The Journey to Sobriety

I'm Tamika D.

Mallory and the ship Boy my Son in general.

We are your host of TMI.

Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.

New Name, New Energy.

So how you been this week?

It's been a good week. It's been a good week.

I mean, I don't know, you know, it's always shit happening, like we were talking, is it a good week?

Is a bad week? We live in America and we and we kill people all around.

Lord, I had a really good week. Good. You know. I deal with a lot.

Of schools and children and I had a speaking engagement at Garfield Academy in New Jersey and shout out to Principal Lance. He was he's a dope principal. And I sat with these young kids and the school is amazing. Like the school, it's like, you know how they talk about so what it is? They actually have a store where this is a class. They have a barbershop that's a class. They have a restaurant that's a class. They have all these things where these kids get to take those as classes.

And they work using their real experience exactly.

And they work in those stories and they work in them and it's dope. The whole environment is dope. And it was a lot you know, I think it's a lot of at risk youth in there, some of them. One of these kids probably was fourteen, told me how you just got shot last year four times?

You know.

Another kid, yeah, four times. And another fifteen year old kid. His father was you know, in the streets and got murdered. His mother died from canta, so he was dealing with a lot. It was just so many different little issues. But they were really attentive, you know, and I felt I felt like I connected with them, you know, because my story is similar to a lot of theirs, and just breaking down certain things, you know, talking to them.

And at the end, they all came.

Up to me, they took pictures with me, they took my phone and made me follow them on Instagram, and you.

Know, it was it was, it was. It was a real like touching moment for me.

And the biggest thing was at the end of the day, when I was about to leave, the principal called me in this office and said, hey, two guys that have been fighting all year, they probably had about four or five fights, you know, they want to sit here and resolve their issues while you're here, you know, based off what you said and inspired them and motivated them to want a squash to be And you know, they sat down, like two young men probably I think they're like sixteen,

You know, he was misinformation, miscommunication.

He attacked the guy based off something and the god said, yeah, I didn't even know what that was.

And at the end, you know, they.

Both said they peace and they drafted up, you know, and they gave each other a hug and he was like, yeah, and I know, and it made me feel like this is working. You know, a lot of times we have a lot of different situations in this work where we I've lost kids that I was just talking to that I had just mediated situations would and two or threes later, two or threes two or three days later, they were

But when you actually get situations like.

This and you see, you know that in that minute, a few minutes that you had with those kids, it transformed the thought process that's been going on for over a year with them, like literally have four fights, you know.

So that's beautiful.

And you know what I would say just one more point on that is, even at sixteen years old, if you're paying attention to what's happening in the world, you realize that could it really could be do a die. So if you want to live, you even have to have the emotional intelligence to stop the train before it wrecks. Good that you're doing here, just keep pushing it because you know it can be very discouraging sometimes to beat

Sobriety.

You know, I am really I don't know if I want to say proud of me because I don't even know. I don't I really don't have all of the lexicon. I'm literally developing it. Five years later, I'm writing my first real speech about my process to get sober and what I went through and how I initially got addicted and what was at one point something that I didn't even know was a part of addiction. I had no idea the first time I swallowed a pill that it was a part of an addiction thing.

And I certainly didn't understand the.

Political nature of addiction and that there's actual forces working towards like I didn't think any of that. I didn't know there was a story and a situation out there in the world that can explain why we're addicted to these pills. So I didn't know. I didn't know so

Opportunities, or to have people.

Don't trust you, or don't believe you or don't believe in you, of course, but I've come to know that ripping the band aid off of situations, problems, issues that you've been through can oftentimes provide you with freedom, freedom to walk forward and deal with whatever it is and kick it up under your feet, right, And so I have disassociated myself with the shame of my story around addiction.

I don't have it anymore. I've thrown it out.

It's taking years to get there, but I think five years of sobriety is a time when you could actually tell the full story and not worry about who feel who know, who was there, who saw you when.

You was nodding out, Who to help you get the drugs, who didn't, who did this?

Who?

It doesn't matter because now the work that's on me is bigger than me. I have found that disassociating yourself from all of this shame and guilt that holds us down might just be the thing that we need to get free and to have the space to do things right going forward.

Sounds like you have been in deep contemplation and you have really come to terms with you. You know what I'm saying, just being just understanding who you are, what you are, and just freeing yourself from all the things that bind you.

TMI today is.

We as women, and I saw Aman Decillo's talking on her Small Doses podcast about being too much right. We as women we do, you know, we talk when we want to. I never forget getting a call from someone very close to me who said, oh, you know, women just all day y'all just don't ever stop telling and doing and directing. But I feel like men don't, really, they say, because I've been told by a number of men, you got to say it the right way. You can't

You have to nurture the right way.

And you need to you know, have a certain type of positivity and this and that, and you could get a man to do anything just with your energy. I have found you could say a nice you could say it nasty, and the same result that most men do not want to be corrected and or just suggested of a new or better way to do things.

Period.

I don't think that's true.

I really I think that delivery is everything right, because nasty, that's not true.

It's not nasty or nice. Right.

It's the time you say it, it's when you say it, it's how you say it. All those things come if you're correct.

If a man.

If a man is in the middle of a speech and he's giving it, and he's talking around people who are listening to him, and he's and he's saying something, you stopping, I don't say it that way.

Don't say it that way. Say it this when you.

Smile and you stop and you say it, don't say this when you smile, you think that you're saying it nice. Right, What you just did is correct him in front of people that think he knows what he's talking about. Right, So what you did is you you just you lowered a little bit of his his his status in front of people.

Right.

You didn't whisper behind his back and say, yo, if you got a man and you with a man and you saying and something, he did something on you, wether.

It's back, babe, you know what you should have did. I loved what you did.

But imagine if you got right.

So you gotta because it's like, but it's still a man has an ego.

Everyone has an ego.

You dealing with a man with an ego, and if you don't care about the man's ego, then fuck it. You can say what you want, but if you want to get the best response from a man, then you have to fill out how do I work with this individual?

Right?

How do I talk to this man and get the best thing from this man?

I know the things he likes.

Especially if this is a person that you would or you're not with, or somebody that you come through with, somebody that's a friend of yours. You know the things to say to trigger that person. You know the things that he's gonna argue over. You know all of those things.

Man man like you child.

Absolutely, but you got to reduce yourself down like you talking to a kid in order to communicate with your man or a man. And so, ladies, my point has been proved a man himself, because.

The reality is because you, because you care about how you speak to you, we just want you to speak to us with care.

And I'm saying that.

What is wrong for a man to want.

But I just want you to know.

That he feels that it's either his woman, his friend, his sister, has anything to speak life into him instead of pointing out the flaws of him, not if to find the good things. Like a woman told me the other day, you know what, somebody always points out the bad stuff. It never says anything about the good stuff. That's how men feel.

And I'm just saying that a lot of I find with a lot of men.

When you start trying to say, hey, listen, this needs.

To be or let's try to do this, or let me tell you about this thing, it becomes a big problem.

That's all. So anyway we.

Can bring the guests on and and uh see how he can tell us that I'm doing too.

Much too Maybe maybe he won't.

We have a brother today who is well respected in many places, but certainly in New York and around the country.

I was looking for someone to bond with about my sobriety five years.

I'm celebrating. I didn't even know if you were supposed to say, you celebrating sobriety.

Should celebration claps?

You know, we got to get in my claps or snaps?

No claps.

I love you. You snap sometimes.

When it's good. Word yeah, so you could put snaps in whatever. But you know, I contacted Erica Ford. I'm like, yo, E, who do we have that works specifically with peepeople who suffer with addiction. That helped to put people in the right direction, helping the detox, helping to get themselves together. And she was like, oh, I said for the podcast, And she's like, oh, no, I know it's one brother. You have to have him on sent me the contact and then I looked on the page.

I'm like, wait a minute. We've been in.

One another's community for a while, but of course I didn't know the full story. And so I'm happy that you are joining us here today.

Brandon Chastang listen, man, I appreciate the love and honor.

Man.

It's wonderful being on set with you guys. Man, Thank you.

I call him b McFly McFly my god.

We've We've had many conversations, always in mind what he does, you know, and it's always been mutual respects. Sometimes we might get on live and debate, you know, over topics,

So continue to do what you do.

Thank you.

It's friendly brotherly debate. I mean, like I feel like, you know, we should they should see black men speak and have emotional intelligence without you know, getting to a point where now were having a yelling match on live.

You know, we usually either agree to this, but we might change each other's perspective, like, you know what, I didn't see it that way might be right, and that's that's what That's what love is, man, That's what growth.

That's what it is. Man.

That's a good thing. That's a good thing. So you know, it's just been a few weeks that.

I am, you know in this place where I'm like, wow, five years went by fast but slow, yes, and slow.

It's like you know now and I learned from you. It's been six.

Years for you success. January the twenty first.

I need all the months, and we got some months, and we got some mens with months with it.

You.

March eighteenth was when I checked in to rehab. I don't even remember the day that I checked out.

I guess I should look at that because that would actually be the But it was the beginning of the journey.

It was the beginning.

It was March eighteenth, and I never forget my homegirl, Rachel Nordlinger dropped me off to a place in Ohio. My story which I have explained to people many times, but I swear every time every time I post about it. I've been publicly talking about my sobriety.

Sent for two years, Okay, since two years in.

So two years after I went to rehab, I began to talk about it.

I was there.

Under an alias, so people didn't know my name except the guy who happened to ask me. He was like kind of you know, he was just there. You know, they would play It was only one TV, two TVs that worked and the one in the kitchen. People watch music videos, sports shows, different things. And one day there was music videos on that my son was not in. But he asked me.

Oh, do you know.

You know it's a guy, he's a great rap and his name is my son. And he made it like he didn't know if I knew him or not. But I understood when he said that he knew me. And you know, so I was under an alias, but he already was on it.

I think my name was like Marcia.

Wow.

And and in fact, I'll be honest with you. Once he he gave on or let onto the fact that he knew who I was or who I am, I was ready to leave because he was a young white boy, a young white man, excuse me, I was, and he was younger than me, he might have been twenty. We were in Ohio in a house in the woods, so it wasn't. I wasn't in a facility, in a building with security and all of that.

We were literally in a house. And the story of how.

I got there was Jason Williams, the NBA All Star. I knew that he had started treatment programs. I knew that he was specifically dealing with alcohol abuse. We know his story and all the trial, trials and tribulations that he faced.

And I called him one.

Day with a hypothetical question, like, YO, if you know somebody that has an issue, they have an addiction, you know what do we what should how?

What would you tell them to do?

And it's funny because when you've been through this and I know that you can speak to the amount of hypothetical questions you get that are really the person not speaking hypothetically at all.

Right, I get it.

All the time, every time I post, every time I talk about it, I get people. And when I say people, yes, they're just everyday individuals of course that reach out. But I'm talking about celebrities, people who are in high places that you would never imagine their children themselves are dealing with issues and they reach out and they ask me, hey, you.

Know you have any resources?

And I always can pick up that this person, it's really intimate what they're experiencing. So when I reached out to Jason and I said, you know, do you have any where could I go?

Or who can I talk to?

Or what would you suggest that a person do, he just answered the question like, well, we have resources. You want to put my people in touch with the person, so we could download whatever whatever.

So I said, hey, thank you.

So I went away, and I would imagine that he sat there and thought to himself, the person is her and so she ain't.

Gonna put her people in touch with me.

So he wrote me back a few days later and said, hey, Tea, you know, I don't know what your story is, he said, but I'm just letting you know. It doesn't get brighter, it gets darker. He said, it gets darker. The situation doesn't get better, it gets worse. And then he wrote this line, Yeah, I.

Mean because it gets man. I had a friend before.

That, I was out to dinner with a young This is when I first started popping pills, and I was sleeping and feeling better and numbing the world out, and I was out with my girlfriends at dinner and I told him like yeah, man, wow, like you know, and at the time, you know, it was like cool, kind of like popping some zannies and some perks.

It was kind of cool.

So I'm talking about it with these girls and these are my girls that we did.

A little this and a little act together in so I can bring it up.

And one of them said at the table, Hey, so letting you know this thing is a dark hole.

You need to be mindful. It's a dark hole.

So when he said that to me, I'm gonna get your reaction. When he said that to me, he said, and you want to get control over the situation before it takes.

Control of you, in the form of you in.

A car accident, they find the pills in your car, you and you know, you go through the airport, you get arrested for smuggling drugs.

He's like, you wanna get control.

Over the situation before it takes control over you. And I sat there with that for a while, but sure enough I wrote back to him and.

Said I have a problem and I need help. And that was the beginning.

How long were you How long were you on?

So you you know, I know that I know that In two thousand and seventeen and eighteen was the worst period of it. Like that's when I was really on, you know, two thousand and two thousand and nineteen is when I went in. So twenty seventeen and eighteen was

I'm not ashamed about it at all at this.

Point in my life.

So I'm ready to talk.

Whatever you asked me, I can tell you specifically, so you know, when I think back to win, I believe somewhere in two thousand and sixteen, maybe twenty sixteen, is when I first popped the zanny here and there. You know, I was sort of doing those things just to you know, taking a zan as a part of my regular party life, like regular life, regular life. But in terms of the abuse and the addiction it because I didn't need the

You live for the applause, you will die with the booze.

And once I started getting booed and people were talking.

I was like, what do I do.

I've never been in this position before, so you know, I could talk about this all day, but you know, in those two years, I was in a dark, dark place. And it took me all of twenty and eighteen, texting back and forth with Jason, having conversations with this one and doing this and that to actually go. So it's a process that requires patients.

Man.

I graduated from Lincoln University two thousand and four, and I got shot immediately after I graduated because I knew going to college is like, no disrespect to my school, no disrespect to HBCUs. But at the time, when I graduated from high school in two thousand, I thought I was going to the thirteenth grade.

People was getting robbed, shot, shot at fights. I fought a lot in college college at that time.

I'm sure I'm not saying it's different now, but I'm sure it's a lot. Yeah, it's way better but you know, coming from that era, and you know, you got people from New York, Philly, d C.

Jersey.

Everybody's trying to you know, the Internet wasn't popping, so it's like you Basically, what I'm trying to say.

Is you still in the mix.

And when I graduated with a criminal justice degree, I knew I was going to graduate. It was just too easy, man, and I got shot. I graduated May second, two thousand and four, got shot July fourth, two thousand and four. And that's when doctors, I say, are black people worse enemy to a certain degree, because this man said take as prescribed every six hours or as needed. Never gave me the logistics on what did it do to you? It's gonna you're gonna crave for it. Possibly you're gonna want it bad.

Man.

I took that pill, and I said, I wasn't a weed smoker, but I smoke.

Here in there.

I drank here and there, but I wasn't addicted to that. I even took ecstasy pills, but I didn't like the after effects of it. When I first took a percocet, I said, Wow, why y'all don't sell these over the count I never even heard of these. And then I'm gonna say, from two thousand and four to twenty and eighteen, I was the worst person ever.

Was.

I was scyn I was a junkie, I was a.

Criminal and four from two thousand and four to eighteen wow, fourteen years of my life, I was a junkie.

I was. I was. I was because it go from it feels so good.

I got a bullet in my knee and I'm, you know, healing up right, so now I'm walking. I'm like when I take the pill, I'm walking on this and like, yo, this pill is that powerful.

And it made me.

Feel extra extra, extra confident, like I'm not afraid. It's not I'm not afraid to be something. I'm not afraid to be even more of me. And then it goes from that to I went from taking pills for the physical pain to taking pills for the mental pain. My father used to sell me pills, and I used to ask myself, I'm spending I'm giving my father more money for pills than.

He ever gave me in my life. He knew that this was it controlled me.

I did everything under the sun for my pills, except doing anything with another man, or put somebody in jail, anything else you could think of, which I'm not gonna say I'm proud of or whatever, but I probably did it.

It was the serious because you know this, because we've discussed it.

I mean it.

Finally, my son and a few other people were really aware of how bad the situation.

Yea controlled you that I was already, but like they were aware of the depth of it, and when I was trying to explain it, it was like they felt sorry for me because I'm like, I cannot period just stopped taking pis.

No way because because of the withdrawal.

You ever had the flu, you ever catch covid or it's ten times worse than those two combine. My eyes are hurting, my phlangies, my fingertips are hurting, I'm sweating, I'm cold sweats, and it's like, I don't It got to.

The point where I say, I would rather die.

Because I because I'm I'm I'm facing humiliation now and I don't want to face that.

I don't want to.

Let the world know that I need help. So it's like my my ego, my pride. It's like, yo, bro, you are junkie out here, so what I still don't want to let people know I need help.

So every single day I yearned for these pills.

I did, boy like like like, and that's why. And when I hit, when I went to rehab, like man, when I think about the things that I did to get these pills, and I hear these stories of men giving their bodies to other men because the pills controlled them, and I'm looking back, like, boy, you better not laugh, because you probably could have been.

The next one time, one more thing.

Like like, I'm two seconds away from doing something to the extreme.

And then and then they were worried.

He was specifically worried because it was only a few people that knew but worried about where I was getting this thing.

And that's a.

Whole other side of the of the like for me to meek a mallory to be out here, which they were already after me, right, already under scrutiny, and here I'm going trying to hustle around and have a conversation with this friend and do this that in.

The third to get them to get and you're gonna go to the extreme, right, You're gonna go to defense.

Man.

I would walk I would walk in the rain. I mean, I didn't take sit See, I was so in debt with it. Were was just to the point I just wanted to die.

Bro.

I used to ask God, Yo, listen, don't wake me up the next day because I'm no good. Please let me die a high depth, please, man, a high depth, like I'm no good to my kids, I'm no good to me because I'm my My life is just. You went from being the man and getting all the women in college and this and that, so now you're begging, yo, bro let me borrow twenty dollars. Man, I got you. You'll be me flying. You don't never be asking to borrow twenty dollars.

Bro. I really need it.

And I thought I was cool. And when I look back, I'm like, Yo, I'm no good than me. I'm no good to my children, I'm no good to the community.

I am.

I am scum. God, don't wake me up please. And every time I used to wake up, I used to be like, yo, I'm up, yo. And now I gotta go. You making me suffer going through this pain over and over and over again. I gotta go through withdraw, I gotta go through the constipation. I gotta go through every single thing? Why are you putting me through this pain?

Oh?

Your stepfather died, your mother died, your father's selling you pills every Why am I going through this?

Damn?

So?

How many?

How many times did you actually try to stop?

Bro? I tried to stop, maybe.

Before you actually succeed.

I tried to stop when I went to I went to yell, and I stopped because I'm like, I'm not going in there on the week shit. And my mind is like something went through my body, like you're gonna go through something, but you're still gonna You're gonna prepare yourself for jail. Right, So I'm gonna say I probably stopped like three times. But then once my mother passed away. She had me at fifteen, so she passed away at forty eight years old.

She was young. I'm a couple seconds away from being forty eight forty two.

Once she passed away, and once I seemed like, yo, listen, my life is going down. She passed away from a drug overdose. My father is selling me drugs and he was a drug addict. I'm just surrounded with no hope, and I was the only hope.

Oh beat me fly. He went to school and he did see he did.

I'm the only hope man bro. Shout out to my kids mother, my core parent. She kept fighting for me. She kept fighting with me. She was enabling me to but she also kept fighting.

All your help enable you the.

Yeah, I don't want to see you, they don't want to I used to lie to her, Yo, Bro, I used to lie to her.

And YO, listen, they got me kidnapped. They say they need a thousand dollars. I used to make up like all type of anything to get this drug and choice, and back then it was it wasn't no cash at I got to.

Go to Western Union, Western Union and my co parent.

Man, we not together whatever, But I love her the life like I I like, I like. She just kept and she put me in rehabiting arms acres. Shout out the arms acres upstate, New York.

How many do you have? Four children?

My son he's twenty three, my daughter nineteen, My son is fourteen, and my daughter's nine.

So I have that process like them seeing you go through that.

I missed my daughter, So shout out to my daughter and my oldest daughter, Tam. It was ten years in my life that I missed with her. The drug addiction, and it's like we never mister b to this day, like like she honored me, like she honors me. But my oldest son, he really didn't feel it too much. But my two youngest ones dead, they all felt it. But it's like it's it's just weird how it's levels. It's different levels for all of them. My oldest daughter

Addiction took over me. It wasn't me.

I got shot and I just it just said, yo, I got you.

You are about to be a menace.

You ever seen the movie Pink, I mean the series Painkillers?

I did. Everybody keep telling you the way.

You describing it is, it sounds like the same.

I didn't see it yet. Man, you'll listen to me. I've never been on drugs. I never, you know, I have. Both of my parents were addicted to drugs.

My father over when I was twelve years old.

My mother, you know, a boy, the grace of God, she cleans herself up after twenty and she passed away from cancer, but she was drug free.

But this when I watched this.

Series, right, it was just a regular guy it's one guy in particular. He was working, you know, he worked in He was a mechanic, and he hurt itself and he was a good family guy.

And he just he wasn't a mechanic.

He owned.

He was like he was a good family guy and he started taking it and like you said, he felt better, Like damn, it's like a super dry.

He was working good.

His wife.

Yeah, he had he had injured his spine, like.

It was terrible, and as it goes through, at the end of it, he actually kills it.

He overdoses.

Like at the end of the thing, he did everything like he went through the dw he cleaned hisself up and then he just it was like go back.

Could not like and it was like, damn.

When I'm listening to you and I'm looking at this, I'm like, damn that that has to be. It has to be the hardest thing in the world. And I can't even imagine something controlling me to that degree.

I just came and the argument is because we've had the argument again, they didn't know how significant it is. It was, so it's kind of like, all right, you got some shit going on, but you just it's like anything else to stop, and I'm like yeah, and then and then, and I would get into arguments with the small group of people that I was close to that knew about it, because their position was that Okay, you know, I get it, but it's in your mind, like you

That's what they wanted, Like that was the goal.

The thing that you how you control people is you feed the doper mein the doper meine must get fed man, and for weak people like myself. At one point in time, I needed it. I needed it so bad that I would have praised those guys man, like thank you, you brought something to my life that's like I can really like love and cherish even though it's tearing me down right, get to the point where that ship just become part of my part of me.

You can say shit on this show, we say shit.

It just gets to the point where you get so used to it that it's like what do you go? Where do you go next. So for me, I started mixing percocests with the zanies. Right now, you're mixing it up, man. I was taken at the time. Man, I was taking probably like fifteen thirties a day if I can afford it, in like twelve or fifteen zannies because I didn't want I told you, I started taking these drugs for the mental pain.

Now I ain't got shit. I ain't shit.

My life is done, my mother is dead, everybody is going.

Man, it's over.

Yeah, I'm named. I am in the process of naming. I think I'm up to like eleven. I was taking twenty pills a day, thirties. I didn't go that far because I was afraid it would kill me. But then sometimes I wanted to just like you slip out like it's cool. But fifteens and I was taking I'm now naming each one of them because I realized that each one of those pills that I swallowed throughout the day had a meaning in my life. Imposta syndrome, past sexual assault,

I can't I can't hand.

You know, I mean with even like you brought a valid point, I mean, I started taking percoses for the neglect.

I ain't believe in God.

At one point it's like God, why you got me here at a house where I'm being abused. I'm being physically abused over and over and over again, and I have two teenage parents and it's just like they're on drugs, Like these are the things that's going on in my head, and it's like, okay, now I'm playing back to childhood years, from childhood years to you know, growing up young adults, adults, and that was just like yo, I'm seeing the world and it's like it's no good for me.

This is why I want to die. I gotta die.

And that was the reason why I went to rehab because I kept waking up, and I'm like, oh no, maybe maybe I'm a bigger person because you wasn't dying.

I wasn't dying, you know what I'm saying.

You kept saying that, and God was like, no, no, you're not going.

To right and you're not doing it and then going to rehab man January to twenty first, twenty eighteen.

That was the start of the beginning.

It's the start of the beginning.

Yeah, it's just the start of the beginning.

What was that process?

Like, I wasn't scared anymore. I was more so nervous than so.

I wanted to ask one more question before you say that, because they always say, like I remember when my mother went to rehab, like when she actually you know, stop using drugs like she had Oh, we had sent her away, she came back this and that, and was it was it a feeling that you just was tired that you made a decision like I'm tired of this.

I'm tired because like I said, I kept waking up. I wanted the overdose. I didn't had enough heart to you know, jump off a roof or put a gun to my head or anything like that. Hang myself. So listen, let me take these pills. Because I knew I took fake pills. I knew it had dope in it, cracking it, I knew it was all types of stuff in it.

The goal was to take percoses.

But I'm sure I took millions of fake pills. Right, I'm like, damn, I'm tired it for me, it's over right. And once I went in there, now I'm nervous because I don't know what to expect. And shout out to the guy. I hope he's I hope he's strong. We shared the room doing during our first.

Week of You never forget those people.

You never forget those people.

Man.

And I'm in a room with a I'm in a room with a guy that like smelled like he just came from the sewer, and I say, yeah, I need this. He smelled bad. And I know, yeah, you ain't far removed, you know. And then after my first week of detox, after the first week, and then I finally moved over to rehab, and now you got Now it's like you got guys in there that's mandated. You got guys in there that's just looking for a home. You got guys

I mean, I wanted to leave, but I.

Was so far away that once you leave, it's no coming back, and it's no busses that you could catch. It's no yo, let me hitch hike for a cat, It's none of that. You're done up. It's over. So I said my last two weeks, man, I'm just gonna create skits. I already had it in my mind what it is that I wanted to do. I'm going to tap into my diamond that I was afraid of. And once I tapped into my diamond, once I once I got out of rehab my first week, it was up.

Talk about your diamond, Like, so what is that now?

What's the why did you identify?

Because I knew you already know who you are?

Like jay Z said, you are who you are before you got here, whether you got the richest, whether you got whatever it is that you.

Got, you know who you are before you got here.

So I knew what I wanted to do, but I always I was afraid of success, right. And it's a lot of even in this is when we talk about the young kids, right, a lot of y'all know what y'all want to do, you're just afraid of it. So I knew that I was ready for the world. I just was afraid to tap into it. And I tell people, the richest place in the world is the grave, man because they die with trollion dollar I did, you know what I'm saying. So I'm like, you know what, I'm

I played both sides of the fence.

I'm gonna be transparent on here because it's no secrets. I know it's somebody's suffering, just like me. Now, everybody's dead, your grandmother, your grandfather, your mother, everybody's dead. Now when now you got to be the leader? You know what I'm saying, and I know with somebody out there that's like, yo, thank you. So that's what I did.

Man.

I'm like, Yo, I'm gonna create skits. I love acting. I'm gonna create skits because me talking all day, I'm probably not gonna get people to gravitate. But let me create these skits, get them to gravitate, and now let me drop the let me drop the message.

And that's what I did.

Man.

So working with people, if someone you know, they approach you and they have an issue, they have a problem, what do you do. What's the process of helping them get sober? Because we don't use the word clean.

Right, right, So I tell people this, right, are you willing to get sober?

Like you were willing to use?

That's deep?

Got to reverse it because I was willing to I was willing to walk miles for a pill one one that wouldn't do nothing for me.

One.

I'm like, do you have a support system? Yeah, I have an iron or a mother or a gram All right, what if they don't have you for the rest of your life?

What if you die?

Now that's gonna be selfish to them. So how bad do you want to get sober? And once you tell me you want to get sober. I asked, yo, do you have insurance? Because if you got insurance, man, we can go wherever city we in, we can go to a rehabilitation program in that city and we go from there. I put that on the internet. I've took so many people to rehab Like I'm with you. I don't get paid for it. I don't have a nonprofit for it.

Times out of ten start using again. M hmmm. So what works is for me is yo, you gotta help somebody.

When you sit back and stop helping people, Oh, you think you got it under control.

I am not far removed from being.

A junkie again, absolutely, So I'm going to continue to help somebody to remind me that you're not far removed.

I tell a.

Person, your thirty days is better than my six years. You did thirty days of being sobered?

Yo, whoa two? Three, four days?

Is me?

When you go through.

You talk from using all the time and needing it each day, you're just like, yo, this is crazy.

How did you do two days?

One thing?

The people who run the program, they knew they knew who I was, they knew I was on the alias, they knew me that they gave me my dignity as much as they possibly could. I took paper towels and double layered them all over my bathroom.

No, I put.

Newspaper and then paper towels all over my bathroom floor. And I had my slippers. And that's how I was living. I was so depressed. And I did not take a shower for the entire time that I was on the other side of the house because I was not about to get in.

That shower with that stuff and that thing.

And I didn't have no cleaning products because you can sniff cleaning products and they don't give you that.

And I just was going through so much.

But I thank God for every second because during that time that I was in rehab, that was the most that I could hear the I could crystal clear here the Lord's direction for me and the and the and I was. I kept apologizing to myself, I was apologizing

It was God's story. It was God.

So how dare you.

When somebody There are people in my comments section when I posted about five years and they're saying things about what they went through. And a lot of women, a lot of women, because sleeping is real hard for us when we got to think, you know, and I think brothers have the same thing, but especially with us as women, when we're trying to.

Figure everything out, everything out, care for the family, the man, keep the man.

Look fine, go to work, do this that everything that we're trying to do, sleeping is very difficult for us. And so there are several people, particularly women, who are telling their stories. And one woman said, I have never talked to one person about this, and I find myself on your page in the comments section, telling this story right here, and I never talked to anybody else.

But it's because the power of your story, right, can heal.

You?

Know?

I don't want to kill you. I want to heal with you. I don't want to kill you.

I want to heal with you, and see, the only way we can heal is if somebody be transparent. That's it, right, And I ask people right when I talk to the kids, I said, if you discovered a diamond that was worth billions of dollars trillions of dollars, would you keep it to yourself? Would you tell someone? Or you undecided? And most of them say, I keep it to myself or

Man, our story.

This is one of these stories where it's like it's a secret society, man, because if you don't know what this pain feel like, how we broke through the pain, you would never understand. You would never ever understand. I tell people those who were addicted to drugs and got about of it, man, they probably the strongest people in the world, because it's like this is a drug that's like controlling this.

Drugs control everything.

Like listen, if you addicted the drugs, man, don't be ashamed of your story. Be ashamed if there's no ending to your story.

So what is next?

What is it the fact that you don't get funding?

Right?

Yeah, like you should be.

I mean I think people are afraid of listen, if you don't want to help fund, you know what I'm saying. I'm only here to help them. I'm here to tell my story and to help those who are addicted. Because people think that drug addiction is cool. They or they're in the now. They don't believe that.

They are on.

Like, I'm not sleeping on a park bench. I'm not selling my body. I'm not committed, but I'm not.

Just getting little.

I just get a little.

But this is why when I on my platform, I congratulate those who are celebrities because it's like, yo, it takes you gotta dumb it down, man, order for people to say, oh, no, you're rich, you got this, you got that. No, that don't mean anything. Drug addiction. Don't care about your age, your color, where you're from. This is why I love all people, because they don't care about who you are. They just want to get you to take. And I'm wondering, like yo, why people don't

Hip hop world.

That's another crazy thing because and I'm I'm I don't want to be long winded. So many of us are dying from drug addiction and it's.

Like living with drugs.

Yeah, and I'm talking about it.

And you see it. You can see that is taking them over.

And because they have status and they have money, nobody is actually trying to do anything to help them.

I would go to Philadelphia has this place called Kissington and Alleghany. It's the worst place in the country, and I will I'll put my life on that. That's how That's how much I know for a fact, you call them, that's pretty much almost done.

La.

It's nothing worse than Kensington and Alleghany. There's zombies. The cops sit back and be like, as long as nobody hurt themselves, like long as nobody die or nobody's fighting, they got it. They can shoot up they were shooting, they would yo, they're shooting up right, and like on the block, every it's like a whole community, thousands and thousands of people.

We have to do a part too of this conversation because it is the question why isn't why is there not the support for us?

Because it's not a support for the thing is right?

I was listening to so I just listened to interviews and I listened to narratives, and it's like people have made they've made this.

What is the word I want to use?

They've come to a conclusion that everything that black people do for to help black people in some type of scam or that we're trying to get over right like our own people. That people say, oh yeah, I don't want black lives matter the end, because the somebody said the n w a CP doesn't want to end racism because then they can't be funded.

Right then you if.

And that makes sense in an interview, but that's like saying the doctors don't want people not to get healed because if they stop dying, then nobody has a job. The police don't want crime to stop because if they stop coming.

Crime, there's no industry.

In the world that that is not gonna fund unless the problem exists.

Right, So why why do we.

Point out only our people and the ship that benefits us and the people that work toward the benefit and the protection of our people.

Right?

And we do that, and we and we think it's something we think it's something wrong that you decide, you know what.

I'm a person that's formally addicted.

I want to do something better and I need to be funded because I can't survive, right, And I can't. I can't do any work if I can't survive, right, So we we always looking for the bat if you if you put up to raise money so you can start your own I'm saying to skip. But this is what our people, this is what our people have been taught. It's the worst thing. And it's like, damn you. You you try to get into some shit that to can

Post traumatic slave disorder PTSD post traumatic slave disorder the mind. When you walking around with a constipated mind, you just got garbage beside your brain. I don't expect you to be receptive to information if you have if you have a constipated mentality, if you have a poor minded mentality, I don't expect that people still told on Harriet tell me and that was a go and it's still going on.

To this day.

Well, brother, we just I mean really, appreciation is too small of a word, right, Like I wish I had, and I think from my perspective, I appreciate it even more because I know that I could just hear in you my same story, like exactly what I went through, the feelings, the whole thing, and it's so deep and it is a secret society, but we're making it not as not so secret by having platforms with people have been writing to me.

I would never have thought.

And by the way, I want to say that the support and the amount of folk who've reached out to me from the top, who you could think of, people in elected office, celebrities down to not even down to two people who just regular folks has been overwhelming. Text messages, calls, prayers, love and support and even those who make this particular statement, I know that it's not. All of them are not coming from a bad place, but they say I would

So when you say I would never have thought, think.

Think, think, think, because it can and it is happening to so many people. And I just you know, I think this is one of those things. Be McFly.

I prefer to go with Brandon, but.

That you know, I pray, I pray that we received the resources that we deserve to do the work. This is important work, but I also want to say that this is not something we need to Yes, the government should be funding us because they take our money, so they should give it back. But our own people have enough money to fund this type of work that we could do it on our own. And I think that's that's the conversation and what it's got to be about.

And yes, it takes what does it take?

Money, money, and to do anything.

You got to come back if you do more than just this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, talk about you know, your work in totality.

Let's get it. Man, appreciate.

Always shout out to be McFly Man to my brother Man. We met on the internet, but we've connected a few times, and I never knew all of that, right, I just knew that he was somebody that I seen on the Internet, and I loved his message. I loved the passion that he spoke with, and his skits were really you know, really powerful, and just hearing that and just just listen pretty much, I just let you, y'all into you actually

For the moment that dominated the contents and it.

Was it was something that you needed to die because it's still therapeutic, like right every time, five years this is five years of your sobriety, and you know you feel empowered, but you also know how you didn't feel.

Strong at the time.

You know, you talk about your deepest, darkest moments and how you felt like you were helpless, and like I remember you sitting there telling me I cannot stop taking pills, like literally looking at my face, and I'm like, what do you mean you can't?

And I didn't understand.

It, And more and more that you said it, and the more I hear these testimonies, I realized, Dan, this is this is something that I can't possibly even understand. But just to see that you you found the way you know what I'm saying. And the thing is, the reality is I don't know if I would have been able to do that. I don't know, right because I've

People don't come back from. And you know, just hearing you speak about it and if.

So good that I can say emphatically like once I walked into that facility to that house on March eighteen, I never ever took another pill again, Like who like you don't even understand what that means. Like you said, you've never been through it. So to be able to say that and to know it, because before that I would say, oh, yeah, no, I'm detoxing. But then I knew I would sneak a pill and do this and

Days, that's the hardest time.

That's the hardest part is being able to keep going for thirty days. It's by the time you get to six years, it's just coming five years later.

You know, it's a thing of the past.

It's you know, it's something that you know, you think about you It's like, oh wow, right, that's so far away.

When that happened over there thirty days ago.

It's like, yo, cannot even make it thirty one days? Can I make it thirty days and an hour?

Right?

It's really tough. And so to be able to say that and to know that there ain't nobody that you know, it ain't no, ain't no, ain't no nobody with a script around the corner like Na, Na, remember that scripts people had that script March twenty then you said you had a script that Nah, that's not a thing, And I'm so proud of myself, but I know for that, it's somebody that's.

Going through it right now and they need to hear you and like that, Like you said that lady wrote in your comments that she had never shared it with anybody, and you know, and we just have powers to be able to move people in different ways. And the fact that she wanted to share that with you, whatever you said or did or whatever it was, it was able to move her and hopefully move her to do something to help herself.

So no, she's she's she's sober.

Oh she's sober now.

She said she.

Got sober, never told anybody about it, and now she's like, yo, I'm on internet. She she she gave off, which I didn't even click a page or anything.

She gave off a woman of our right, just like.

She might have needed to tell somebody because it might have saved somebody's life. So shout out to you, Shout out to be McFly for you know, for overcoming the odds man and being examples of what it is when you decide mentally that you're going to win and you gonna overcome something, so shout out to y'all. So on a different note, I wouldn't say light, but on a different note, you know, I have a I don't get

So I wanted I wanted to I wanted to.

Give a question to both men and women who actually engaged in this behavior. I need to know why do women have babies with men that don't want to have babies?

That's the first part.

But I also don't get why do men have unprotected sex with women that they don't want to.

Have children with? Right, So it's a two prong question.

You saying you don't want to have a baby, You're saying this and that, and you know you don't, but you still continue to have unprotected sex with this woman, knowing that the possibility exists.

For her to have a baby, and you know that she wants to have a baby.

So I don't understand neither one of these mentalities at all. I wish somebody would give me an understanding of how it even makes any level of sense, because it's probably the dumbest should I ever seen.

But maybe you shouldn't have sex because if an accident, like what if you told a woman I don't want to have children and then she gets pregnant by accident.

You can't go telling people that they have to have it.

But the thing is, but the thing is, but no, you don't. You can have the baby. But the thing is, the problem is you're looking, You're having an expectation of somebody that you shouldn't have an expectation.

Well, no, but if I did not try to get we both made a decision. We know sex makes babies, we know that. We know that, we know that.

But there's some people that irresponsible that.

The whole point of sex, right, it was, Yes, there was the part about pleasure. It was a pleasure, the whole point pleasure sex. No, No, it is reproduction. You think that what you know I'm talking about.

Most people in the world.

You said, I'm not talking about what are you talking about.

I'm not saying that it cannot that it does not benefit the pleasure purpose. I'm saying that the organs and the actual practice of it. Pro Creation is at the heart of what you're supposed to into when you have sex, right, So intercourse, right, it's.

Supposed to it's supposed to be about procreation.

Okay, So now you have a baby, you have sex with somebody and they tell you, I do not want to have kids.

That's right.

So the next question, one we think would be do you want to have kids? Right, because if you want to have kids, even if we about to use a condom, I know that the chances that the kind of could break or that could be an incident. So if you're not one of those people who are willing to have an abortion, and you might you know, some people want to have an abortion, but they might find out too lay and or their bodies can't handle it for whatever reason.

I think for me, right that as a man, I'm always gonna be hand accountable for any creation that I make.

Right, But I'm a responsible individual like that. That is a decision that.

I've made that if I make a baby, regardless of how it's made, that is my child, and I'm going to do everything possible to support, love and be a father to my child. But I also being Devil's advocate and just giving you another perspective. I know men that just don't want anything to do with they they don't have They're not stable at all. They don't they don't claim anything. I know men that just literally just move around.

I just want you to know, and I'm gonna let you just finish it up that my mother used to tell my cousins, you know, the men in our family, and I'm sure she got this from my grandmother, that having sex is extremely expensive. It's probably the most expensive decision you will ever make in your life, because you can catch STDs, something that you can never get rid of, and you can make a responsibility bring something into the world that you may not be prepared to take care of.

Are to call it.

I hope they're saying it's expensive. But I hope that our young brothers are also understanding it's not just the pleasure principle. It is actually an act that should result in the procreation so that we as a as a as a race, a human race, can continue to grow and blossom and to multiply. So when you start putting that ship in that language, then people should get a

You are, you are actually laying down in a spiritual experience. Bruh.

But it's it's not that ain't nobody listening to it. It's that it's not really being taught because I heard I.

Was told don't have that's it, right, But the average person that's been having sex, right, they don't see the soul. I hear what you're saying, and I'm trying to tell you that the average reality of that we deal with on a basic human level, that's just not everybody's reality.

And there are.

People who don't give a fuck, this is what I'm trying to say, And they give but they don't give a fu. But there are people who really don't care about principle.

They never even heard that what I'm and.

Some people that they just don't.

It just doesn't align with them and they've made up their mind that they don't care about certain things. So what I'm trying to say is I want us all to be proactive and not reactive. I want women to stop giving your bodies to men who say they don't want to have children when you want to have children that might impregnate you.

Stop having unprotected sex with these men.

Stop expecting them to be men when they haven't shown you or told you that they will be men men. Stop having sex for women unprotected that you don't want to be bothered or protecting.

Well, you're just having said no, But that's not right.

But protection does not guarantee a person.

You're taking the necessary precautions, right, So I can't.

But once you have a baby, then that's it.

But once you have a baby, what I'm trying to say is it is it? But once you once we've had a baby, and we've had a baby, do accident right and I didn't purposely do something, and you made a decision that you're having a baby, and you're not in a situation where you can't have a baby, and you made that decision that you want to have that baby. I even though I personally I would never say that, but.

I can't abandon never abandoned a child. But I can't. I can't call a man at fault. It's just like that. You can ask you a question that comes you know what that comes to.

You know, she's having it if she's impregnated with a baby, because this is the aug they have. She's pregnant with a baby she does not want to have. She's gonna get rid of that baby.

Right, Well, some people don't. There's a lot of people that.

There's but more often than not, no more, if a woman does not want to have a baby, she does not have.

Excuse me, excuse me. Let me lay down some facts so you can know.

Okay, the statistics are that more women have children they don't want.

Okay, abortion is actually.

Women have children they do not want than those who have abortions. One, we don't always have the resources because of shame and yes, because of rape and other incidents that you were unable to navigate.

You have a lot of women, my son. A lot of times.

The way that you see the world, you think of it as we are very we we are elitists in our experiences because we live in the north, We live in New York. We live in a place where playing parenthood is right there. The other clinic to this place that that you know, all the clinics we've been to, some of them.

I'm sure you're done sad in some of them.

I shouldn't business.

You never went to take a woman or pick a woman up from having an abortion. You just low live neself.

No, I've never got I don't have it, so.

Then and that's and that's and that's a beautiful thing. It was being funny, but on the serious side, when you live in a community that doesn't have a clinic, or the clinic is killing people, or you have to have money, you don't have insurance, you don't have health insurance, or you can't get a hold of the health insurance card because your parents keep.

It locked away.

You have the baby that you know, You have the baby that you don't necessarily want. Sometimes family members will force you because of your the religious beliefs of your mother, your grandmother or whomever. They tell you we don't do abortions, so you get pregnant and you end up with a child. There are more stories like that than people who have abortions.

I get your point that a woman has that option.

Or used to in some places, but I'm just saying, just know that there are more people who have children that they don't want and they have to take care of them. Our community and especially our men should hold responsible any man who has a child on this earth that they do not do something to contribute to them.

I agree with that, I agree with them, But I'm trying to say even if I personally, but I don't see them at full I just don't. If you, if you take all the necessary course, if you take all of the necessary precautions not to.

Have a child, you can't.

My sign, I don't understand what I'm getting ready to tell you. If you have sex, you have not taken all of the necessary.

Every time, that every time you should want to have a child.

No, it's not one.

I didn't say anything about that absolutely, because what you just said is that it is. It's not really tell you what's so realistic about it, because this is because because we are on a hot mic, and what we say here goes into the world, and when we are you say that you need to take the every you say, every necessary precaution not to have a child, that you cannot hold the person at fault.

You are not being that that responsible.

No, you said I cannot hold them at fault.

I think should be responsible.

So no, no, no, you said I cannot hold them at fault. What I am saying to you is that it is an incomplete thought. What you said here is that if you have taken every possible precaution. So now if we write down a list of precautions of not getting pregnant, because they don't have no world where you can get pregnant by the air blowing on you, understanding that not

But it doesn't matter to some people.

Man or woman. I don't.

If you do, you condemn a woman that has abortion you don't want no, what are you talking about?

Child that's walking around?

Are you condemning a woman who made a decision that I don't want to have this baby. I don't want I don't want none to do with this baby. The man wants the baby and he she says no, I don't want the baby, and she gets rid of the baby.

Do you con I do not condemn I do not

I cannot beat that man.

So if you have sex with a woman, as a man, you are putting yourself in a situation that you cannot control.

You get beat up body.

But hear what But I hear what you said.

But just like and I'm telling you, just like you said, she knows she she can't beat the man. It don't stop him from fucking you up. If he don't give a fuck whether you could beat him or nothing. Just like, it don't matter that you care. You condemn the nigga that don't want.

To baby, that's me.

It doesn't matter. Our community. Don't get the community.

Don't get community.

It's a bunch of dead it's dead beat niggas wunning around here all day and they look.

Around mindsets like yours when you telling it, not hold them at fall. At fall, I call court and I'm giving the judge I'm no judge, and the jury and the motherfucking executioner. If you don't take care of child that you laid down to make, you ain't ship.

That's it.

Yeah, you can say that, but some people don't care about not being ship. That's all I'm trying to say.

To tell you.

It is niggas that is piece of ships, and they all they so they are so comfortable being pieces of ship. So with that said, another episode. Somebody's gonna be wrong, somebody gonna be right. She ain't gonna never be wrong, but it is what it is.

We love y'all. Tm I tune in, keep on tuning in.

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