Drugs, Prison, and the Olympics ft. Tony Hoffman

Once you're in conflict with the external world and the internal world, it's very hard to find the center or what our true north is, right? You think about what you write down, your mission, vision, and values for who you are, that's your north. But when you're in conflict in the external world and the internal world, it's very hard to decide what your mission, vision, and values are for yourself and where true

north is. You're constantly living in this world of trying to meet expectations for others whom you probably love or care about, but also you have this internal mechanism that's saying, I'm supposed to quit this

job. I'm not supposed to go to college. I'm supposed to start this side business or become a tattoo artist because even though I'm really good at mathematics and engineering, the creative side of my person really loves this idea of tattooing and it should be something that I can support my life on, but you don't want to disappoint the people that want you to use your engineering gift and mathematics to go get a higher education, maybe work for Google or something, but

inside you, you know that that will never make you I'm feeling something in my spirit. Chats

Hey friends, lovers of art, creative, magnificent souls of planet Earth. Welcome back to Chats and Tats with me, your host, Aaron DeLaVedova. The guy I'm having on today is the epitest, not the epitest, the all time, maybe greatest

story of redemption. Uh, I'll highlight this. This is a man who was at the top of his game as an athlete in high school, was headed to the stars for various reasons, got addicted to drugs, which led to heroin of all drugs, ended up going to prison for committing crimes to get money for drugs, and while in prison, completely turned his life around to get back out, to become a pro BMXer once again, and then to coach the BMX Olympic team, and then to move on to become

a professional, one of the most watched professional motivational speakers in the world and opened his own rehab center for people with these similar struggles just in the last two years. So obviously was able to create a ton of success in spite of all the hardships he had been through. And the little micro stories we get in today, his time in prison, how he got tattooed in prison. He's covered in tattoos. Um, and his, his way of surviving his prison time, uh, and

training while he was in there the whole time, his mindset around the whole thing. It's fascinating and a lot of other caveats in between. So if any of that sounded interesting to you, this is the episode for you. And here we go. Please welcome my guest today, the Mr. Great Tony Hoffman. Tony, thank you for coming down, making the trip to come visit me here at Chats & Tats. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Grateful to be here. Thanks

for having me. And I have to say a shout out to Michael Moulton, who was on the show, who talked to me about you. That guy is fantastic. And that's how we connected. So thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. A lot of you out there might not know, Tony Hoffman is sitting with me. You might not know his story. He definitely has one and he's created a lot of beautiful things because of his story. So maybe for those on my show that don't know who you are or what you're all about, give

Sure. I'll introduce you as what I do today. I'm a motivational speaker, so to speak. I hate to say that, but I travel about 250 days a year. Why do you hate to say that? I just don't like the term motivational speaker because any Tom, Dick and Mary can pick up a microphone, change their bio to motivational speaker and pick up some buzzwords and start telling people that they are one of the biggest speakers in the world. And they're just buzzwords flying around. It's just not what I

do. I tell my story. And I tell my story in niche places that fit with what my actual purpose and mission in life is to do. And a lot of that mission is to help people understand mental health from a degree or an angle that was never given to them that helps them better understand people like

myself. Help people understand addiction, how it really works, why it starts, and give people the inspiration that it doesn't matter where your life is at, according to how I've made changes of going from prison and accomplishing getting to the Olympics as a coach in 2016. after being homeless and strung out on all types of drugs, that you truly can make drastic changes in your life. And it doesn't have to just be from drugs. It could be from any situation

that you're facing in your life. So that's what I do. And I hate to call myself a motivational speaker because it's never what I wanted to be. I just wanted to make a difference in people's lives. And I'm now a co-founder of PH Wellness, which is a drug and alcohol treatment facility located in Southern California, Riverside, California. And we focus on helping stabilize individuals through their first 30 days

of treatment from drugs and alcohol. But as we'll go into other things, I've had a plethora of things that I've accomplished over the last, you

know, 15, 16 years since I was incarcerated in 2007 through the end of 2008. Well, look, we're gonna find a new word for your what you do motivational speaker i'm gonna i'm gonna figure it out because you know there is a big there is a lot of motor and a lot of them how to make you rich yeah and that's what comes to my motivational speaker you're gonna teach me how to make money right and uh that's not what you're doing no totally different angle so we'll

put that out in the universe we're gonna come up with a different way to describe you Yeah, and I don't sell programs and I'll never sell programs. I don't want you to buy into my mastermind. I get it. It's just never going to be me. I got other things that make me feel better than how to teach people Yeah, well, being rich is the result of the type of changes you're

talking about, if it's even part of your goal in life. But it's the result of, you're getting down to the core, you're getting down to

what the foundation of a human being. And I don't even use the word happiness really, because happiness is so fleeting, right? Chasing happiness is like an addict, right? And it's an addictive behavior, you know. A lot of people, they don't do heroin like you did. Yeah. But they buy shit online all day. Sure. Because every time a little box shows up from Amazon, they get that little dopamine rush. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, and they're seeking quote-unquote

happiness. I like to use the word fulfillment. Yeah. To be fulfilled, which includes having a hard day, but a day of accomplishment, and it was tough, and it sucked,

but you got through it, and you got it done. That's fulfillment. I go to bed sometimes after a rough day feeling better and more fulfilled than I do going to bed on a vacation when I've done nothing Yeah, and you know when you get home that you're gonna have a bunch more stuff to do because you put it off for the vacation, so you're stressed on that, and there's anxiety that comes with it. And I'm big on words. Fulfillment's great. Contentment

is what I'm looking for. And that is just my ability to go to bed at night and know that I don't need anything else. And that where I'm at right now is exactly where I'm supposed to be, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. And things don't help me get there. Achievements don't help me get there. It's a self-reflective process that helps me get there. And sobriety is a big part of that self-reflective process.

It's really a superpower. And you hear a lot of people in recovery say that, And for me it is because i deny people places and things the opportunity to change my mood in a way that distracts me from the moment that i'm in and that's the most important time in my life is the moment that i'm in what i'm feeling and how i can process those feelings and emotions and make a better decision based on some logic around what those feelings mean where i'm trying to go in my life. and

what exactly I want. And sometimes I need to be in a place of struggle and I can go to bed at night and find gratitude in that struggle because I know it's taking me to some better place as long as I stay the course. No, you've nailed it. I mean, you can read a hundred books on Buddhism or Taoism or philosophical texts and they're all going to tell you that in some form or another. That's right. You know, being present

in the moment is the place to be in that moment. If you can find gratitude for the good, the bad, the ugly, then you're basically saying to the universe, I'm okay, I have enough. And what you feel you are is what you attract. So if you're saying, I have enough, you'll attract more of that. But if you're pining for something or wanting something, and that frequency that happens inside of us, then you'll attract the wanting of things, which

means lack of things. You're basically saying, I don't have enough. So the universe goes, okay, I'll keep you right in that place you seem to want to And it's constantly fleeting, like you said. Oh, it's orders. You know, I'm a spiritual person. It would be considered vanity, right? You grab to go grab a hold of it, and then you open up your hand and it's not there. It's not actually what

you think it is. And so then you never find yourself in a place of fulfillment because you're just going whatever direction the That's why it has to be a practice, you know? You have to... I always, I guess as a younger man, I thought I would read the right book, or do the right meditation, or take the right hallucinogenic... The magic pill? Yeah, and I could check that box and be like, there we go,

I'm in the zone. And the reality was, on all those experiences, a month goes by or whatever, and the same shit's happening, and the same negative thoughts are happening. You know, and I have developed my own practice. One of the things I do is I, I've written down a, what you might call a mission statement, what I'm about, what I want, where I'm headed, who I am. And, uh, I just get up in the morning, I read it. I just read it to myself, you know, and I edit it a little bit

at each day. And it's like really redundant, but man, it's so effective because it reminds me of it. It's the practice. It's like the gym. Enlightenment's like the gym. You think you're gonna go get buff and then you're done? Walk away? You And as soon as you stop, you regress. Yes. It's an interesting process.

But that process you're talking about is really what started a lot of the struggles that I end up having in my life was trying to find a magic pill or trying to find a magic activity or something that could change or alter the mood that I was in that I didn't really like about myself and without recognizing that it wasn't going to be something in the external world that fixed these things that I was looking to fix, it was going to actually be a commitment to self and understanding

myself to the degree that the things on the external world were no longer a necessity for me, that my peace actually came from me and that I was truly in control of that myself No truer words ever spoken. And you know, one of the things that's interesting about your story, you really didn't come from a bad home. No, there was no abuse. You have good, you have good family. They raised your eye. Yeah. It's stability. You're a talented young man, talented athlete. You know, I have

a similar story. I mean, I had a little bit of stuff. My parents got divorced, but there was no real abuse. But, you know, I went through times of feeling depression and things like this, and you went through that in a very extreme way. Where do you think, being that you didn't have any trauma, really, unless you want to, unless there's something I don't know about, where do you think that comes from? You think that's genetic, or do you think it's, can

you talk towards that? Where does that come from? Like, you should be a happy kid

Yeah, mom and dad married 48 years in November, November 6th, 48 years. Grew up upper middle class. My parents grinded it out, though. My dad dropped out of high school to become a truck driver. Grandpa, who lived down here in Bonita with my mom, my dad was from El Cajon, says, you can't marry my daughter without $5,000 in the bank. So my dad says, I love this woman so much, I'm going to drop out of school, go get a

job, save $5,000. In fact, my mom's grandparents wouldn't even go into the wedding because they didn't believe that my dad was a man enough to take their granddaughter. Hardcore. And, you know, to this day, my dad is one of the best examples of a man and a father and a husband that I've seen in my life. And so I did grow up in a very ideal situation. They were workaholics, and that was probably the biggest piece of trauma, if you wanted to call it that, is that they were

very invested in work and providing for the family. from a financial standpoint, not only for me and my brother, but also for themselves in their retirement. You know, my dad has been a very vision-oriented person with his finances, and did not want to be in a place where me and my brother were having to wheel mom around in a wheelchair, that if they needed to go into a home, that they would have saved the money for the care that they would need in the fourth quarter of their

life. And so, with that came a lot of abandonment. Not intentional, unintentional abandonment. When we take that and then we add in the component of what the three indicators that we know from a scientific standpoint are, what may lead a person into the addiction realm versus somebody that can just recreationally use substances and walk away from it and not have an experience where they're overly obsessed with the feeling that they get, Is that the environment the genetics and the psychology are

the three things that play the biggest role of whether a person's gonna become addicted to a substance we do know that if we go into neighborhoods where mom and dad are engaged in violence and drug abuse or sexual abuse are occurring that this environment creates an emotional process or stimulus to an individual that

creates very discomforting emotions. And those emotions are typically the precursor to why somebody would use a substance and find some attractiveness to how the reward system works neurologically in the brain. The second one is genetics. In my family, we do have alcoholics and addicts that have been in the family. They do believe that that plays a role in it. The third part is the one that I try to tell people weighed the heaviest on

me. When I got to my teenage years, I started to feel this self-hatred that I didn't understand, and it really was centered around me feeling like I didn't belong in the location at school with these other peers. Part of that was me being such an exceptional athlete and being better than other athletes and not wanting to be better than other athletes, wanting to be normal, and then having social anxiety and not knowing that's what

I actually had. So I didn't know how to navigate social anxiety because I don't even know what it is. I just know I'm uncomfortable and I don't want to be

around people. So I start to isolate away from people. At this time, I need answers to navigate this emotional world because what I'm doing with myself is taking these emotions and I'm creating self-destructive stories about who I am, what my value is, what this means about me in comparison to my peers, and then I have the component where my father's my hero, he's not around because he's working fourteen hours a day and he's missing a lot of these

core components of where i need him to be which is at my basketball games my first dream was to go to the nba not be a professional bmx racer and while i'm missing him from these events, i'm taking my internal dialogue about what i'm already struggling with and now i'm attaching my dad's unintentional abandonment to this and i've created the answer and that is something's wrong with And in there, was there also, you know, as a, as a guy that was just naturally born with athletic talent, I would

imagine there was a lot of people putting, maybe not directly, but pressure. Basically the world's kind of saying to you, the world expects you to be great. Right. Which I, it's also something that I

if i lose this game today if i don't perform well that reflects on my self worth more than other kids these kids could come play a half-assed game and no one gives them shit but if you know So mr ford who i'm friends with now i hated him growing up. Because of the expectations he put on me mostly i felt like he was picking on me right where is mr ford he was my basketball coach from fourth grade to sixth grade but still today one of the only teachers that really poured into me through

what i now know is true love. And that is that we hold those whom we love to a high expectation and accountability for self and behavior. And he saw that I was exceptional at basketball and I truly had potential to do it. And he tried to show me what the pathway of being successful in sport was going to be. How to be a leader, show up on time, have a positive attitude, do the work that you don't want to do with 100% effort so when you get

to the things that you do want to do, you know how to give it 150% effort. The problem with that was he wasn't doing that to everybody else, right? Just like you said. Then it's like, why are you doing this to me? I want to be like my teammates. You know, he says, Hoffman, don't you want to be a champion? And I said, no, I want you to leave me alone. I just

want to be normal, like my teammates. I didn't want to carry that weight, because by that point in sixth grade, I had already started to feel less

than. I already started to feel kind of those emotions that were making me feel like this negative vibrancy within myself, and so him telling me these things about how I could be great were in direct conflict with how I felt about myself, not seeing that what he was doing was calling me to a better version of myself, and then my potential wasn't so much about needing to be a champion, but it was about creating a stage or a platform in which I could make others better through my own leadership

for myself. But I didn't want that. And that's what really started this resentment for my gift was every time I played a sport, it didn't matter what it was, bro. I put on a pair of rollerblades, sponsored by K2 in a year. Get on a skateboard, I'm at the, you know, Long's Drugs down the street, showing up every high school kid that's on a skateboard. If I pick up a baseball bat, or I pick up a baseball, I'm on the all-star team pitching, and every coach wants me to be the

pitcher for the big games, because I had an arm. Put me on the football team in elementary school, I was the quarterback, the running back, the cornerback, and I did the kickoffs, and I punched the ball. It was just every sport that I got into, I didn't ask to be great at them. I was just exceptional compared to my peers. And that came with a lot of expectation from the coaches of needing me to be great. And all I want to do is have fun. And sometimes fun was not having to freaking do

I hear that loud and clear. You know, I'm reflecting on my own life as you're speaking, and I love my parents dearly. They're the best. They really are. They did get divorced when I was young, so I didn't have the perfect childhood. But one thing I do realize is I was not, me and my brother were given that freedom. Basically, there was never anyone telling us, you got to go

to college. You got to do this. You got to do that. They just sort of Let us do you know within reason what we wanted I now look back on that as probably a gift because I am I'm a tattoo artist I'm kind of got a rebellious spirit if somebody had put that level of expectations on me I wouldn't have went well like I would have uh, who knows maybe you're I would have walked your path perhaps because At that point you're letting everybody down,

you know, because they're all telling hey, look how good you are at academics You're going to harvard kid. Well Just because I'm good at school doesn't mean I even want to go to Harvard. But that's the expectation. So then every time you divert from it, maybe I wanted to go ride my skateboard. I don't want to go to Harvard. I want to do whatever. Every time you do the thing you actually love, be a child, play, you're letting them down. You're failing. And what they see in you and what you feel

inside are in conflict. They get all that. Yeah, that makes a lot of And that makes the struggle worse. Once you're in conflict with the external world and the internal world, it's very hard to find the center or what our true north is, right? You think about what you write down, your mission,

vision, and values for who you are, that's your north. But when you're in conflict in the external world and the internal world, it's very hard to decide what your mission, vision, and values are for yourself and where true north is. You're constantly living in this world of trying to meet expectations for others whom you probably love or care about. but also you have this internal mechanism that's saying, I'm supposed to quit

this job. I'm not supposed to go to college, I'm supposed to start this side business or become a tattoo artist, because even though I'm really good at mathematics and engineering, the creative side of my person really loves this idea of tattooing, and it should be something that I can support my life on, but you don't want to disappoint the people that want you to use your engineering gift and mathematics to go get a higher education, maybe work for Google or something, but

inside you, You know that that will never make you You know, it's funny enough, being a punk rock kid was not a good thing. You know, going to school with a mohawk and all this shit, you know, you were looked at by the world. But in some way, I'm thinking about this out loud, but in some weird way, I was probably late junior high, freshman year of high school, punk rock gave me that power. Basically, it taught me Well, anarchy was the big theme, right? It's like, and I really liked

it. It was just like, fuck everybody, fuck the parents, fuck the schools, fuck them all. I'm going to do whatever the hell I want. And I anchored into that music and that scene and got the Well, you exploited and all the GBH, Great Britain hardcore, you know, all the stuff coming out of Europe and, In a weird way, it was perfect because I think if I hadn't found that punk rock scene, I would have stayed in

that mindset of what people wanted out of me. And yeah, going and telling my family, I'm not going to college, I'm going to go be a tattoo artist would have been a hard thing to say. But when that day came for me, I had no problem saying it. I was, you know, when they laughed at me and told me

that was crazy and good luck, you know, you'll be broke your whole life. I was like, I didn't care yeah you know and just kind of kind of strange how that punk rock thing was gave It's the individual it's the individuality right like i so i wrote in my book. why basketball and skateboarding are my two favorite sports in the world. And basketball and skateboarding have this intertwining culture of individualism, especially when it comes to fashion, right? Like when I was in fourth grade,

you know, I'm like, this is 1990 ish. And this is like the punk rock era that you're probably talking about. Well, I'm a young kid at this time. If you're an old school skateboarder, you know, when I was a kid, you had 411 video magazine. Like people don't even remember the California skate express days when you got this catalog every quarter that had all

the new skate decks, all the new shoes. And your 411 video magazine came in the mail and you put the cassette in there and you saw people on there, the Pappas brothers and Tom Penny and his big skate pants. And it was, they represented themselves. Yeah. As a brand before social media and rob dear deck really created this idea that you as a person. Are the brand that sells products and have value based on your gifts and who you are as a person.

And then basketball at this time we have alan iverson coming into league dennis robin is painting his hair with cheetahs on it right in these. outlandish looks that make people individuals. I loved the idea that I'm gonna express myself, how I feel like I wanna express myself, and whether or not you like that, that's on you, because whatever it is that I decide that I'm gonna do, my self-expression will

not be overshadowed by how good I am at what I'm doing. They're going to work together in this unison, and you're going to remember me Because of my expression and how well I am how good I am at doing what I do and skateboarding and basketball were the two places For me that you could see that individualism punk rock same thing, right? We're gonna have our hair wear these clothes back then It was the big long chain wallets that went down to your knees and the 25 bracelets. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you know and that was against the grain and But at some point shortly after that, we started to realize that the against the grain was actually a culture that was going to explode and create a niche for people to feel like, yeah, it's okay to be like this. We're not Absolutely right about all that, but I'm thinking about you. So you do find it. In high school, you are a dominant BMXer.

Yes. You're climbing, you're on the cover of what, Matt, what was BMXer Racing Magazine, which at the time was the largest BMX racing magazine.

And you're 17 when that came out. 17. So you're a superstar. and you're in an alternative, BMX, hmm, that's a good, I rode BMX by the way too when I was a kid. My dad got me a PK Ripper, sickest bike ever, and took it down and got my ass kicked every weekend. It was like, I went to like five races before I realized, I'm just not gonna be good at this. It wasn't like you. But I love BMX, and BMX is sort of like skateboarding. It wasn't a team sport. It

was an individual sport, which I always loved those types of sports. I would never, I never did it. Even when I did team sports, I wrestled, because it was just me. But you were killing it. And so you're killing it, plus you're in a sport where you can be an individual, but still, that wasn't enough for you. Something was still grinding Yeah, all this stuff that was missing at 12 was missing more when I was 18 and 17, when I was on the cover of that magazine about to turn 18. The only

thing that was keeping me upright was the helmet being on. So it was like my escape from the internal struggle was what I was doing, but I didn't even wanna do what I was doing, which is such a weird complex, but until you get around some world-class athletes that have been drafted into the NFL and the NBA who have made millions of dollars and will look you straight in their face and say, I don't even like fucking playing

this. The only reason I do it is because I'm good at it. But on the inside, I feel like I'm broken. On the inside, I'm struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction, but everybody else is going, what's there to be sad about? You make millions of dollars. Well, just like people that sit down at a corporate desk that don't want to be sitting down at a corporate desk, there are athletes that are on the field that don't want to be on the field. They just don't know anything else.

And they're so exceptional at being an athlete. That's where they've earned their right to make money. Just tons of it, right? Is at 18, I'm not making money. I'm very successful at BMX. It's a niche sport that doesn't pay a lot. but a miserable on the inside, which is why the escape towards drugs was about to follow was I wasn't using proper coping skills to deal with myself. And a lot of that was, you know, therapy wasn't acceptable at that time. There wasn't a lot of therapists

at that time. friends or men didn't know how to come together as men and sharpen each other through vulnerable conversation to say, look, even though we're men, we still have these struggles internally and we have to talk about these struggles. And then with that, I would find reason or purpose in the platform I had on a BMX bike, which

would be totally different, right? It wasn't about racing and winning. Obviously I want to race and win, but what can I do with the stage of racing and winning and competing at a high level in which I can help others achieve something within themselves or have inspiration that they too can race, be a max and be successful. And so because I didn't have those pieces, I was going to have to try and find something that could give me that sense of purpose, that sense of contentness or happiness,

which is what I thought I was trying to achieve. And that's when substance use It makes total sense. And you know, it's funny, you just said something I never even thought about. And you see all these professional athletes. Until right now, I assume they all absolutely fucking loved it. But you're right. There's got to be plenty out there who don't even want to be out there. They want to be a rapper. or an artist or who knows

what they want to be. Some of them want to be business owners. Right. And they're out there and they're stuck in this deal. And yeah, you see it at the highest levels, right? You've got guys that are making millions and millions of dollars and they crash on drugs and alcohol or whatever they do. Or go broke. Or go broke, yeah. You know, the girl I coached at the Olympics in 2016, Brooke Crane, for the last four years, it was miserable for her. She didn't

even want to do it. Really? You know, and she teetered retirement for four years. She had to get so miserable that Right. And the fame and the accolades and everyone's around you. That's hard to get out of. You got all these people. You have to Sure. That's your identity. For most people, yeah. For athletes, that's a What are you if you're not that anymore? You're nothing. That's right. Like the rest of us. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, nobody is anything. We're

Yeah. I never, I never considered that. Uh, but it makes total sense. You But you got the, you got the athlete wishing he could be a, the owner of Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. Well, not cool. It's just It's very interesting. And so, yeah, I mean, like a lot of people do in this world, we self-medicate, right? You got these problems, and doctors aren't giving you the right stuff, and the therapists aren't there, and we find a way to, on our own, to deal with this.

And you know, your story is interesting too, and it's probably, it's pretty obvious now, but the opioid epidemic, which I think was, um, God, I never watched this documentary. Maybe you've seen it. It's about the big pharma company that really pushed Viking. And I believe they had to pay some oxycontin, oxycontin and Viking, and they had to pay the government something like 6 billion, 6 billion, but they made, And on the interest on their bank accounts are going to far exceed

the billions they have to make in payments. You're talking about the Sackler family. Oh, that's, yeah, that's the one. Yeah, so this is, my run with opioids, 18, cover the magazine, graduate high school, moved down here to be a network administrator for a guy who was entrepreneur of the year in California, ended up being a Ponzi scheme guy, so six months later, I'm back in Fresno, California, six hours north of here, and I get introduced to

a drug called OxyContin. And this was in 2002. And it was right at the beginning, this drug had been out now for three years, so it was brand new to the market. Nobody knew anything about it, especially these suburban white kids that went through a DARE program that said stay away from LSD, PCP, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, drugs that you couldn't even find in our neighborhoods. Didn't even know anybody that used those drugs or had a parent hooked on

them. So when we get pushed over and it's an orange bottle, What do you think? Comes from a doctor. Yeah. Let's try it. Oh, that feels great. How are you going to get addicted on something that came from a doctor? Let's do it. Next thing you know. The only difference between that orange bottle and the cellophane that covered the black tar heroin that came from Mexico wrapped in

foil was the package. Molecularly identical? What I mean is, when I cook up heroin and I shoot it up, and I cook up Oxycontin and I shoot it up, the only difference between the two fucking drugs are the difference that runs across the back of my tongue as it's circulating through my veins. That's it. They

Yeah, well, the package, right? It comes in this package and everybody in Western society says that package is made to fix you, to help you. not destroy you, not make you do things that you said you would never do, not make you just completely set aside your mission, vision, and values as a human being. But that orange bottle can do exactly the same thing as methamphetamine if you're using Adderall.

It can do the same thing as heroin or fentanyl if you're using Percocet, Oxycontin, Vicodin, Hydrocodine, MS cotton, morphine pills. They all have a very similar molecular structure, which means they all trigger the brain and the reward system in the same way that a street narcotic would. And so they have the same dangers. How could you? Yeah, it's shocking that none of those Not to me. I mean, at this point, we've learned. There

are people that have so much money, nothing will ever happen to them. Nothing. Yeah. Well, I gotta be careful here, but you know, the cancel culture is real, you know, but, uh, you know, these are the same folks that, uh, helped us out with the old, uh, vaccines. It just, it's just, yeah. Yeah. The trust that was suddenly given to them suddenly after what happened to the, um, that,

the epidemic was shocking to me. You know, you had all these people that were anti-pharma and then suddenly they were our savior, saviors, you know. Interesting complex. Yeah. That's a good, well, they had a hell of a propaganda campaign, that's for sure. Yeah. They Yeah, I was just talking to a friend about that. But, you know, my life went from trying OxyContin and feeling the

best I'd ever felt in my life. I thought I had the answer. I thought I found what you were looking for, the magic pill, the substance that could fix things with a moment's notice. And OxyContin did that to me for the first time. And so I started using that drug with this idea that I'm just using it so I can participate in life like you get to. Because I just want to be like you, just

like I did with my teammates when I was younger, right? Within three years, I was inside a house that belonged to my friend and robbing his mother at gunpoint in a home evasion robbery for her oxycontins that were inside the house. It had completely taken me from a person who knew right from wrong and could make the right decision more often than not to a person who no longer cared about what was right and what was wrong. The

only thing I cared about was not being dope sick. And the idea that while I was under this substance was the only moments in my life that I got to feel any type of peace, contentment, and fulfillment. And because of that, when I didn't have it, the things I would be willing to do to get it would be an extreme action like committing the home evasion robbery. Which led you to go into prison. Yeah. Which I know you'll agree was the greatest day of

Yeah, it was. And it, but I, you know, my suffering had to continue for about two years and I ended up homeless for six months at the very end. And that was, you know, as much as it's created, you know, lifelong traumas from different experiences I had as a homeless person, it was that pain is

what has gotten me to where I'm at today. Mm hmm. It was a pain that was so bad, and I questioned whether it would ever stop, that when I felt freedom from the addiction, the pain has served as a reminder of a place I never want to go to again. It's served as the hot stove of how I'm going to navigate my feelings, because the addiction was such a hot stove, it felt like it had melted every facet of my body, including my

mind, body, and spirit, all at once. that I would never put my hand on that stove again because of how demoralizing it was and how low it took me to a place that I never intended to go to. And so when I got to prison and I felt like I had this opportunity to rebuild my life, It really has served since I made that decision at Wasco State Prison that this is going to be the last time I ever come to this place. It's going to be the last time I

ever use a substance. And moving forward, I'm going to focus on the things that make me feel good and the things that really lift me up as a person so I can be an effective leader for others. Yeah, that's the beauty. There's a gift in pain. You know, the universe seems to be built in a very specific way. I'm not a Christian. I think you are, right? Yeah. But I am a spiritual man, and I kind of look at the whole thing like a big machine. I'm a

very practical. I grew up in Iowa. I grew up with farmers and construction workers, so I'm like... Middle of America. Yeah, and I'm just... I like practicality, and in a practical way, as a 52-year-old man, take God out of it, take spirit, angels, and everything away, there just seems to be, I can see it now after this many years, there's a system at play here. And you either play by the universal laws that were laid into the system, and

if you do not, pain will be applied. At first, it's probably not too much, and that pain will increase until you figure out how to play this game correctly. And from a Christian standpoint, that would be the love of God, right? I mean, just like a parent, you can't let your kid do things that can hurt them, so you have to apply repercussions. At first, the repercussions are gentle. The kid keeps doing it, they get

worse, right? And that's what's happening here. So yeah, pain's a gift for those of us that make the change. Some people don't. They take that all the way to the bitter end. But in your case, that pain was what you needed, and Took you a minute. It did. I had a spiritual awakening January 21st, 2007, and that was really where the perspective shift

changed. That's when I became a Christian, so to speak. Although I reluctantly say that I'm a Christian, just because of my own studies and not being raised in a church, I really do have a lot of frustrations with the church as a mindset and the typical Christian and what that means. And every time I see somebody spewing a bunch of hateful stuff and I look at their bio on Instagram, they have some Bible verse or they talk about how they're a Jesus lover and nothing I read in

the book had Jesus calling people names. saying hateful stuff or being judgmental towards people's situations, it was really centered. It was centered around love. And so I prefer to say that I'm a spiritual man, guided by

the principles of Jesus Christ, not by the church. My fellowship is with anybody who wants more in life, who just loves people for who they are and accepts people's decisions as maybe not being The best outcome in our situation but understanding why somebody would make a decision they did that they felt was best for them in that moment and how do we

love and care for that person so they know that hey. Maybe you didn't think that this decision was the best but it was the best one in the moment for you and that if you're feeling something or some type of way we still have your back. and we love you through that, and we want you to know that you can be open with us about that, because pushing people away and casting people away because of their beliefs and thoughts is

just the opposite of what I want. But that day I surrendered, the next day I was arrested, and when I got to jail, it gave me enough of a perspective shift that I knew I was gonna take a different direction and follow a different lead, because ultimately on January 21st, I realized you're going against a universal grain. If you continue, you will die. In my situation, I will die. It's not about hell, it's about I will not survive. And there was a part of me, as

Yeah, that bumper sticker. Jesus, save us from

It really is. Well, you can't judge something, um, by the, by the people operating the, you know, inside the Everywhere you go. AA meetings, NA meetings, tattoo shops, Shitheads are shitheads. Yep. And they're in churches and they're everywhere. Yeah, they're everywhere. But I like the way you put that. Yeah, you're, you're, you definitely, uh, we have the same beliefs. Yeah. I, I'm more maybe Buddhist, but, um, and, and some other things and, but

that's cool. That's cool. So this awakening moment, was it, what, I mean, it was just a, everything built up to that moment. What was that like? Was it like a voice from the fucking heavens shot into you Well, I mean, and, and I want, I want to condense, my spiritual awakening story just for the sake of time so we can talk about other aspects of, you know, my life, but I had a phone call in 2005 from a friend who said that God gave him a vision and that I was in

this vision and I was going to get three significant chances. If I didn't stop doing what I was doing before these chances took place, he saw in this vision that I was going to go to prison. A year later, I get pulled over three times in four days. I'm pulled out of the car because I'm on felony probation two of the three times. Should have been arrested each time. The third time, I was pulled over in a car with fake tags. They were construction paper. We're in California at this

time. No license. Car hadn't been registered in five years. I have drugs in my pocket, needles in the backpack, and she has drugs on her. We get pulled over in Sin City, which is right by the college, Fresno State, which is a tough area. It's got college students, but it's also got Bulldog gang members and a lot of drugs and prostitution. And the cop that pulled us over had just pulled the tags off the car as she was walking up. And she's like waving this little piece of construction paper. And

she said, you know, the tags are fake on this car. And we didn't. We borrowed the car from a drug dealer. She doesn't ask if anybody's on parole or probation. She goes back to the car after listening to our sob story that we were Christmas shopping because it was November of 2006. And she comes back with a fix-it ticket. Tells us to take the car back to the person we borrowed it from. This thing had been registered five years,

bro. There was no insurance. She didn't have a license. And I remember when the cop went back to the car, I was like, I think that was the three chances that Adam was talking about. And she goes, what do you mean? And I was like, he called me a year ago and said that God was going to give me three significant chances. if I didn't stop doing what I was doing before these chances took place, I was gonna go to prison. I was like, I think I'm gonna go to prison soon.

That was November of 2006. January 21st, two months later, I was invited to a church by a drug dealer I was buying dope from. Turns out he was a minister in this church. He invites me to this church, which is crazy, right? It's crazy, yeah. But to me, crazier, is

a flaming bush that talks to a guy, Moses. And so I tell people, God is using all things around us to reach out to us, to get us to see that he does exist and that he truly is built on this overflowing mercy and grace and forgiveness, despite all the bad things that are happening in this world. He is in control, and at the end, things are all going to be okay. I submit my life that day. And it was, I'm grateful to him because I would not have gone to church under any

other circumstances. He was a black man from the projects of West Fresno who did not represent the rich white culture of church that I believed existed in the world only for money that I was raised around. All of my friends that went to church, it was just, to me, a fear mechanism. And the churches just wanted to raise money and take the money out of the pockets of these upper middle class or upper class white people, right? To then pocket themselves. Well, when I was invited by this

person, it was like, well, what's his motive? How do I benefit him? I'm homeless. I got size 12 Shaq shoes on. I weigh 138 pounds. I'm a size nine shoe. And the 34 LRG jeans, I'm 138 pounds. And the jacket, the Dickies jacket is filled with bloodstains. What benefit do I have for this man inviting me to church? None. So I go. And the pastor lays his hands on me and says that God has favored me my entire life and everything that I've done. And I

started crying. And he said, you don't have to worry anymore. He's going to remove you from your addiction. And I remember thinking to myself, a miracle was about to happen. I thought the miracle at that time was that I wasn't going to be withdrawing from opioids because that's really what I needed was some way to stop the suffering of how these withdrawals came into my life and were so painful. I couldn't get clean and sober. That's not

how the miracle worked. I was shooting dope two hours later in a Toyota pickup, but that night is the night I broke into the house that I was arrested in on January 22nd, which is ultimately what sent me off to prison 30 days later on a probation violation for the armed robbery that I

And yeah, people talk about do miracles exist. I mean, to me, that's a miracle. And that's proof that there is somebody up there looking after us. It's just too coincidental to have a friend tell you, you're going to get three chances. You got the three chances. You I have my affirming things that have happened, right? It can't, it's too good to be coincidental. Right, right.

There's too many coincidences in my story for it to be a coincidence because that time that I was in Wasco State Prison, And I started praying and meditating and reading this book and spending time with myself for the first time in my life, because I was in a lockdown cell block for 23 and a half hours a day. So I had plenty of time to think. I feel God called me to four things. Get on your bike, race professionally. I

need you to go to the Olympics. I need you to start a nonprofit organization for kids. And I need you to become a professional speaker. From that moment to the moment that you're in right now as listeners, all of that's happened. all of it, became a professional athlete, coached at the Olympics, started a nonprofit for kids. One of the biggest motivational speakers in the world right now, with the only story that exists, nobody else has been

to prison and participated in the Olympics. Whether they were a coach or an athlete, how many things do I have to line up for somebody to say, maybe there is something there? Now, the opposer would say, you just were able to manifest it through your thoughts. Okay,

I'll let you have that. But to me, there's no way. Because if you knew me when I was on the street shooting gutter water and heroin, if you knew me when I was sitting down next to Bulldog gang members and they were watching me mix methamphetamine and Oxycontin together to shoot up, while they watched me, scared the hell out of them, because they'd never seen somebody put so much dope in a needle at one time, and me look them in the eyes and say, just throw me

in the dumpster if I die. You don't think I'm gonna be able to think my way out of this situation, because if I could have thought myself out of that situation, I wouldn't even have made it to that moment to begin with, because after six months of using fucking dope, I

was done. I just didn't know how to stop. It was the surrender to a power greater than myself that unleashed the potential of what I was going to be able to accomplish, not according to my own will, but according to a will of something greater than me that said, this is what I have built for you. This is the pathway I've laid out for you. Do you want to take it or do you not? Because you know what's going to happen if you don't. And I said, you know what? Your way's got

to be better than mine because my way was death. And It's a killer, man. It's a beautiful story. It really, really is. And, uh, there's many like it. I mean, different, like you said. Sure. From prison to the coaching, the Olympic BMX team, no one's done that. And many of the other things you've done, but there are a lot of stories that, that, that line up just that way. A message comes to people from a friend, um, or, or sometimes just a burst bursts out of their own mind from some unknown

location. Yep. And you're told very clearly what Yeah, and you do it or not. And I don't push that on anybody. It's not a sermon. This is my experience. Just consider my experiences while that was pretty interesting. I don't need anybody to take on my faith, because I didn't want that from anybody else for me. You know, you have to do this. No, you don't have

to do anything. Do what you feel is best for you. And I truly believe along the way, the tools and the things that you need will show up for you at that time. And I'll know when we're on the Yeah, that's great, man. That's fucking great. So let's get a little bit into the prison experience. I've never been to prison and I know you've got stories. I mean, we'll get to it, but you're covered in tattoos. All gotten in prison. Yes. So there's that aspect, but yeah,

just whatever else you want to talk about. What was life in prison like? How Only two years. What were you sentenced for? Four and a half for armed robbery. Okay. I was supposed to actually do four and a quarter. There was a mistake on my paperwork that I found out years after I got out, about four years after I got out. And I was supposed to do four and a quarter, but I did just under two years, 23 and a half months. Another perhaps I mean, you had changed your way in your heart, right? Yep.

Who knows? With this calling to go do these things. Right, right. And I It's like God was saying, get him going. Let's get him out of here sooner. He's done Yeah. And I hate parts of that, right? Because somebody is like, well, why would God do that for you and not everybody else? Well, I can for sure you, because I did two years that I only met two people that I was in prison with

and every yard that I was on that were actually changing. Everybody else was shooting dope, doing gang stuff, watching TV all day long, gambling all day long and finding ways to pass time. I wasn't finding ways to pass time, I was finding ways to use the time that I had to sharpen the skills that I was given that I didn't ask for so when I got out, I could carry out the

message that was given to me and the mission that I was called to. I didn't meet many people when I was in prison because most people in prison are coming in from environments with belief systems and behaviors that are very self-limiting. And not only are they self-limiting to themselves, What they want is others to be in the same company as them in the same situation as them and so they don't want to see people climbing out of the bucket so

to speak if you ever heard of the crabs in the bucket effect. They want to use this very odd. thinking style in prison. I had a guy one time, because I was starting to get in a bunch of fights, when I got to the main line at Tachebee State Prison. I was on yard two before they flipped it to a PC yard and I was switched to Avenal State Prison to finish out my term. And I had been in three fights within the first four weeks, and a guy takes me out to

walk the track. He was from Fontana. And he says, you know, Hoff, we can both look up in the sky right now. and we can agree it's blue. And he goes, but in here it's red. And he goes, and right now you're trying to convince everybody what we already know. It's blue. And he goes, but that's going to get you killed. And he was like, so I'm walking you around the track right now to help you see the sky's red. Just tell everybody it's red. You get what I'm saying? Kinda. No, no. And that's what

he said to me. Do you get what I'm saying? Okay. Right. And I'm like, got it. I was moved out of the dorm that I was in shortly after that and switched to the gym. They put me right in front of the cop's office because I was becoming such a problem right away. But that's what prison's like. When you get there, you don't get to create your own rules. You don't get to fly by the seat of your own pants. There are people that are in there that come from areas and with experiences that

many people don't understand. And those belief systems are the people or the things that run the way or are designed the way prison is run for the inmates. The cops don't do that. These other inmates do and when somebody like me comes in with this strong individualism Of

I'll fight for what's right. They will show you that you don't get to win in that situation And so there was a part of me that had to concede to the leadership of prison, but it also was what saved my life Because I didn't want to be a part of the prison politics I didn't want to live in prison for the rest of my life and do 15 terms and have an F number, an A number, a Z number, and be able to go in there and tell these youngsters I've been doing time for 20 years, you know,

I'm the badass on this yard. I wanted to figure out how to get in there, get out, and change my life in So you had to play the game a little bit. Or at least not be telling everybody around you, I'm not about what you're about, I'm about something totally different, I'm better than you, I'm gonna go places. You

To some degree. I mean, I was very vocal about the Olympic thing and what I was doing, but I think what it allowed me to do was, but the fight started because I was cooking wine. My parents weren't in my life. One of my cellmates at Wasco State Prison said, you need to cook wine or make pruno and that you could get $50 a quart. So you could get about a $200 off of a gallon of wine, which would allow me to buy food and support myself because the state's only

going to feed you small meals. You're going to be hungry most of the day. And i didn't want to be hungry and so i had taken on this idea that i would be a winemaker the same skill set the ride i had. And when i got there it cost a lot of problems and so i realize you know what and they don't want you to wear sandals to the shower. Because if something happens and there's a fight you gonna slip and fall with

the shower shoes on because i don't have any grip. Well, I probably should just follow that rule, even if I believe I can beat everybody up because by me wearing sandals and nobody else doing it, I'm the zebra with a bunch of horses. You can't help but see the one thing that looks different. And so that was really what tightening it up for me was not challenging these guys on whether or not you needed to actually follow these rules because the

rules didn't make any sense. I'll just say the sky's red. And while I can tell you that the sky is red, I'm also going to start training for the Olympics, running laps, getting physically fit, spiritually, strengthening myself to have this relationship with a power greater than myself who is ultimately going to give me the strength to give up all of these things

and focus only on these things that I was called to. And so I had to bump my head into the wall several times before I actually conceded and said, you know what, this isn't gonna work for me and I can see that and I'm gonna do what I wouldn't have done years ago and I'm just gonna toe the line to the degree that it Makes sense. I would expect you to say that. And that's why I asked the question, you

know, I was thinking of you in there, um, not from the background. A lot of these people are from with goals that a lot of these people don't have and how you would find a way to fit into that system for survival to get where you needed to go. So you had to play the game to some degree, probably just the bare minimum, just enough Yeah, and I put my, like I say, I put my hands up and that helped create a lot of

distance too, because I knocked a few heads in those fights. And that built the reputation that he would put his hands up, but not only would he put his hands up, the black people in there called me Little Mac from Mike Tyson's Punch Out. And another group of blacks called me Lionheart, because I wouldn't back down from my

own people trying to get me to concede to this idea. And so when I conceded, prior to that, I had put my hands up, defended myself, not because I'm some badass, just because I've defended myself and my athleticism showed up in these fights that most people, especially in there, didn't have. And so then there was a fear that came with, or a respect that came with, he'll stand up for himself. So Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's crazy, man. That

would be a... Wouldn't want to find myself in that position. I hope I would do what you did, you know, who knows until you're Humans survive, man. We're, we're so adaptable. We evolve and adapt and you do what you need to do to survive environments. That's what makes us special as Well, so now you're in there, you've developed your, your way of being there. You've got this routine and no one's fucking with you anymore. You can go about your day in a, however you

want to do it, which is a lot of fitness. Spiritual work. Spiritual work and just focusing intention on your goals, what you're going to do when you get out of there. That's right. What a great time, right? I mean, it's really hard, like for people that want to train to do the things you wanted to do. We No, this is real. What you're saying is a real understanding that I was having. Cognitively understanding. There was a moment at Tehachapi State Prison, I had did my

100 meter sprint and I would walk the rest of the track. I got to the last turn three, I stopped at the gate, looked out into the hills, and I remember telling myself, I'm in a top secret training grounds right now. I don't have any distractions. I'm in here every day, and I can put all day into the development of this new character I'm trying

to become. You've gotta go to work, you've gotta pay taxes, you've gotta feed family, you gotta pay rent, you gotta feed yourself by buying groceries, you got car payments, gas, and all of these things that life requires of you, but I don't have any of that. And because of that, I believe that those two years gave me some of the best years of my life to develop as a person that the average person

doesn't get. Because from the day we come out of the womb to the moment we step foot on a campus for school and institution, life is demanding us to take care of things to achieve. Yeah. And achievement can be the biggest problem in a human's life because self-reflection can occur. You never get to know you. You never get to know what you really want. You're constantly living up or trying to fulfill the expectations of

society and how it's become designed. Not for me. For two years, I really got to hone in on what I wanted, where I was going, how I was going to get there, and what that looked like. And that time, I will tell you, is That's cool that you were able to reframe what prison was. I'm going to, I'm going to special elite training center. Yeah. And I believed that I was going to be successful because none of my competitors have ever had to sleep a night on the street, strung out

on drugs. That in itself was the transfer of power, strength and discipline and will that I believed would allow me to catch up and surpass my competitors because what was getting me up in the morning and allowing me to train in the heat and the snow and the wind and the hot and the cold was that I'm never going back to that situation because that was a place I wish upon nobody And if all you're doing is getting up to ride your bicycle, you and I aren't pedaling the

You're pedaling for your fucking life. Legitimately. Legitimately. Yeah. That's, that'll make you a champion. Yeah. That's, that's a perfect scenario. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Oldest saying in the book, but you're a living example of that. Yeah. What didn't kill you made you much, much, much stronger. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's cool. You know, this is chats and tats. You're on Chats and Tats, my friend. I'm

a tattoo artist. All of you already know that. You got a lot of tattoos, and I was really curious about this when I saw you online. I'm like, oh, he's heavily tattooed. I wonder who does his work. All your work done

in prison. So you got a lot of work. You were only there two years, so you were pretty steadily collecting. Yes. Yes, how does that go down? They got I don't know much about it You think I would but I haven't been to prison, but even in my little circle I've tattooed with guys that have been to prison. I don't know if a really detailed stories I just know you got to be sneaky. They make machines out of certain things. They make ink out of ashes Yeah, but let

me you tell us how it goes down. How do you get these tattoos in prison? So Like I don't want to just get a couple- You know that before you go there? No, I know that when I get there and I see these guys that are blasted and I'm like, that's what I want. I want the stomach rocker. I want the chest plate a certain way. And I want this whole fucking thing to be a giant scene on my body. And I'm going to define what I want that scene to be, which is a bunch of spiritual work that represents the

transformation and the chest plate is the actual story. So if I break this open, you see the hand with the pills falling in it with the handcuff representing and the devil that's overlooking the city and street life, the money, the prison, the bars, and then the other side, which is representing the entire spiritual transformation. The middle is the good and the bad deciding to make the decision whether or not I

was going to rob somebody. So this chestplate tells the story that I lived and then everything else was the spiritual transformation that would then control my life. What I needed was somebody that could do that. What I knew at this time and the amount that I was down was that Mexicans loved realism work. They didn't typically do what was over here, which was my only non-prison work, which was the white boys loved skulls, And like kind of the evil stuff, and I didn't want that. And

the way they did it wasn't the way that I really liked art. And so I started looking around, knowing that I was going to be looking for a Southern Hispanic gang member, because that's who the whites could intermix with, that did realism work. And so when I was there, there was a bus that came from Ironwood. And there was a couple guys from Ironwood who had these tattoos on them that were still to this day, some of the best work I've ever seen

portrait wise. And then this one guy had this scene on the back of his, his back. And, and I've learned how much I, and I'll tell you the story of how Smokey ruined his work because I thought that we needed to have lines cause there were no lines, but. This artist didn't use lines. Everything was shading. So there was no hard lines and the depth of the realism of this work came from darkening certain spots of shading and then doing certain

pieces so it looked like some pieces were in the front, some pieces were in the back. What had this huge locomotive train that looked like it was coming out of his back and he had these four banditos that were riding on these horses and it just looked so real. I was like, yo, who did that? And this guy said, this dude's smoky, he's a lifer. And I was like, is he here? And he's like, no, but he's supposed to be on a bus coming soon. And I

was like, how do I get in a tattoo with him? He's like, bro, that guy's line is like five years long. And i was like what any goes dude everybody knows who this guy is in the in the system and he goes his name was joker that i was talking to. Any goes and i said bro tell him i'll give him whatever he wants to get in line with this guy. And he goes alright i'll talk to him when he when he gets here in a couple weeks go by. And he starts bugging him, but I'm not getting much traction on it. You

know, I'm a white boy. He's a Southern Hispanic gang member. Why does he want a tattoo on me? Eventually, I get him to at least talk to me. And he's down at the tables gambling. And I go up to him and I introduce myself. And he says, Joker's been telling me all about you. And I said, yeah, bro, I'm really looking for some work. And I love the way you do things. And he looks at me and he goes, I don't tattoo on white boys. And he goes, what do you want? And

I was like, I want a bunch of angels. And he goes, you want a bunch of angels? And I was like, yeah, man, I like really want to represent the spiritual change. So I have this whole idea about, you know, these angels. And he like, he goes, what do you got up front? I was like, I'll give you a seven inch flat screen TV and like $50 worth of food just to get on your books. And he goes, I'm going to do it. And I was like, are you serious? And he's like, yeah, man,

I'm sick of fucking tattooing naked girls on people. And that's all my people want is chicks. Like you get into prison and the Southern Hispanics have got naked chicks and chicks in bikinis all over there. White boys love evil faces. The Mexicans loved this type of stuff, but nothing but naked chicks and chicks in bikinis and bent over and this sat in the other. And he was like, I've never done this before. And I'm an artist and I like being challenged in art. And so I want to do this.

And so we connected. Then the big problem came. He only takes heroin as a payment. And I'm like, I'm sober and It does not sit with me that I'm going to have to pay this guy on heroin. So I go down, I sit with him and I say, bro, like I'm very serious about my sobriety. And I was like, is there any way that you would let me pay you in food? I'll pay you in enough food that you can buy heroin, but me holding on to the heroin is not something that I'm going to be able to do. And he conceded to

another thing that he never does. And he's like, all right. I'll let you pay me in food. 50, you got to pay me at least $50 a month. Um, I ended up paying him about $350 total for all my work. And, uh, I got on his books. Wednesday was my day. Um, he jumped me in front of a bunch of other people that were already in line. And every Wednesday I sat down with smoky for about four to seven or eight hours and he would work on me. What I found out was his method was

actually different than other tattoo artists. Most tattoo artists in there would take apart the CD player motor just like everybody else. They'd get the crystal big pin, they'd get the guitar string, and they would create the motor and the ink well, and then obviously you'd cut the racquetball or something, and you'd put the ink in there, and the ink was just soot that was captured in a paper grocery bag that was nothing more

than a mop string that was burning. And then you would take the certain you put it in a shampoo bottle that was dangerous shampoo and water a certain mixture you gotta find a guy that makes the ink that's at least dark enough cause a lot of times it's even lighter than mine. And so what makes him interesting is that he doesn't use a single guitar string. Somebody had taught him how to weld multiple guitar strings together, and he used three. So a lot of his powder shading effect

was a lot smoother than we see most prison work. Most prison work looks like a pixelated photo. It's just a dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot everywhere. Where a lot of smoky stuff, truly looks like it's very brushed on and lightly done. And a lot of that came from his method of how he was shading, which was totally different than everybody else shaded, which was like this. And he shaded with like this brushing technique. And

so cool, because I got to sit down with this guy for hours. And you know, as a tattoo artist, or any of you guys listening that are tattoo artists, sometimes your therapist Sometimes you're listening to stories and you're really getting to know people when you got to do a lot of work on somebody and you make a connection that you couldn't have if you weren't doing tattoos. And there are these authentic connections where you hear people's life experiences. And so I got to learn

Smokey's story and who he was from Anaheim. His name was Roger Garcia. He ended up passing away from a heroin overdose, which is why my back isn't finished, but such a rad person. And getting to know his story and he was a lifer in prison, he committed murder at 15, never even had a girlfriend, it was gang related, and he talks about being in prison and having a cellmate who

was a tattoo artist. And he saw Smokey's ability to draw with a pencil, and I mean this dude's drawings, Bro, it was like so talented, this young man at drawing, right? It's like when you see a tattoo artist and you see their work and you're like, yo, something's different up in that person's head because what we're seeing manifested on skin

is just fascinating, it's so incredibly good. And this was him with a pencil, and his cellmate says, your mom's going to die at some point, and your family's going to forget about you in here. And if you don't come up with a hustle, you're not going to be able to feed yourself sufficiently while you're in here. You need to learn how to take that and put it on people's skin. So he shows me this horse that he tattooed on himself, his first tattoo. I promise you, if you saw this tattoo, you

would not think the guy that did my work did that. It was so bad. I was like, I think I could do that. But he said the challenge was learning how to work around the way skin worked when you were drawing on it, because it wasn't like a flat piece of paper. And he was like, it took a totally different technique. And the guy that was the best prison tattoo artist on the yard wouldn't teach him, wouldn't show him

anything. So when this guy wouldn't help him, he said, I was determined to become the best tattoo artist in the system after There's a lot to that story that's so fascinating. First of all, the waiting list in prison is just like in the outside. The guy had like a six month waiting list. That's funny. Yep. And yeah, he isn't using what we call mags. I mean, obviously we use mags and they're, you know, all the way up to 25 needles, which gives you the ability to brush in these big powdery fades.

And to do that, some guys can actually do that with a single needle. I don't know how, but just more time, I guess. And he did it with three. I'm looking at some of the stuff on your arms and I would expect it to be a 10, you know, an 11 mag or a 15 mag. And to think he did it with a three needle, probably had him fanned out a little bit and was able to do that. That's pretty rad, man. And, and how do they, you're talking about so many hours, like it's not allowed to tattoo or

get tattooed in prison. Yeah. What do they do to you if they catch you? What's the punishment? They'll take your shit. It's not a big punishment. It's just, Take your stuff. Give you a write-up that you can earn your time back. But you have somebody that's actually watching, holding point. Somebody will be up on the top bunk, and they're watching the guard station. They're watching the doors, the front and back doors, if a cop's coming

through. Because random times the cops come through and they just walk through the bunks. And they're just looking. Is people shooting dope? Or is there stuff going on? Is everybody okay? And the point, man, whether they were white, Mexican, or, you know, black, they had their own calling for somebody walking. The whites would say, walking, walking, walking. And the Mexicans would say, línea, línea, which meant somebody was on the line. Put

Sit there like nothing's happening. And they would pass by. A lot of times they know something's happening and the cops aren't trying to interrupt your program. But if you front them off and you're doing it right in front of their face and making them feel like you don't care about the rules, then they'll stop and take your stuff. And I had cops take my ink several times because Here I came in with only a half sleeve and all of a sudden during call, they're starting to see me have sleeves.

You can't hide that. You can't hide that. And so they started hitting my locker knowing that I had the ink. So then I had to have somebody else hold my ink because the ink was expensive. It was like $25, $50 a bottle. And so, yeah, that's how it works. You've got a team of people that are trying to look out for the guards that are walking to keep you from getting in trouble. And

we never got in trouble while I was tattooing. In fact, I was more scared to get tattooed by him because the first time that I got tattooed by him, he fell asleep and dropped the motor. I'm like sitting down and he's drawing this, this line. And I was telling you earlier, I was fascinated because like 95% of this is freehand. So he would, he would take a red line. What we call bloodlines.

Bloodlines. No ink. And he would look at that and decide whether or not that was the line he wanted to create with the ink. And he would adjust off of that stroke that he made based on the no ink line. He would use that kind of as his stencil. But he was basically outside of these faces that were actually stenciled out. was all basically looking at a picture, deciding the angles and however you wanna call that as an artist, and then he would

create it off of that. Well, he's making this feather, this wing, and he goes down and then falls asleep and drops the motor. And I'm like tapping him on the side, Smokey, Smokey, and he's like, yeah. And I'm like, bro, you fell asleep. I was like, are you all right? And he's like, yeah, I'm all right. And I'm like, well, do you want me to just come back later? Because I'm thinking this guy messed me up. I wouldn't, everybody's got to have a bad

tattoo. I say, this guy messed me up. I don't want this guy to just completely mess me up. He grabs my hand like a little child almost, because he's so high on heroin. He holds my arm and he pats me on my arm. And he says, I'm going to make you a believer. So let's go. four to eight hours every day on Wednesday, bro. And he made me a believer. Like so many people when I was in there were like, bro, where did you get your shit on the street? When I transferred prisons. And I was like, nah, man,

this guy Smokey from Anaheim, he blasted me out. There's no way that's from in here. And I'm like, yeah, bro, this guy got down. He was so bad, bro. Well, my thing was, Smokey like the lines not finished and he's like it doesn't need to be and i was like are you sure he's like if you want the line i'll put it there and i'm like yeah go do that so we did a session of him actually lining out these feathers and then i started to realize when i see it seen these other people

was tattooing on oops. I think i just took a style away from which was no hard lines. You were a pain in the ass client. Oh, yeah, yeah. I am at everything, bro. My Yeah. I would have told you, no, we're doing it this way. Yeah. And you know what? I would appreciate it if Smokey would say, listen to me, bro. I'm not Yeah. You know, just thinking of Smokey,

God rest his soul. But man, what he'd have done out You were walking the walk and it's too bad you didn't have a Who knows what it takes for him to have switched his ways, obviously Yeah, the southern hispanic gang members have a lot more pressure than I had, right? I wasn't a skinhead, I wasn't involved in gangs. For

him to get out of prison, he would have had to debrief. The debrief would have meant he would have had to go to a PC yard, he would have had to denounce his gang, and he would have had to tell on people, which would have put his life at risk. And he just, he wasn't willing to do that. At least after 15 years of being in prison, he wasn't willing to do that. But I told him, bro, you

could make a killing on the street. If you could do this with a guitar string, with the stuff that they have out there, like you could be traveling the world, just going to places and your books are going to fill up because social media is around and people are going to want your work and your story is so good. It's going to make people want to be a part of like your gift even more. Yeah. But unfortunately, we transferred prisons, and

he was going to try and change yards to finish my back piece. We were going to do this big mountain scene, and Jesus was going to be hanging off this cliff with his shepherd's rod behind him, and there was going to be a lamb that was stuck on this little piece of the cliff that was on the cliff I would have fell off. And the lamb represented me and Jesus reaching down

to save me. In the mountain scene there was like an eagle flying through so we had this whole back scene that he wanted to finish and so he was gonna transfer from yard six to yard five. And somebody came up to me and said bro smokey died last night and i was like what are you sure and they're like yeah bro they did count in the

That's kind of another question I have. You know, it makes sense, you make the ink, you make the machine, and there's a lot of things you can make from the things that are already in prison. How does heroin, or drugs in general, get into the prison? How do they do Heroin's the easy one, because it changes shape, and it comes through somebody's ass or some girl's vagina. They bring it in through visiting, and they pass it off in visiting, and then it's just hooped. From

one hoop to the next. And then they bring it on the yard. But you can get a clavo heroin is what they call it, the Mexicans, because they were the ones that got it. Clavo heroin like this can get smashed and put in your butt. Well, clavo heroin, the size of a golf ball, is probably worth about $15,000. In prison. In prison. Because what they would call a 50 sheet is about a $5 paper on the street, which is a very small sliver of heroin. That $5 sliver

of heroin on the street goes for 50 in prison. And you're not allowed to do that alone. You have to share it with your people. A minimum of two people. And that's not even enough to get one person high. So realistically, you're buying $50, $100, $150, $250 worth of dope, and So you got to have some hustle on your own to even afford to be a heroin addict. I mean, obviously he had his hustle. He was a tattooer, so That's why he had such a hell of an addiction, because he

could get as much as he wanted. And the homeboys would break him off, bro, work on me, I'll break you off, because they wanted his work so much. But I've seen a lot of people get run out of yards, come in meth heads, addicted to meth, and within three weeks, strung out on heroin with a $2,500 bill that they can't pay. And here's the thing I've learned, in prison, They'll front you whatever you want. $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, whatever

you want, bro. But if you can't pay, coming to get you. Because like I say, that clavo of heroin on the street might be $1,000, $500. They're going to turn around and make $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 on that clavo. So if you don't pay them that three grand, they don't really care. They just kill you or try to. And so these guys, you know, within a month, six weeks, they're getting chased off the yard or having to tell the cops or fight right in front of the cop station.

So the cops arrest them right there. Then they go back to the office and tell them Fucking hardcore, man. Fucking hardcore. Yeah. Well, okay. So, you get out. You go pro. You're winning. You're winning a lot. You're doing great. You blow your I had an ACL replacement too. Put my foot out at 30 miles an hour. This guy David Herman, who was the top American for the London games in 2012. We were in Orlando, Florida. We were racing neck and neck. He hits me

when he makes a mistake, and I put my foot out. Bam! 30 miles an hour. Snapped my ACL, almost shattered my shin, deliberated both of my meniscuses. I was 28, about to turn 29 in November, and I couldn't recover from it. I was at the age where it was going to be very difficult to recover. I had complications, and that was the end of the racing part of my life. But I got it, I did it. I Now, but at that time, devastation. Yeah. I was just going to ask, like, how long did that depression haunt

you? A year and a half. You went through a rough year and a Trying to figure out, I was trying to get it to go. come back, trying to race. Then I developed a back problem. Then I developed ulcerative colitis, and it was just like, dude, this has got to be God saying. You're not doing that. You're not doing this. In this way. In this way. No, I'm not going to let you do this. And I was able to surrender to that and say, okay, what direction do you need me to go? I had the nonprofit dream,

right? I have the Olympic dream still. I have the speaking dream. I have now the ability to put more energy into Started speaking right when I got out of prison, but it wasn't what it was about to become. And coaching BMX athletes is what I started doing at the tail end of my racing career. And the nonprofit was something

that I had visioned, and so I put some energy into that. In 2012, I had started becoming a coach that was putting myself out there as a coach, putting myself out there as a speaker even more. And, uh, starting my nonprofit from a very grassroots phase of like we raised $2,500, our first fundraiser. And that was amazing. By 2016, we were raising over $120,000, you know, giving away $10,000 worth of skateboards at our summer camp, $40,000 worth

of BMX bikes at our summer camp. And, uh, creating an afterschool program that was in Southeast Fresno that was, Giving an opportunity to kids that you know we learned couldn't even take food home without hiding it because there was no food in the house. And that if they didn't hide the food that they got from meals on wheels program that was a government funded meal program that their family members would steal it because they too were also starving for

food. and we were giving them an environment to experience community that was built on this experience of, man, we love you, and we want you to experience what we got to experience as kids, right? Riding bikes, and he was telling me about riding bikes and motorcycles and skateboards, and we really wanted kids to experience that, that we're so stuck in an environment of poverty, which was really just nothing but survival from sunup to sundown on basic needs,

food, water, shelter. that they didn't know what it was like to have fun and feel like a kid. And we did so great for, you know, seven or five years before my speaking became such a big thing that I had to set away the free will project when the people I hired to run it just weren't able to raise the money that I was able to raise to sustain the program from an administrative Good on you, dude. I can't even imagine the countless

lives you changed. You know, the people that are out there today that Many of those kids from that after school program, one of them became a business owner and owns a tow truck company. And he messaged me, I don't know, three years ago. And he was like, I just want you to know, I'll never forget the program that you had. Because that's what we want. We all have that. The three of us in this room, we have that. Many of the listeners right now, you have that. These

experiences that you could say, you know what? This was a really cool point in my childhood where I was a kid and we were able to give that to a kid where he will never forget it. And that was the paycheck, right? Was that we were able to allow that kid to be a kid for two hours a day at the Fucking awesome. Yeah. Awesome. So you do go to the Olympics as a coach. As a coach. Made it as coach. Yep. And how did your

She took fourth. We learned a very hard lesson after years of training for one event, and that is we win together and we lose together. I told her to pick a lane. If you don't know anything about a BMX race, it's eight lanes. It's like a hundred meter dash. Only when the gate drops in a BMX race, there are no lanes after that. You can move wherever you want according to how much space you have. The two women that were the top in the world at this time were Mariana

Pajon from Colombia and Elise Post from the United States. Very skilled on bikes, but also very powerful women in terms of power and speed. They crashed each other a lot. over the last four years because they were relentless in their, if I don't win, nobody wins. I'm taking you out. I'm taking you out. So I knew that they wouldn't line up next to each other, lane one and lane two, because they both knew they wanted space to create speed to figure out who could get to the first turn first. That

meant that lane two and lane three were open. But if these two were on the outside of two different, or on the outside of two different riders, those two riders stood no chance. because nobody was powerful enough to race with them. So as soon as the gate dropped, they would move in. Two girls would be out of the race. The girls in lane six, seven, and eight, I believed were there only because there wasn't enough talent yet in the women's class to load

eight riders that were freaking badasses. So I told Brooke, pick one lane outside of Elise. I don't care where she goes. She's not going next to mariana she's gonna give herself some space and the girls on the inside of both of those girls are out of the race soon the gate drops go one lane outside of her because the girls that are gonna be on the outside of you are at the olympics to say they're there as real contenders are

not real contenders which means we're going home. with gold, silver, or bronze if you just don't crash. Five minutes before the race, she texts Jason Richardson, who was her sports psych and a good friend of mine, Dr. Jason Richardson, and she says, I'm going fucking inside. Dude, I was so frustrated. You want to believe in your athletes, and I did believe in Brooke. But as a coach, we make decisions on what we know. Yeah.

And what we believe is the best shot, especially at something like the Olympics, to just come home with some hardware. Because that's what we sacrificed our entire lives as Olympians to do. And historically, she'd never been as powerful as them. Could she be? Yes, because we'd seen it. But at the Olympics, it's the highest level of sport. So pressure is like you've never felt before, which

means mentally it's more than physically. So for her to get in that gate, it was going to take so many stars of alignment for this to actually work out in the way that she thought, because she was riding well. but she got cut off as soon as the gate dropped. She was out of the race because, like I said, Mariana and Elise moved in, so she wasn't able to get any kind of speed. The girl that went one lane outside of Elise, bronze

medal. Didn't even get challenged by anybody. She came up at the end of the race, and we met at this gate, because I wasn't able to go down there. They only allowed one coach, and the top girl was the one who got to pick her coach to go down on the track. And

she's like, I should have listened. And I was like, you know what, Brooke, now's not the time. I'm not gonna chew into you and tell you you fucked up and you need to listen to me, because I was able to see that we were at the biggest event in our life, and what are the odds of even being here as a coach and athlete? Like, less than 1% of humans get to participate in the Olympics. It was just, we'll

talk about it later. And then that talk was, you've gotta understand, we're gonna win together and lose together, and if we aren't willing to do that, we're gonna clash on these type of decisions. We have to have a level of trust in that I'm doing what's best for you and you're going to carry that out. And sometimes what I believe is best for you isn't going to be what's best for you. And we're going to come back and say, that didn't work. That's all right. What do we do different next

time? But at the biggest race in the world, you know, the last Olympic experience you got to have, it wasn't a Well, hopefully that like every, not bad thing, but challenging or disruptive thing that happens in our life taught her some kind of lesson that she is going to listen on the, some other moment in her life. Perfect for her in And her story's great, a very powerful story herself. And both of us, if she was in here right now, she would tell you the Olympics don't mean shit.

Even if she got a medal, it wouldn't mean shit because what

she was looking for was freedom from her own struggles internally. And through my relationship with her and the encouragement of the loved ones around her, she was able to find that strength and purpose and fulfillment that she was looking for. And the achievements weren't going to do that for her. And so we're just grateful that we got to be at the Olympics. She's like a little sister to me. I'm like a brother to her. And

I love her family dearly. We've just grown so close over the years because of that. And you know what, it is what it is. Not everybody's meant to come home with a medal and we didn't get one that time, but you know what, we left there knowing that we got to be there. The people we went with truly cared about Yeah, agreed. Are you a nudist? Do you live in a nudist community? Do you walk around every day perineal sunbathing? That's

when you shine your butthole to the sun and you get sun on your butthole. Apparently it's very good for you. I'm going to be trying it soon. My wife did it. She said it felt great. Well, if you are just just fast forward, because you're not going to need to hear what I have to say next, because I'm going to talk about Sullen Clothing, one of the sponsors here on the show. So if you're not a nudist and you wear clothing

and you love tattoo art, check out sullenclothing.com. The coolest tattoo artist in the world put their art on their clothing and the clothing super rad, highly quality made stuff. Half my wardrobe is sewn clothing. So please check them out. They're a sponsor of my show. They're great supporters of the tattoo community and the guys that own it are just great human beings. Thank

you so much for listening. I want to talk about your rehab center. Before we do that, I'm thinking about you and this speaking thing you do. I think I heard you say on another platform you travel over 200 days out of the year. Yep. Planes, hotels, Yeah. Uber's all this. Yeah. You're a 40 year old man. Yeah. I'm a 52 year old man. But instantly when I heard that, I was just like, ouch, ow. You know, I know what it feels like to, how do you, first

of all, how many years have you been doing it at that pace? Since 2016. Okay, let me help you with the math. So we're on year 8 of That's 8 H.A.R.D. You've been going, you got a lot more years of this Okay i know i figured you'd say that and that was what the rehab was all about you know chris heron who i tell the story chris heron who is a big speaker was a big speaker has an m uh was an nba. Superstar so to speak before his drug addiction took him out he has a 30 for 30 on

espn great story inspired me. He's like, are you married? You got kids? And he's like, you just, you're never going to be if this is what you're going to do. And I just didn't know what to do at that time. And I was at his rehab and he was like, this is what you got to do off.

And he really inspired me to see that my exit from being on the road, Was having my own treatment center where i can then devote my life individually to the clients or guests who would stay at my treatment center looking for what i had built in my life and that was sobriety, serenity joy peace and happiness and it changed why i was saving my money. And really what he did was show me that the speaking could pay you well because of how good you tell your story and how amazing

it is. But you have to be a steward over that money to then turn around and be able to have the funds to start your own rehab center. And so I don't have many years left. And I've been telling that people actually, I'm, I'm on the cusp of really slowing down speaking and really trying to spend more time with myself, my

girlfriend, my family. Um, because my family's reaching the fourth quarter of their years, my mother and father, And time is just becoming more valuable to me, and I've sacrificed a lot of time for other people. But at the same time, I love it. It's so hard for me to get away from, because I'm able to make such an impact on adults and young people alike. And there's a part of me that will probably always speak, but there's a big part of me that recognizes, you know, 200, 250 days

you're still gonna make a huge impact with this rehab center. It's a different type of impact. You're gonna be able to individualize and focus on singular people versus a big room of people where you have impact on a percentage of them, but get the case one-on-ones. So it feels right. And this is your, so this is the next step. It is. And this place, okay, so this place PH Wellness. All right, what's that stand for? Matt Paz, Tony Hoffman, PH Wellness. Paz Hoffman. But it's a

play on words, because our slogan is, find your balance. BMX.

How long have you had this spot? Two years and the end of June. We're very successful. We're absolutely crushing it. People are coming to our treatment center and have been in and out of treatment centers and rehabs and leave reviews about how special our place is. They have never been to a location where everybody in terms of employees and the culture of what we represent is

so cohesive. You know matt pause my business partner is a fantastic leader and i knew he would be because he gets employees to buy in on the vision, clinically and marketing wise is what i wanted control of i wanted to have control over the branding and i want to have control over what the clinical direction look like of our program so if you go to the rooms, So much of my sobriety is in there, making my bed, brushing my teeth, and organizing my stuff to start

my day. My sobriety model and the pillars that exist for pH Wellness are my sobriety. But what Matt does is he goes in and he really creates the culture of the employees, the expectations that we have and just what we're going to allow and what we're not going to allow, which allows clients to come in and see that and feel that. We don't want

anybody working for us that just needs a paycheck. We want people to come in and give the hours and time that it takes to change somebody's life, and we also want to honor those people. You know, I feel like that's a lost thing in this country, is people open up businesses solely to make money. And much of this money is not needed. What Matt and I really try to do is bless our employees that are sacrificing and putting in that work because lives are being changed as a result. You

know, we took the company on a dinner last night. We do those dinners all the time. We're really big on bonus structures and incentivizing to make sure that when you show up to work if you're bought in on the vision we promise you we're going to take care of you because if we can't change people's lives. Then what are we doing here and then we're not effective as a business it's like you said if you focus on helping people and being good at helping people the money follows that. And so

we really created such a cool place where I'm involved. I do one-on-ones. I run a group virtually on the road. Matt's involved. He's out there every week. These clients will leave reviews. These guests will leave reviews. I've never been to a treatment center where you actually see the owners. or the owner's running group. It's usually a tech that's making a small amount of money that they

put in front. This owner's out here putting his time in, even virtually, to run these groups or do the workouts with these individuals, because we have a big fitness component. And so we really have created something special in a market where there's thousands of treatment centers from Orange County I'm sure that industry's littered with just charlatans Well, yeah, because you don't have to have any type of credentials to open up a treatment center. To become a surgeon, you have to

be a licensed doctor and surgeon. You have to take tests and go through this process to even be able to open somebody up. And A lot like tattooing. You don't need it. Anyone can do it. And so, yeah, I spend my life separating. I do this. Just what you said. It's like I'm just trying to find the tattoo artists that are, um, And for the right reasons and truly passionate in that, because a lot of people have So that's cool. That's cool. You're doing the real thing. I would expect nothing

less knowing you this short bit already. So fuck. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to take it across the country, you know, we're going to build more centers. Yes. We want to do 30 in the Riverside, 30 beds in the Riverside area. Matt's going to control that from a CEO leadership point. And then that's when I'll really start to take a step back from speaking and kind of take a CEO leadership role in the States that we start to open up

more pH wellnesses. so I can travel around since I'm used to traveling, obviously not 250 days a year, but doing culture work and leadership work with our location maybe in Georgia, Ohio, West Virginia, and making sure that everybody is cohesively working together so that if you go to Riverside, it's no different than if you go to West Virginia. You're going to get the same type of treatment, and that is people that care, people that are invested in you, and people that can truly show you how to

I love it. On that note of sobriety, I want to know how your thoughts around some of the hallucinogenic techniques that are being used. Like for instance, iboga. They have all these iboga centers down in Mexico. Iboga is a highly powerful hallucinogenic from Africa and it's known to not only help people get off heroin, but to almost stave the craving of it. Like to me, there's two ways to be sober. One is,

you just kind of do it the way you did it. It's like willpower and knowing that's not what I want, even though there's gotta be a small part of you that still likes the idea, like your body still could maybe even crave it, but you say no and you stick to it, you're the kind of guy that has a strong willpower. But they say iboga removes the desire for some, for Yep, and we hear a lot about microdosing. Using the ingredient in magic mushrooms. Psilocybin. Psilocybin.

I'm open to letting the science develop more understanding of how it can be used and using it so long as the science supports its use. There's some good science. Yeah, and it's starting to show up in these conferences that I go to. Psilocybin is, they're starting to have conferences around microdosing and its benefits for depression and energy and anxiety and how it can help those things. And so I'm not one that's against those.

I'm not one that's pouring into it and saying, you know, that's what we do at our treatment center. But I'm also not one to say, don't do that. Everybody's got to find their pathway. I am against the California sober thing. You know, well, if you're a drinker, you don't drink, you smoke weed. But you still wanna say you're in recovery. How about just you just smoke weed? Because for those of us who don't use any substances to alter our mood, it muddies

the water. You don't have to be in recovery. How about you found something that works for you instead of calling it sober. I just smoke weed now. I don't use heroin. I just smoke weed now. It's two different things. And it shouldn't be the same. You want to be a part of recovery, then there's a process of being a part of recovery. Medicated assistant treatment can be a part of recovery, but those meds are specific for opioids or withdrawals or

comfort meds in the beginning stages of detox. But a maintenance marijuana program, to me, is more or less, you just smoke weed. Now I'm not gonna tell anybody to their face, you're not sober. That's just how I feel. You do what you do and that's okay. And the hallucinogen things, I'm open to it because I know I've read a lot of stuff that say there are some huge benefits to it. So I won't take that from somebody if they wanted to try that and they did

I predict they're going to find their way into those centers. I don't Of course, as long as the science will support it, it will find its way into some type of pharmaceutical. Ketamine therapy is another one. Yeah. There's a lot of different things that are being done on the progressive side of like stretching out what we know and trying to know Well, my friend, this is a... I've had an absolute best time with you today. Absolutely. I

love what you're doing. I love your positive... your mission in life has to help others and man, the world could Yeah. Is there anything we missed? No. No, you know what, phwellness.com. Okay. If you're somebody that's struggling with addiction or has a loved one struggling with addiction, phwellness.com, reach out to us. Okay. We'd love to help you. If you wanted to contact me specifically, you could find me on Instagram, Tony M Hoffman. Same with TikTok, I'm not

as active on TikTok. Tony M. M as in mother. Yep. And then, uh, Facebook Tony Hoffman speaking is my Facebook page. I'm on LinkedIn as well. And X is Tony M Hoffman, but I make myself very accessible on social media and, and, and communicate with people. So if you were inspired and you just wanted to leave me a note, you're probably going to get a response from me. There's 99% chance of that just saying, thank you for taking the time to share that with me.

Cause that does mean a lot to me. So, Thank you guys for bringing me in here and having such a good conversation that wasn't just solely about me telling my timeline. It just really looked for introspect and these parts of me being able to tell Smokey's story, I think is really cool Thank you. You're welcome. That's the way I like to do it, man. You do your professional speaking already plenty and I wanted to get inside and see what Tony's really about. That's right. On

a deeper level. And I think we got that today. So thank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. All right, everybody, thank you for tuning in. All the likes, the shares, the subscriptions from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into this episode and stay tuned for the next one. Peace