she took everything on the chin and we still get it to this day. Let's just really quick. You were talking, you are high school or just out of high school age while all of this is occurring. And we talked in part one, you met your wife in seventh grade. You were just friends who each had other partners. Now, are we at the stage where you two come back together? Like she's you, you mentioned, she's been with you through all of this. So throughout my life, the second chapter of my life, I, I did prison. I probably did. I spent probably about a span of 20 years in prison. Okay. I've did 20 years in an installment plan type of deal. I never did 20 straight years, but the most time I've done at once was 34 months in prison. Okay. And that's where, that's where, that's where my fondest memory comes from with my wife, because that's when she showed me how resilient, how, you know, what real love truly was. I was in jail. I was in prison and mind you, I had, I, I left society with a different girl. Okay. It was a girl that I was staying with out of high school. We had a house together, but then once the law stepped in, she disappeared, she, she moved to LA and it was just me and you know, the rest of the women that I was involved with. And then my wife, now she stepped all the way up while I was in prison, took care of me, you know, make sure I had letters, make sure every time I called that collect call, this is a collect call from it. She always answered. She always made sure letters was in the box. Make sure food was in, you know, make sure I had commissary every week, but 34 months straight. So I paroled when I got out of prison, I moved in with her. And that relationship lasted about seven months because there were some things that happened while I was in jail that I got wind of while I was in jail, but I thought I can get over it. I was like, okay. You know, cause she has slept with a few people that I didn't necessarily agree with. I didn't like the situation, but I had to, you know, over time I had to learn like that's nothing like, you know what I'm saying? Sex is just a meat on the bone, right? You can, you can eat it or leave it alone. Right. At the end of the night, at the end of the night, sex is just sex. What I had to, I had to come to realize was the love that she really, really had for me. Like it was unconditional. Like she was willing to do whatever it takes to make sure my sanity was good. So I had, you know, so once I left prison the first time I got out and moved with her, that lasted seven months. And then it just, it wore on me. Okay. Cause like, I'm, I'm, I'm in society again. I'm a, I'm at the top of my food chain. So everybody knows EA, right? So everybody knows EA, everybody knows some of the things that my wife had done while I was in prison. So they was like bringing it up, throwing it in my face. And at first I was taking it like, yeah, you know, whatever. She's a, she's a, you know, she did it, whatever. And then it just wore down on me. And then again, I have women issues. I don't know if I mentioned that in the first, the first episode, my woman, I'm still dealing with those women issues, right? So, so having these women issues, getting fresh out of prison and then just seeing life, and then life started coming. Like when I first got out, it was basic again, but then life started going faster. Like money started coming, opportunities started coming. And then women started coming more, right? I'm older now. I'm 21. I'm in the 21 club, so I can do more. I can go to clubs, you know, I'm in, I'm in the music business. I had a record label in the city of Portland. I was an artist. I released, you know, music and I did shows. I did events, parties, dah, dah, dah, dah. So women was always on the menu, always on the menu. And so I left, I left my, she wasn't my wife then, but I left that relationship so I can pursue what I thought was happiness, which is other women just having a life. I'm in the music business. I get to fuck every girl I want. I get to travel all the time. Oh my God, oh my God. And then, you know, God woke me up again because even through that, I was still living the fast life. Okay. I was in the music business, but I was still selling drugs at a high level to the point where the feds stepped in. They knocked on the door. You know what I'm saying? They sent me that. So for people that haven't been in trouble, when you get in trouble, if you ever go to court, there's what the, what, what the state or what they use against you is called a discovery. Okay. And the discovery is when the prosecution gives you every single thing that they're going to use against you in trial. Okay. So what woke me up, I mean, and I'm, and I might be going a little faster than I should, but what, what, what, where I decided to just like, I need to get off this turnip truck. Right. Is when I got the discovery for it said, Eric Allen versus the United States of America. I had been in trouble every five years in my life. I've been in trouble. I can still say that to this day. Like I probably like in the last, probably I'm probably on year like six or seven where I haven't been in trouble and I'm, you know, I'm blessed because I, I changed my life. But when I was like turning 18 to now, I could not get five years in without getting in some kind of trouble, some kind of trouble, drug selling drug selling or drug selling, something like that. Okay. So let's rewind just a minute. So I'm assuming that drug selling is what wound you up in prison for the 34 months when your wife stepped up. So you had been doing this all through high school and eventually now you're after high school, after high school, after it was like junior year, junior year, I started a dabble with it. And then after that, I just, I went full blown for sure. Yeah. Talk about the risks involved and what it looks like to be a dealer. I think one of the biggest things that I want people to take away from, you know, the fast life is you're not safe. You know, one thing I can remember when I look back at it, I never felt safe. You know, you never have real friends. Most of the people around you are jealous of you. They want what you got. They want to be you. I mean, that's just the bottom line. I've, I've lost a lot of relationships over life with that, with that intention. You know, people just, they, they got in my life so they can get up under me so they can take what I have or, you know, utilize it so they can use it up. You know what I'm saying? So that's the biggest thing I would say, man, selling drugs, man, that is a, I don't even know the word I want to use, but it's so, it's so, it's so, it's, it's almost like methodical. Like, you know, all we see is the money that comes with it, but you, they don't talk about the pressures, the obstacles, the lack of opportunities, all that, all that stuff that comes with it. You know what I mean? And for me, if I'd have had somebody in my life that spoke to me like that, cause my dad, he didn't come from that side of the coin. So he didn't know nothing about it. So, you know, and then there was some substance abuse going on in the home. So he was the wrong person that could tell me something about, don't do it. Don't do it. No, I'm looking at him like, shit, it's going on in here. Obviously it must be, you know, it must be something we should be doing. Plus I want money. You know, they're not going to hire me at, I mean, I'm, I'm living Oregon and like my job, the jobs that I can get are very, you know what I'm saying? Far and few in between. And then keep in mind, I'm 17, 18 years old. I'm not old enough. I had no work experience. So the only thing that came to me was selling drugs. I felt like that was what I have to do. This is, you know, this is my career choice, you know? Well, and this is, this is a touchy question, but do you feel like you were forced to sell drugs because of the color of your skin? Like, do you feel, do you feel like you didn't have the same opportunities because you were a person of color? I do. I do. I do. I do. And I think that, you know, but at the same time, you know, just after I said it, I realized that that really was an excuse and a cop out, right? Cause at the end of the night, man, when you put your mind to something, you can get whatever you really want. The mind is one of the most powerful tools on earth, the mind. So I was using it as an excuse when I was younger. Oh man, you know, they ain't going to hire no black man. They ain't going to do, they ain't going, they ain't going, they ain't going, they ain't going. And then I just took, I decided to take the higher road because of it. Right. You get in trouble. You're selling. We're at the stage where you're selling drugs. You've now gone to prison for 34 months. You're coming out and life is coming at you fast and hard. And I'm in the music. Yep. You're in music business. And you said, are you still selling drugs at this point? I'm selling drugs. I'm selling drugs to fuel the music business. Right. Okay. So when I first got out of prison, I stopped for, you know, a period of time just because of course, you fresh out of jail, just got out doing 34 months. I mean, I was going to live off women being honest. Like my wife, she's worked. She was working at the time. I paroled to her house and she was, she had a good job. She had a good car. So who am I? I'm driving her car while she's at work. I'm living in the house. I'm shitting in the toilet while she's at work. I don't have to pay bills. I have to do nothing. You know what I'm saying? So that was the, but then that for me, a guy like me, I can only do that so long. Okay. I cannot live off of other people. I've just something within me. It's like, I think that came from being broke and poor and living like that. My desire. I had the desire. I want more in life. So that's what happened. Once I got back into the want more in life, I looked at the options that I had. Okay. Music business ain't paying me. It's not. I'm paying the music business to be in the music business. So I decided to say, okay, let me just do it one more time. One more time. Let me just see what it do. And of course I'm at the top of the food chain. So when I, my one time turns into me getting a discovery saying Eric Allen versus the United States of America. And that's just a, Ooh, that was man. Even saying that now still gives me like the chills, man. I don't know how the hell I went through that shit. That's the most challenging, you know what I'm saying? Like I've had United States of America versus, you know, the state of Oregon or the state of Kansas or the state of Las Vegas. Cause I've been arrested in all, I've been arrested in probably 30 States at a 50. Holy shit. Right. All for drugs, all for drugs or violations from, you know, being on probation, parole from drugs. Okay. You know, once you get a label as a drug dealer, the type of drug dealer I was, anytime I go anywhere, anytime, anytime the police pull me over, it's like, man, let's, let's just figure, let's just see, let's just see this tear up the car. Let's tear up his property, tear him up, search, search, search. And then, you know, and then being on parole, you know, all it takes is a, I can cuss out a parole, a police officer. That's a violation. Okay. You know, you got to obey every law. I'm in the city of Portland, black men on parole. I'm just a target. I'm a moving target basically. And mind you, I smoked marijuana at that time. I was smoking marijuana in a state where it was not legal. So I was, I was on parole and part of the parole conditions is not using any drugs or alcohol. Okay. But I was a rebel. I told the parole officer, fuck you. I'm going to smoke weed. I'm in the music business. We smoke weed in the music business. Okay. This is, this is the entertainment thing. I need this to entertain. So I had horrible, horrible relationship with my parole officer for many years. Cause he, he just kept saying, okay, you want to be a, you want to be a tough guy? I'm gonna lock your ass up every time. And he did. So I would go out of state. I would do shows out of state. They were prohibiting me to, for doing the rap thing and all that kind of stuff, but I was doing it anyway. So I go across the state lines. I do a show in Idaho. I do a show in Washington. The parole officer find out about it, get him, lock him up. And that's it. And that's, so that's what happened fresh out of prison for probably like the first 10 years out of prison. Like that's what kept happening. I get so far and then they'll just say, Hey, nope. He's, he's, he's doing the music again, lock him up or give him a UA lock them up. Everything is lock them up. So while you were selling all these drugs, were you also doing the drugs or were you just a dealer? I was, I was mainly a dealer. Um, when I look back at the road, you know, some of the places that I've been like selling, like I had drug houses and I've been, I've been, I've been inside while people are using, I've been, I've been around it. So I can, I can say that I, I can say respectfully that I've never picked up by choice of pipe or crack pipe and put it in my mouth and sucked on it, but being around it, cooking it and all the other stuff I was, I use based on that. I know what it smells like. And I remember having like contact from being around it. You know what I'm saying? So yeah. Do you find that you were addicted to that? Like, are you, are you just from being around the smell? Was that enough to make you want it more? Like you wanted to be involved with it more and no, not involved with it. What made me want to be more involved when it was the revenue that was produced, you know what I'm saying? I can honestly say throughout the course of my life, I've, I've touched over a million dollars playing with the drug. Okay. So I've seen over a million dollars, you know, I was in, I was in a drug game for over 10 years at the top of the food chain, right? So I'm, I'm a supplier for the suppliers. So that's very, that's very addicting. That's very addicting. It was, that's one of the biggest thing people ask me all the time. Are you in recovery? Absolutely. That's one of the biggest things to recover from. Cause now I'm not making nowhere near that money, man. I mean that, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking I had a motto thousand dollar day. Like we used to make a thousand dollars. That was my quota. I had to make a thousand dollars a day or I'm not stopped working until I make that thousand dollars for the day. So it was me and my team used to say that thousand dollar days, that was just a motto. We all say, and I, for years I hit that, I hit that minimum for years in the game. You were right there at the top. What was your relationship? You're so high up there. They obviously trust you. Was there some sort of bond other than we trust him to push our drugs? Well, it's weird. I mean, you know, as you asked the question, I'm kind of going backwards and reflecting. And for me, you know, I guess I look at it like this, you know, being at the top of the food chain, there's other people at the top of the food chain too. Right. So in collectively, you know, like I said, when you, when you come from this side of the coin, you know, who's doing what around here. So I knew who was doing what people knew what I was doing. So I never had to really worry about watching my back because like Portland, it's not like, you know, and, and, and I get a lot of backlash when I say this, but, you know, we don't have like that, that, you know, the killers and dealers like that we do. I mean, we do, but it's not as severe as like Chicago or, you know, LA, you know what I'm saying? So for me, I knew the other key players. So I never really worried about watching my back. I always had my stuff protected, but there's always a sense of, you know, you got to watch it because you got to watch the police. You got to watch people telling on you. You got to watch the themes. You got to watch, watch everything is just full-time watching. You know, there's no way you can even feel comfortable in life. Like the, the, the fastest you make money, the fastest problems happen, or, you know, you know, I can make them, you know, I can make a couple thousand dollars today. And then that same day I'll get hit with something that costs me four or $5,000. You know what I'm saying? So, so that's one of the biggest things that I learned is like, when you make fast money, it goes out even faster. So I'm, I'm on a slow grind nowadays. I love the slow grind. The slow grind, man, it's taught me a lot of, about patience. And it's taught me a lot about like resilience, you know, how to be resilient and how to just, you know, not take no for an answer. You know, selling drugs, man, it's so, it's so easy, man. People say yes to everything. You got, all you do is develop, you develop people as yes, man. Yes, man. And women, you know, when you got the bag, when you got the drugs and you got the money, I very rarely hear no. Okay. Yeah. I didn't hear no, I didn't hear no at all, actually. So. At this point in your life, going forward again, you've gotten out, you're with your wife, who wasn't your wife at the time, and then you've split off because you're doing the music thing. And was it, was your wife around when you were dealing? Like how, how did your choices affect her? She was actually, you know, she helped me in a lot of places. Cause I wasn't just dealing in my city that I lived in, actually on the contrary, I was doing it the opposite. I was actually going away, going to other areas and destroying those areas and just sleeping at home. Like, you know what I'm saying? So there's a few times that I, you know, I took, took her omissions with me and she would either be the driver or, you know, rent the car for me or whatever. You know what I'm saying? So she saw it firsthand. You know what I'm saying? And what woke me up after getting that Eric Allen versus the United States of America, I went through that whole process. It took me 10 months to fight that case. I did 10 months in a small Oregon town called Grants Pass where the Ku Klux Klan birthed, where the Ku Klux Klan originated is in Grants Pass. So while, you know, and, and one thing about the feds, the feds, when they give you a federal charge, they can place you anywhere. They can put you in Egypt, anywhere in the United States that has a jail that they want to hold you into a trial. They can put you there. So they, they elected to put me in Grants Pass, Oregon. So do you feel like that was intentional? Everything is intentional. Everything. It was designed to break me because when they came at me with the plea bargain, the deal was 188 months. So they thought that I was going to break and say, okay, I'll take that 188 months. That's, I can't even, it's only 12 in a year. I can't count that high. Are you kidding me? So in my mind, I was like, look, if y'all gonna give me 188 months on a deal, man, you might as well just give me life. And that's what the deal was. It was like, you can take this 188 months, but if we find you guilty, you're getting life. For drugs? For drug selling? Well, I'm at the roll of the dice guys, because we going to court. Okay. So I paid for an attorney. I spent $140,000 for an attorney. And 10 months later, I walked out with my freedom. It was one of the best stories, best memories of my life. I remember my attorney came and saw me in Grants Pass. And he was like, you know, the DA came at me today with a deal I think you should consider. And I'm like, a deal? I already told you, I paid you a hundred thousand dollars. I ain't thinking about no damn deal. He was like, no, you should look at this one. I'm like, okay, what, what is it? He was like, well, what they decided to do is they're going to drop it from a federal charge and put it back in a state, which, which was a significant difference. Okay. Like the state charge and the guilty plea was only like probation or some weird shit. It could happen. But in the feds, it's different when you already have previous, I had previous charge, I had previous distribution charges. So this would have been my third one. So in their mind, the minimum sentence, it was life because I already had the way my points stack up in the feds. The feds is a point system on how they, on how they convict you. So when you came at me and say, look, they're going to drop it out of the federal court. They're going to put it in the state court. They're going to give you credit for the time that you've been here, which was 10 months. And they're going to put you out on probation. I swallowed it. I signed that same day and got out that same hour. I was crying. I was, you know, and ultimately I regret it because it was another conviction. They put another conviction on my record, but what, you know, what it did was it did open my eyes. Like I haven't been back to that side of the fence since then. Cause I promised God two things, get me out of this. And I promise you, I'm done with that. I'm done with selling drugs to that extent ever. I will never do it again. And I'm going to marry that beautiful woman that you, that you keep blessing me with. Right. Cause during that whole 10 months, this beautiful woman was driving from Portland to grants pass for a 30 minute behind the glass visit. Okay. And from Portland to grants passes over 200 miles, over 200 miles. Okay. So she was driving 200 miles once a month to see me for 30 minutes, just to keep my spirits up. Cause we couldn't afford, you know, cause it's a long distance call. So I couldn't afford to be calling her every night and blowing up the phone system. So we had a, we had a design. She would write me all the time and she would accept the phone call. I think once a week, she put money on the books and then she came and saw me for the whole 10 months. So when God gave me that plea, I, you know, I promised and I pray, look, man, get me out of here. Marriage is on the horizon. She's going to get all that. And that's exactly what happened. I got out. I got out August two. What's this? I would say August 18 years ago. Cause my son is 18 now. Right. And within a month, I got her pregnant and that's why we have our son. So that was like, I love child. Cause our daughter is not biologically mine, but I still raised her as if she was mine. She's still mine. She calls me dad. That's my daughter. I wish you would. Okay. But biological, this is my actual blood son with her. That was the best blessing God has given both of us. Cause we, we've been through a lot. We've been through a lot together individually, collectively, whatever. But to have that love child together, that woke me all the way up. I've been living in my purpose ever since. Okay. And I'm not perfect. I still deal with women issues. Okay. Still to this day. What did your wife's family think of her being involved with you and the things, is she close with them? Like, was that, was that an issue too? That's a big question. That is a great question. So my wife has a very small family in Portland, Oregon. Right. And you know, her mother, her mother was an educator for 30 years, retired principal teacher from a school district. So I remember, I remember having, you know, deep conversations with her mom. Her mom liked me as a person, but her mom didn't like me for the situation, if that makes sense. She didn't like my choices. She, you know, but she did respect me for the fact that I was willing to step up and take care of another man's child. Right. And I never was physically abusive to her daughter. So I've never, you know, and I've always been a respectable person when I see her mom. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I'm that type of person. Just, just naturally. So I don't, I don't recall having any bad relations with her mom, but I could say her mom didn't care for me. Just like as a parent, you wouldn't care for a person like me. That's, you know, putting your daughter through that kind of stuff. That's something to care for. But today we have a great relationship. I love my mother in love. She's, she's just so inspirational to my relationship with my wife and, you know, and my wife grew up without her father, but without her biological father. So I think that's a, I think that's the reason why she put up with a lot of my shit is because she was, she had her own issue and she was broken and she, you know, she had abandonment issues and all these other things. And she just, you know, she tells me all the time, the only thing she prayed for in life was just to have a family. You know, she just, that's all she wanted this when she grew up, she didn't have her father. So she just wanted a relationship with a man that was going to be a father to her, to her children. And God answered that prayer for her because I can't see my life any other way without her. You know, and again, I still do. I mean, I, I pray that God works on these women issues. You know what I'm saying? I'm, I'm getting a lot better. Uh, you know what I'm saying? A lot, a super, a lot better, but I still struggle. I still struggle in the apartment. I'm, I'm, I'm keeping it real, but you know, now I'm going to be empty nesting and I'm, and I'm hoping that God just has more and more blessings for me in the, in, in that beautiful woman that he blessed me with. This kind of wraps up. So now you, your, you've gotten out, you have your freedom and you have your son. Yes. So that will kind of lead us into this next part. What's just a little snippet. What's next for everybody who's listening. What does the part three of the EA journey look like? I mean, part three is perseverance to the max. Okay. It talks about, you know, what we've used, you know, the struggle, but how we overcome the struggle and you know, what journey we own, what train we own, what track we own right now. Awesome. So that wraps up this episode. Stay tuned for part three, where we witness EA turn things in the right direction. Yes. Post-production is done with care by Ocean Tree Creative.
