Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Killing your friend in a nightmare car accident- surviving the aftermath- Ronnie Langford

Transcript

Killing your friend in a nightmare car accident- surviving the aftermath- Ronnie Langford · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when he works here? Becomes your reality.
• 0:03
  Hi. I'm Brian Cassidy.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the nightmare. Success in and out podcast,
• 0:08
  where we explore a, how to overcome your fears.
• 0:10
  And Nightmares is set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:19
  These stories can be inspiring. Sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:23
  humor but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something
• 0:27
  that will help you knock down some of the prisons.
• 0:29
  You built up Up in your own mind.
• 0:33
  Alright. Nightmare success listeners.
• 0:36
  We're back and I have got some good stuff today.
• 0:40
  I know you guys come here for the good stuff.
• 0:43
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:45
  How do you adapt survive over? Calm set yourself free.
• 0:49
  Well, I have Ronnie Lankford with me today and me and what a
• 0:53
  story. I've been reading up on him and
• 0:55
  then he was just telling me a little bit more about it.
• 0:57
  He's also this man can sing. Well, this man can sing.
• 1:02
  He's got the link boys and he does his stuff with the Danny
• 1:07
  Mitchell. They go by different names on
• 1:09
  this, but I'm going to try to play some music.
• 1:12
  I've done this before. So I could screw it up, but I
• 1:15
  think we could make it work. I got faith in you and I think I
• 1:19
  actually think Ronnie knows how to work this board.
• 1:21
  Probably hell of a lot better Nike is, so we'll figure it out.
• 1:24
  But before we get into all this, I want to make recognize our
• 1:28
  sponsor The show is on applies a direct and, you know, it's like
• 1:34
  Ronnie who likes to go spend a couple of weeks walk in the,
• 1:37
  the, the lots of a car lot, you know, looking for a car that
• 1:41
  nobody likes to do that and then you got to spend like four or
• 1:43
  five hours in the dealership to try to buy the car.
• 1:46
  It's kind of like a trip to the dentist.
• 1:49
  Nice. Nobody likes that.
• 1:51
  No, well, this is better. There's a better way.
• 1:54
  Pain takes all the hassle and the getting the car, the pain
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  Auto Plaza, direct, tell them that Brent from Nightmare
• 2:28
  success since Okay, let's jump into this Ronnie.
• 2:32
  Welcome hello. It's nice to be on the podcast
• 2:37
  and we just we just figured out that we've got some connections
• 2:39
  here. First of all Shane Spurgeon.
• 2:42
  Gave me your name and he had an incredible podcast.
• 2:46
  It's got it. I mean he still gets lessons and
• 2:48
  then we just connected that you were with Jim Brock.
• 2:51
  Yep. Same time, same time.
• 2:54
  Yeah, weird. Yeah, we were actually going to
• 2:56
  the same same College in there, Washington.
• 2:59
  Varsity came in and held actual college classes on our campus at
• 3:04
  something and it rises in. The one thing I didn't do, I was
• 3:07
  like, I was introducing, I thought it was interesting how
• 3:09
  you look on their website on link, boys.
• 3:12
  And, and it's his, I used to be a raging drug addict.
• 3:17
  And alcoholic woman eyes, I'm just catching.
• 3:20
  Some of these are high school dropout.
• 3:22
  I used to be homeless and psych wards rehabs jails and prison
• 3:26
  but God but it into my life. Right.
• 3:30
  Smack in the middle of my prison cell man.
• 3:32
  Come on. Wow, yep.
• 3:34
  Wow. Okay, so Ronnie, let's jump into
• 3:37
  this here because you have a fascinating story and what you
• 3:41
  doing now and how you're doing it, you just told me you're
• 3:44
  getting ready to go back to prison to talk Pacific, the same
• 3:48
  prison. I left from a year before my
• 3:50
  eligibility and on this Friday, you know, God works in
• 3:54
  mysterious ways. And you could also perform
• 3:57
  there, too. Right.
• 3:57
  And I'm going to, yeah. Yeah, I'm excited.
• 4:01
  Well, let's walk back a little ways.
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  Let's get everybody to meet you here.
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  Where's where's Ronnie is a little kid growing up?
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  What are you siblings? Mom.
• 4:10
  Cool. What's life?
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  Like yep. So I did have a I was raised by
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  my mom and my dad paternal both. I had a older sister by three
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  years and we were born in Granite City, Illinois.
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  So, it's not really a very aggressive River.
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  Yep. Yep.
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  Yep. A lot of people don't even, you
• 4:28
  know, haven't even heard That. But but yeah.
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  So we were, I was born in Granite lived, in a pretty
• 4:34
  decent house on a street called Wanda.
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  Wanda does that sound? Enticing Called Wanda.
• 4:38
  Yeah, it's nice. Pretty normal childhood.
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  I know my dad worked a lot so he wasn't around, you know, for a
• 4:48
  good majority of my life. I mean, he was there, but he was
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  like, what kind of work did he do?
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  He was pretty fascinating. Actually, my dad was very
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  ambitious, super fun. Like he was basically like me
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  but an older version. And so I'm very animated.
• 5:00
  I'm very excitable uses his hands a lot.
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  Yeah, those we're not doing YouTube today.
• 5:05
  I wish you could because I'm doing sign language right now.
• 5:07
  I'm making it up as I go barely enough.
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  We're not on YouTube today because we're in person but yes
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  he's very animated if you hear the microphone getting whacked,
• 5:14
  that's just my left hand, might just start wrapping right here.
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  Yeah, I don't know, so so yes, my dad is super awesome guy but
• 5:22
  he was just very focused on work and, you know, providing for us
• 5:25
  and stuff. So he did some door-to-door
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  sales. I Say when I was super, super
• 5:31
  young and then he ended up getting a job at a collection
• 5:33
  agency. So he quickly became the guy
• 5:35
  that nobody wanted to talk to. He did that for years decades.
• 5:40
  Even and he was really, really good.
• 5:42
  He made a pretty big name for himself in the industry.
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  Later, he ended up getting invited to a company that had,
• 5:51
  you know, maybe 10% of the, of the employees that his current
• 5:55
  company at the time had, but they offered in part partial
• 5:58
  ownership. So this was a guy that, you
• 6:00
  know, was born in Granite City, you know, ex-military, he was in
• 6:04
  the Marines, he didn't find any wars, but he was a really good
• 6:06
  with numbers. Very driven, very ambitious and
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  consume a lot. I didn't see him a lot.
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  You know, I know that your mom was she stayed home and Mom was
• 6:15
  Super Woman. Yeah.
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  And not to say that my dad wasn't phenomenal and amazing
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  because he still was, he was just very, very focused on work
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  and stuff. But yeah, Mom was Wonder Woman.
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  You know, I could almost get choked up just just thinking
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  about her because for the majority I have of my childhood.
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  She was stay at home and she was very, very involved with us,
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  kids. So picture the just super super
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  woman basically, that's who she was cooking for us.
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  Therefore, as hung out with us, if she was ever had a family
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  event, she was always around the kids like she just connected
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  real well with them and she was amazing.
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  So yeah, I had a pretty pretty normal childhood.
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  I did have a couple little hiccups in my my growing up.
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  I moved at the Age of 7 from Granite City to Parkway
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  District. So, you know, I went from never
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  wearing a t-shirt and walking barefoot everywhere.
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  I could literally walk over broken glass, my feet were so
• 7:11
  calloused to preppy people. You know what I mean?
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  And just like, yeah, Intercity goes down in the Cayman Islands.
• 7:18
  Listening, that Parkway School District is kind of like you got
• 7:22
  Rockwood and St. Louis, and Parkway.
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  That's kind of like the mooji almost.
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  Yeah, they're gonna date Lee do but it's yeah.
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  It was definitely a culture shock.
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  I remember because, like, I said, Granite City is just, you
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  know, it's just not very recognizable, just a smaller
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  town or at least it was back then, you know?
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  And so, I came, I remember my first day, I wore my Power
• 7:44
  Rangers shirts in Granite City. Power Rangers were the coolest
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  thing in the world, right in Parkway, they weren't and I
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  quickly became That Awkward kid. You were that guy wearing a dumb
• 7:54
  shirt? Yeah, I was like so happy about
• 7:57
  it. Sounds like, man, everybody's
• 7:58
  gonna love his, yeah. You know, my mom.
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  Bought it, ready, dude. I had the worst headache, made
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  fun of me so bad. When I came back home.
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  I was in band of my mom. Like, how could you let me buy
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  this thing and it was her fault. Yeah, that's right.
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  Yeah. So you couldn't have made that
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  mistake. No.
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  But so I it was just weird, you know, I guess, you know.
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  So you didn't feel like you fit in.
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  I didn't feel like I fit in. No sir.
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  Did you have siblings? That was part of this whole
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  transaction? Yes, I had.
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  Like I said I had an older sister to been cool to have a
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  brother, you know what I mean? But I didn't.
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  I had an older sister and she was quote unquote, smokin hot so
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  I was kind of that guy, you know.
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  I know your sister. Oh, she's hot.
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  Yeah. And I was like, man.
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  So I had that whole, you know, kind of complex growing up.
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  I had a weird thing with my mom. Well, my mom to my mom has had
• 8:40
  two so she's like I saw some guys down, like when I get back,
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  whether they're like in their 50s.
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  And hey, how's your mom do you know my mom, 70 something?
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  Bro with you look. I literally went through the
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  same thing. There is like two things like I
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  was never really very combative person.
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  Like I have the things that will push me over your ears.
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  Oh right. Yeah.
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  But when it came to Mom and sis, there was just something in you
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  that you just didn't really like here and there, you know, it's
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  very awkward. Yeah.
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  So like the cool thing is, is only until like these recent
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  couple of years, you know, maybe the past three.
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  Have I been able to process people when they say things
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  like? Yeah.
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  And now it's not even a fence. If I'm like, well, she's her own
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  person and she's very beautiful, but my sister and my mom are and
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  I'm just like, yeah, that's cool.
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  You know? I mean that's between.
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  Yeah. And I realized that it's between
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  them the right, if you know what I mean, you don't have to
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  nothing to do with me. Yeah.
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  But for whatever reason, I just took it personal.
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  I was like, I feel like I gotta fight this.
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  Yeah, you're saying that it makes me feel really weird.
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  Yeah. So so then to add a little bit
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  more of an interesting Dynamic, about seven years.
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  After that, which was after my freshman year at Parkway, I
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  ended up moving again. And this time I went from
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  Parkway to for Zumwalt, which was another cult West, which was
• 9:54
  another culture shock because I went from like City kids, preppy
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  kids, We had a lot of we busted a lot of inner city kids as well
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  too. So there was white black.
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  I mean, it was very, very Dynamic, you know, the culture.
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  Yeah, absolutely. So I was friends with white
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  black, Hispanic, whatever, you know, we had everything at our
• 10:12
  school there when I moved to Fort Zoom wah there was like
• 10:16
  maybe a couple black people and other than that it was, you
• 10:19
  know, predominantly white and Country, you know?
• 10:22
  I mean, when I when we moved to the house because we were living
• 10:25
  in a villa until the house, got finished, the house got
• 10:28
  finished, we moved there. And my neighbor's, I remember
• 10:31
  the first time I met them, they were in a golf cart and they're
• 10:34
  all in camo, spit and chewing tobacco with shotguns, okay?
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  And they took me to the slaughterhouse where they had
• 10:40
  chickens and stuff just like like guts and intestines
• 10:45
  everywhere. I don't know about where the
• 10:47
  heck did I just go? Yeah, you know, so it was super
• 10:50
  like awkward at first, but then like, the more like, it's just
• 10:54
  like anything I just wasn't, you know, I wasn't sensitive to it
• 10:57
  or whatever. Well, how Everyone aware that
• 11:00
  natural didn't feel natural. Yeah, but after time it just
• 11:02
  kind of became natural, it became kind of cool.
• 11:04
  So, so yeah. So did you actually drop out?
• 11:08
  Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, okay, so because that was
• 11:11
  a weird thing. I was what I read that about her
• 11:15
  in your bio, I thought, well, it sounds like everything was kind
• 11:18
  of normal then it wasn't. Oh yeah.
• 11:21
  So so I'm giving you kind of like the general like where I
• 11:24
  was moving. But things started getting
• 11:27
  sticky before I moved from Parkway, okay.
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  And then my middle school years, I was a skateboarder.
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  So I guess you just kind of flock to some rebellious people,
• 11:35
  not that all skateboarders are, but, you know, we were kind of
• 11:39
  the cool kids though. I mean, you can skateboard.
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  Yeah, I mean, I thought it was pretty cool.
• 11:43
  We weren't the jacks or anything like that, but, you know, we had
• 11:46
  our own little, he played, he did Skip I did roller hockey
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  because I won that good at ice-skating.
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  And I did a little bit of basketball stopped and then I
• 11:54
  played one year of football, so, yeah.
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  But hockey was pretty much the predominant thing.
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  NG then obviously skateboarding. Trumped.
• 12:01
  Everything's right. So that would that became your
• 12:03
  crowd basically. Yeah, became my proud.
• 12:05
  Yep. So about midpoint in my seventh
• 12:10
  grade is when some of the guys and I was friends with Jax or
• 12:13
  just whoever you know in Parkway I was friends with everybody and
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  part of that was probably because, like move in from
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  Granite to Parkway put me in this mode of like, oh, I just
• 12:22
  want people to like me. I want to fit in so like I
• 12:24
  quickly just try to be relatable to everybody, you know?
• 12:27
  And and I was the certain extent.
• 12:29
  Um, so anyway, some of the, the Jax's, I would refer to them at
• 12:33
  the time. They had older brothers and they
• 12:36
  had, you know, getting exposed to cigarettes and weed and
• 12:39
  stuff. So I started dabbling as well,
• 12:41
  you know, smoking, cigarettes and doing the Clone thing.
• 12:43
  The mouthwash thing, trying to hide it for them parents and
• 12:46
  stuff and started smoking weed. And it seemed like it just went
• 12:50
  really fast from there because like we went from just like,
• 12:53
  smoking a cigarette, smoking some weed to like, okay, now
• 12:55
  we're skipping school in eighth, grade.
• 12:58
  I think. Might have been a little bit of
• 13:00
  seventh grade, but definitely in eighth grade.
• 13:01
  We started skipping school to like Rob people's houses.
• 13:05
  Yeah. Which was crazy literally like
• 13:07
  13 14 or 13. 14 years old, you know, had a good life too, you
• 13:11
  know. So it's like it doesn't really
• 13:12
  make sense again, adrenaline and being part of the gang.
• 13:15
  Yeah, I guess so. You know, it's just the it was
• 13:17
  just strange so I did. Yeah.
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  And was it going to say to get caught?
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  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
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  We got close, but I didn't get caught.
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  Only until like later later. But yeah and that was in my like
• 13:34
  for Zumwalt years or whatever. When I started getting you know
• 13:36
  kind of caught for that but I was getting caught getting high
• 13:39
  drinking and smoking. Then what did that revolve back
• 13:43
  to your mom and dad that they know about it?
• 13:45
  Gosh, dude, I'm gonna tell you what, like, my dad was absent.
• 13:49
  You know, I don't want to say he was absent just when you thought
• 13:52
  he was on business, a lot when he came home, it was late.
• 13:55
  The get poor guy. You worked late, so he got home.
• 13:57
  Maybe 7:30 8:00. He eats his dinner.
• 13:59
  He's got 10 minutes on the TV and he falls asleep.
• 14:01
  I deal with this stuff. Yeah.
• 14:02
  And then he's got to deal with this stuff, right?
• 14:04
  So like not going on pops but you know, he just, you know,
• 14:08
  wasn't really there. So I think I was trying to fill
• 14:10
  that Gap. I wanted the attaboys.
• 14:12
  I wanted to be accepted, you know, an approved.
• 14:14
  And so, so yes, started hanging with the wrong crowd.
• 14:17
  And then, in my freshman year, we started smoking, we were
• 14:21
  smoking like before school during school, we'd Skip and go
• 14:23
  to the woods. It was just silly and then in
• 14:26
  school which we ended up getting caught, I had to go to
• 14:28
  discipline. A school for a couple months or
• 14:30
  whatever. And then after that year ended
• 14:34
  up, moving to Fort Zumwalt, and it got way worse because I
• 14:37
  gravitated to the same people because they accept you first.
• 14:41
  It seems like, you know, we became part of your family are
• 14:44
  my family and I was like, this is familiar and stuff like that.
• 14:46
  So I started, you know, hanging with them.
• 14:48
  And you know, there was everything was available then,
• 14:52
  like there was so many different drugs, narcotics, you know,
• 14:54
  alcohol weed everything and started experimenting with them.
• 14:58
  And Just went super hard Superfast started overdose in
• 15:04
  like from 10th grade, to midpoint junior year.
• 15:07
  Like I had been in a couple different hospitals, rehabs
• 15:11
  homeless, we think here it my parents and my administrator I
• 15:17
  would get in, so much trouble in school that like, my parents are
• 15:22
  my administrator. We're like, look, no matter how
• 15:24
  much we ground this kid and try to pull them away from his
• 15:26
  friends. If he goes back to school, he's
• 15:27
  still around him. Like it's sure.
• 15:29
  Like in this weird case, they're like, I think it's better that
• 15:31
  he's not even here. Like maybe he can go get his GED
• 15:34
  finish his education. Let's get him away from these
• 15:36
  people, right? So like it was incursion, of
• 15:39
  course, I wanted to quit. Sure.
• 15:41
  Well, the funny thing is, is at that time, my dad and my uncle
• 15:45
  Marc, they're all Harley Riders DieHard Americans.
• 15:48
  You know, they like classic cars and stuff like that.
• 15:51
  Okay, she and stuff, that's just, you know, who they were.
• 15:55
  And they opened a bike shop called old-school Chopper.
• 15:57
  So if anybody was out in the The st.
• 15:59
  Charles area and stuff. You know, during the years like
• 16:02
  03 to 0-5 to like maybe even yeah probably go to do five.
• 16:06
  You would be familiar with old-school.
• 16:07
  Travers if you wrote you would because everybody stopped in our
• 16:09
  shop. Well I went from doing High
• 16:11
  School in that to go into GED classes and working full-time at
• 16:14
  a bike shop. And things got crazy again.
• 16:18
  You know, so I went from hanging with, you know, my friends or
• 16:22
  whatever to hanging with my uncle's, which was super awesome
• 16:25
  and they're older yet and then hanging with some biker buddies
• 16:28
  that were at the shop, you know? And yeah, it was just just it
• 16:34
  was just wild. We were around bikes that not
• 16:36
  like that, that they would allow me to do anything crazy.
• 16:40
  You know? I mean at the time like I was,
• 16:42
  you know come in I was coming up on 18 or whatever and everybody
• 16:45
  was able to Uncontrollably. You just stay at the house or do
• 16:48
  something. Everybody was drinking here and
• 16:49
  there and smoke in was just kind of acceptable and compared to my
• 16:53
  overdoses. They're like well if Ronnie
• 16:55
  smoking and he's just drinking a little bit, okay you might be
• 16:57
  okay, you know, and then they're praying that I could get those
• 17:00
  chains broken as well, you know? So, but I had some really
• 17:03
  amazing. Awesome years with my uncle,
• 17:06
  shout out to my Uncle, Jeff who's still alive, but my
• 17:10
  grandpa who was with us with the shop, which was my dad's dad my
• 17:15
  dad and my uncle Marv. Look they've all passed since
• 17:18
  yep. And yeah so like it's just from
• 17:22
  that error, really? Just me and my Uncle, Jeff left
• 17:25
  and my mom. She was you know, part of the
• 17:26
  shop as well. My Grandma Lois, she passed as
• 17:29
  well and and then we got Uncle Mark's wife.
• 17:33
  It sounds like that was a good time in your life.
• 17:36
  It was in a lot of ways because like I learned so much about
• 17:39
  bikes, I learned so much about my family.
• 17:43
  And the weird thing is is I was like as young as Other cousins.
• 17:47
  But for some reason like that gave me a door into that side of
• 17:51
  my family that a lot of people didn't get sure, you know,
• 17:54
  because I was working with them a lot and, you know, hanging out
• 17:56
  and it was just really, really neat.
• 17:58
  I know my cousin's. Shout out to Jamie and Sarah, I
• 18:01
  know that they wanted to spend more time with her dad Mark, who
• 18:05
  was my dad's middle brother. So then when they hear about
• 18:08
  stories that I tell him about him, he could tell that they're
• 18:10
  just like man, I wish I you know was able to meet him or
• 18:13
  whatever. But but yeah.
• 18:15
  So That bike shop obviously isn't to blame or anything but,
• 18:20
  you know, I guess I was just bent on getting high and just
• 18:23
  kind of running that rope out and and I did I hit like a
• 18:27
  hundred Rock Bottom's before I hit the ultimate Rock.
• 18:30
  Bottom, you know, it's weird because it's like, you think,
• 18:33
  like, once you hit it, that there wouldn't be anything below
• 18:36
  it but if you keep digging in, you're going to find out, you're
• 18:38
  going to find another level. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:41
  So, so, I did. And I guess I'll just take you
• 18:44
  up to the point, which led me to Pressure which is the Rock
• 18:47
  Bottom. It's it was a June 11th of 2010.
• 18:53
  I had just gotten fired. I ended up working for my dad's
• 18:55
  company, it was one of the jobs that I got and I got fired.
• 18:59
  I couldn't wrap back then but I wanted to try to play with
• 19:02
  lyrics so I actually got fired repeating just really bad toxic
• 19:05
  like mainstream rap type stuff that you know is just just bad
• 19:10
  and I was like Whispering it and there was somebody on the call
• 19:12
  ended up getting fired from it. Broke my dad's heart.
• 19:14
  You know what I mean? And I'm just like, Man.
• 19:16
  But I was already in such a dark spot by then because that would
• 19:19
  have been like 23. 24 years old is how old I was then.
• 19:25
  So coming from like, you know, 13 starting to then, and then
• 19:29
  bike shops was 1618 things started.
• 19:31
  Getting kind of Rocky then as well.
• 19:34
  Super Rocky, I seen a lot of dark years for a long time.
• 19:37
  Addiction way. Lost, it's fun.
• 19:40
  I just, I it's a phenomenon that I that I didn't die though.
• 19:43
  Overdosing, multiple times. It's just An almond on that.
• 19:47
  I'm still your breathing. You survived.
• 19:48
  Yep. So I get fired in January and
• 19:54
  I'm jobless for about 5 months up until you know, Junior,
• 19:58
  whatever parents parents. I'm living back at home at the
• 20:00
  parents. I had just had a townhouse.
• 20:02
  I've lived on my own and lived with people but it was never for
• 20:06
  very long because I just couldn't manage my life.
• 20:08
  Do you hear that phrase? Like with addiction?
• 20:10
  You go in and out Tom and it was bad so I couldn't manage my
• 20:14
  life. Living at home with the parents.
• 20:17
  I had just gotten my Infinity in the shop because I was wrecking
• 20:20
  it and it's getting a transmission replaced and some
• 20:23
  control arms and stuff because I ran into something or whatever
• 20:27
  everything that I had was broke or you know, I was in between
• 20:30
  this or that, or there was, it was always something just messy
• 20:33
  messy. Yep.
• 20:34
  So my mom, let me borrow her truck.
• 20:36
  I was doing these outpatient treatment program because well,
• 20:40
  let me back up a little bit. During this time, I was involved
• 20:44
  in an outpatient treatment. Program, because I just got out
• 20:47
  of another psych ward. You have an overdose, they send
• 20:50
  you to a psych ward. It's just, what happens, you
• 20:52
  know. So, part of the stipulation for
• 20:54
  me to get out of the psych ward, I don't really remember, but I
• 20:59
  would say, only for a few weeks, probably, you know, I just
• 21:02
  visited a psych ward Saturday, dude.
• 21:04
  It was, some of them aren't what's?
• 21:06
  Yeah. So yeah, it's wow.
• 21:09
  That's, that's probably the best explanation.
• 21:11
  There's voluntary and involuntary.
• 21:12
  Psych wards been in both found Terry's way better.
• 21:15
  Yeah. But still pretty nuts.
• 21:17
  Yeah. But anyway so yes I got out of
• 21:19
  there and part of the stipulation was that I did these
• 21:21
  outpatient programs and got a therapist or whatever.
• 21:24
  So I did I got back I was doing these outpatients and I went and
• 21:29
  seen my therapist for the first time.
• 21:31
  Shout out. Gene press and she wouldn't mind
• 21:33
  me sharing such a sweet lady. She was like, your grandma your
• 21:36
  favorite Grandma, right? She was such a beautiful awesome
• 21:39
  person and she was a Believer. You know, she believed in God,
• 21:42
  she believed in Jesus specifically and I I've seen a
• 21:46
  very unusual sight of God through her.
• 21:47
  So cool. It was like one of the first
• 21:51
  times I seen something that wasn't religion.
• 21:53
  You know, I seen something different Dynamic like family,
• 21:56
  you know? And it was just weird, just how
• 21:58
  she explained her relationship with God.
• 22:00
  It was like, I would explain my relationship with you or
• 22:03
  somebody else was Dynamic, you know, communication, right?
• 22:05
  So, which is nuts. I had a great time with her for
• 22:08
  the first time by time, I got done with that therapy session
• 22:12
  for the first time ever, I realized that my drinking and
• 22:15
  drugging. It's just the symptom of the
• 22:16
  real problem, right? I had a me disease, right?
• 22:19
  And so what that means is, I'm trying to like, self-medicate
• 22:23
  something that I have going. Internal spiritually, right?
• 22:25
  I'm spiritually sick. But I didn't know it.
• 22:28
  So I was like, holy cow, that's it.
• 22:30
  That's why I can't get right. You know, it was amazing.
• 22:32
  And she was like, yeah. A lot of things that happened in
• 22:35
  your childhood and things that happen throughout your life.
• 22:37
  You could try to escape from and blah, blah blah and that's just
• 22:40
  the way that you do so. So, it was just so neat because
• 22:43
  it was like, I started figuring out a piece to the puzzle is,
• 22:45
  Almost like and I might get this choppy but like Bill W when he's
• 22:48
  talking about ebi and he seems Abby come back and he's got the
• 22:51
  science about our addiction and he knows that it's like a
• 22:53
  physical thing, you know, scientifically our reaction to
• 22:57
  alcohol and stuff is different than other people's and then he
• 22:59
  sees ebi and he sees the spiritual antidote and he's
• 23:02
  like, whoa, let's merge these two things together and guess
• 23:04
  what happened at formed, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous or
• 23:08
  whatever directly 12-step meetings and things like that.
• 23:10
  So I had a really interesting, you know, moment in my therapy
• 23:13
  session That was pretty cool. I remember bragging to my best
• 23:17
  friend at the time, I got on the phone, with the moment, when I
• 23:19
  was leaving, there is drive my mom's truck.
• 23:21
  You know, because I have to go to these meetings and I'm
• 23:23
  getting ready to pick them up. So we could work on my buddies
• 23:25
  Harley or whatever and I'm calling them like dude you gotta
• 23:28
  like you just got to promise me. You're going to go to the
• 23:31
  therapy. He's struggling.
• 23:32
  He was struggling as well, you know, and he was all excited.
• 23:35
  He's like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go, he said, it sounds
• 23:37
  awesome. And I remember just being so
• 23:40
  excited. I picked them up and we're
• 23:41
  driving and, you know, I had the intentions.
• 23:46
  To work. I believe, I had the intentions
• 23:48
  to work on my buddy's bike, you know, at that time but like we
• 23:50
  were just excited and stuff and then I think I was just like,
• 23:53
  man, be cool if we just partied. You know what I mean, or drank
• 23:55
  or whatever. So we're driving the truck back
• 23:59
  and we're, you know, I'm I say were but to that day, it was
• 24:02
  really me. Just kind of making the plan, as
• 24:04
  Mike, was probably just wanted to chill or whatever and I'm
• 24:07
  driving back or whatever. And I remember we clip this dear
• 24:10
  clip, like the head of a do actually and it barely like
• 24:14
  touches the cars that need On Titan, right?
• 24:16
  So it just Clips the front of the bumper and it sends its
• 24:20
  spinning you know, in our rearview mirror whatever.
• 24:23
  But then it's making this like, wow, wow wow noise because it
• 24:26
  hit it just enough to bend the fender to where was rubbing on
• 24:28
  the tire? Well, it was weird because like
• 24:31
  for one, I was the first time I ever had a deer or came to
• 24:33
  anything close to that. And I looked over at my, he's
• 24:36
  looking at me and we're just like, man, something's just
• 24:38
  weird about that. Like, it's just like, it's like
• 24:40
  heavy, you know, like like an omen or something's going on.
• 24:44
  So we're you know, driving and Kind of talking about it, and I
• 24:47
  got that in my mind, but then I also got the overwhelming desire
• 24:50
  to, you know, get drunk or high or whatever, you know, so we go
• 24:54
  back to my house and my moms like, oh my gosh, what happened?
• 24:57
  Yeah, we got deer here in the tire wheel and then the
• 24:59
  Defenders, bummed. Yeah.
• 25:01
  Like, is a Deering on here. I am like I'm the victim or
• 25:04
  something, you know what I mean? And so, we're going back and
• 25:07
  forth and she's, you know, calling her insurance.
• 25:09
  You know, feel sorry for the hell that I put my mom and dad
• 25:12
  through, like, you never realized that an addiction, but
• 25:14
  it's like yours. Oh my gosh, with, looking back
• 25:17
  at the memories and stuff. It's just, it's sad.
• 25:19
  So anyway, I remember, you know, we're going through that whole
• 25:23
  ringer and, you know, this and that and she finally kind of
• 25:26
  calms down or whatever. Because this isn't just one
• 25:28
  thing this is like the billion thing that happened always
• 25:31
  something. And I was like, Mom but I really
• 25:34
  need to go over here and work on, you know, Mark Spike or
• 25:36
  whatever. So she ends up, ultimately agree
• 25:39
  and I'm literally going like right down the street because he
• 25:41
  lives in a subdivision next to us basically.
• 25:45
  So we're getting ready to do that.
• 25:46
  I go and make some chicken and hand a plate to Mike and I get a
• 25:50
  plate at this time, like, I knew of God, but I didn't really
• 25:53
  like, have a relationship with them.
• 25:54
  So, I always bless my meals, though, you know?
• 25:56
  So I was just in there praying, bless my meals, get up, Mike
• 26:00
  still blessing his meal, super weird.
• 26:02
  You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, he started doing
• 26:04
  it after I was doing, but for him to do it longer than me, it
• 26:07
  was just, it never happened. Later, that was the first and
• 26:10
  only time it ever happened. And I remember just wait because
• 26:13
  it was awkward, it was just taking them.
• 26:15
  So, So long and then when he was done, he just had this little
• 26:18
  smile and I wasn't looking like nodded his head and I'm just
• 26:20
  like I would love to just, you know, pay any amount of money to
• 26:24
  find out what was said in that prayer, you know what I mean?
• 26:26
  Because something happened. So anyway, so that that
• 26:29
  happened, we end up going out. I, you know, talked him into,
• 26:33
  you know, going out or whatever. So, we go to our favorite spot,
• 26:36
  Hooters at this time. I didn't drink and drive.
• 26:40
  I had to DWIs before. So I was the guy that would
• 26:44
  drive us. To the bar sober and then
• 26:48
  somebody else would drive my vehicle or drive their vehicle
• 26:51
  home. You know, because I had two
• 26:53
  strikes and I wasn't trying to get a third or whatever.
• 26:54
  So, but this time, I remember we went and we got like a 12 pack
• 26:59
  or something like that and I ended up drinking a couple like
• 27:02
  way out on a dirt road before we even weren't went out, you know
• 27:04
  what I mean? And so we did that.
• 27:07
  And then we went to the bar or whatever, and it was our
• 27:10
  favorite spot. It was anybody, any guys?
• 27:13
  Favorite spot, Hooters, right? And I didn't even have To say
• 27:15
  that, you know. So at the time that was just
• 27:17
  what we were into. So we went there and for the
• 27:21
  first time in forever we I was actually having a good time
• 27:24
  which was crazy because my addiction just for so long.
• 27:28
  Just we had a good meeting with your therapist that to, yeah,
• 27:31
  there was a breakthrough there and I just remember, you know,
• 27:34
  we were drinking and having a good time and then all of a
• 27:38
  sudden was just like, boom, I just blacked out, you know, next
• 27:43
  thing I know I'm Waking. Can up and I see a really,
• 27:47
  really bright light in front of me.
• 27:49
  And I'm trying to like, squint to kind of peer through the
• 27:52
  light. And I'm looking beyond the
• 27:54
  light. I see like this upper-level,
• 27:58
  it's a window. And I see silhouettes of people
• 28:00
  with clipboards looking down on me.
• 28:02
  I'm like, okay, that's weird. Keep looking down further.
• 28:06
  Now, I'm looking at myself, I realize that I'm completely
• 28:09
  naked. I'm on an operating table and my
• 28:13
  legs are Lacerated. Flayed, open shards of metal and
• 28:18
  glass to the Bone. I mean, is yeah, it's just it
• 28:25
  didn't look. It just looked gross.
• 28:28
  Seeing that seen a surgeon pulling, some of the stuff out
• 28:31
  of my legs and this is just the sick part of it.
• 28:37
  Is that the first thought, like, I'm looking at stuff, right?
• 28:40
  Trying to figure stuff out, but I'm not really having a thought
• 28:42
  yet, right? I'm just trying to figure out
• 28:43
  what's going on. Soon as I figure out what's
• 28:46
  going on, I'm like, okay, something happened.
• 28:48
  You know, my first thought was I want to get high.
• 28:52
  Now at this point I was already wasted, they already gave me
• 28:55
  pain medicine. Part of my deal was like I never
• 28:59
  felt like I was high enough so that's what would lead an
• 29:01
  overdose. Yeah.
• 29:03
  So it's like I could have been plastered but like in my mind I
• 29:05
  didn't really feel like it. I wasn't there yet.
• 29:08
  So that was my first thought was like I want to get high so I
• 29:10
  start doing and I'm trying to manipulate the doctor like us
• 29:13
  addicts do. And it'll give me some More
• 29:15
  painkillers. And I remember what happened is.
• 29:19
  I ask them that question, you know, to see if I could get
• 29:21
  something for the pain or whatever.
• 29:23
  I remember he just like he was already moving kind of slow
• 29:27
  methodical surgeon, right? So he's just got very, like,
• 29:29
  deliberate and methodical movements, he just pause there.
• 29:33
  You know what he was doing? He turned over look me in the
• 29:37
  eyes and he said, what you really need to be worried about
• 29:39
  right now is your best friend who had to get air, vac to
• 29:42
  another hospital because he's no longer breathing, hmm?
• 29:45
  so, the whole getting high thing was just instantly terminated by
• 29:50
  that gone, wasn't even thinking about it.
• 29:53
  And now my mind's obsessing over the fact of, okay, what happened
• 29:57
  for one, right? And who was driving for two?
• 30:01
  And I know it's got to be bad, whatever, you know, Mike's going
• 30:05
  through, but he's gonna pull through, right?
• 30:06
  You know, to mean, he might have got knocked out.
• 30:08
  He's not breathing. Like something's gonna, you
• 30:10
  know, it's going to be okay. So, I fell back out, blacked out
• 30:16
  again, woke back up. Now I'm in the hospital room and
• 30:20
  I pick up the phone to call my parents to tell them what
• 30:23
  happened, call my mom, and they've been through stuff like
• 30:27
  this before, you know. So at this point it's not even a
• 30:32
  real big shock or to them as crazy as it sounds mom's truck
• 30:36
  totaled calling dad and them and they're just thankful that I'm a
• 30:41
  little right. My dad Mike was my best friend,
• 30:44
  so like he had Presence at the Christmas tree, like we were
• 30:47
  inseparable, we were like, just we did everything together.
• 30:52
  Some my dad was going on his way to Mike's hospital, because he
• 30:55
  was in a worse situation than I was, but mine was on the way.
• 31:00
  So on his way to Mike's, he ended up swinging by stopping at
• 31:04
  mine. You know, was just like, Just
• 31:08
  shredded just torn apart. You know, I just wanted to get
• 31:12
  through this. My dad was a very, he was a
• 31:13
  dreamer. He was you know, very he's just
• 31:17
  an optimist, you always believed in me when I didn't and no one
• 31:20
  else did. I mean he was going through it,
• 31:22
  right? But, like, he just was a
• 31:25
  cheerleader for you. Oh yeah.
• 31:26
  It was so strange. Like, it almost irritated me at
• 31:29
  times, but so we ended up me put my phone down over there.
• 31:34
  Um, was buzzing on us, but I ended up coming to my room, we
• 31:39
  talked for a minute he ended up leaving to make a phone.
• 31:42
  Call made a phone, call came back in the room.
• 31:45
  Things were different. This time.
• 31:49
  I know that he was just fighting back emotions.
• 31:51
  You want to sit on my hospital bed, which he did, you put his
• 31:56
  left hand on my left thigh and it was looking at me and he was
• 32:00
  fighting to find the words and it's like, hey, Ronnie.
• 32:02
  I you know, I'm sorry to tell you this but they just pulled my
• 32:06
  golf a life-support and he's No longer, he's no longer with us
• 32:11
  and it was just like, dude. Um, I don't know how to describe
• 32:16
  it, but like, if your soul was in your stomach, it was like
• 32:19
  having it just ripped out and stomped on in that moment.
• 32:23
  And I remember it was just like instantly.
• 32:28
  I went into like numbness and shocked.
• 32:31
  I mean, I cried obviously then and at that moment and I was
• 32:35
  overwhelmed and I was her I was confused.
• 32:38
  Use. I was like, this is gonna be a
• 32:40
  nightmare. I like ended up dealing with
• 32:42
  some, like, mental trauma to where I started feeling like
• 32:45
  reality was a dream and then dreams felt more like reality.
• 32:48
  It was really weird. I can end up getting put on a
• 32:51
  lot of psychotic medicine because of it.
• 32:54
  I can't imagine Ronnie because I think a lot of people wonder
• 32:58
  what that's like, you know, because killing, you know, like
• 33:01
  a murder, you know, you you know what's going on, you know.
• 33:05
  Like you you're you're doing that.
• 33:08
  At a life is taken. And but there was an action that
• 33:11
  you intend to attend Indiana, where as this is different.
• 33:16
  This, this is such a weird type of emotion thing that I think
• 33:19
  that a lot of people wonder about because it's involuntary.
• 33:23
  You didn't mean to. It's like, you're your friend.
• 33:28
  Yeah. And but you still have to go
• 33:30
  through the whole thing. At that person.
• 33:32
  Didn't make it. Yeah.
• 33:33
  And it's just, he's got to be just a weird mind buzz.
• 33:36
  It is that's A weird mind buzzes is probably one of a hundred
• 33:41
  different things that we could call it.
• 33:42
  Um but what I would say is it just really like man it hardened
• 33:49
  my heart and just kind of numbed me, you know what I mean?
• 33:51
  Like I don't know how else to describe it and that's why I
• 33:55
  ended up seeing my therapist. Again seeing a psychiatrist
• 33:57
  because I was like I legitimately feel like this
• 34:01
  isn't real right now, you know what I mean?
• 34:04
  So a strange I ended up at the time.
• 34:06
  The first avatar was out. Out and I remember I mean four
• 34:09
  weeks I didn't leave the couch but to go smoke a cigarette and
• 34:12
  people would look at me like a zoo animal because I was just, I
• 34:15
  was dead. I was just a freaking Hollow
• 34:17
  tomb of a person, you know, didn't talk and just anyway, but
• 34:22
  you know later on, once I started doing more things, the
• 34:26
  Psychiatry and therapy and going around some, you know, 12-step
• 34:32
  type meetings and stuff like that.
• 34:35
  I ended up finding There's this movie at the time, that's the
• 34:39
  point. I was trying to make Avatar that
• 34:42
  came out. And I think the thing that
• 34:44
  really attracted me to Avatar is there is this guy that was
• 34:46
  paralyzed. And dude, I was so mad at God
• 34:49
  and I was begging. I'm like why did you allow me to
• 34:51
  like walk? Like you know it's bad enough
• 34:54
  that for one I just wish you would have killed me.
• 34:56
  Like I was so mad at God that he would let me live through that
• 35:03
  and or that he would just I was like why wouldn't you just take
• 35:05
  me and let him live or something, you know?
• 35:08
  Um, so then I watched that movie, I haven't turned the the
• 35:10
  main character is paralyzed, which is what I wanted to be,
• 35:14
  and he was in a nightmare of a situation where he didn't like
• 35:17
  that life. Then he got put in this thing
• 35:19
  and became this Avatar. And it was this beautiful world.
• 35:22
  There's a beautiful woman and it was paralyzing him.
• 35:24
  He was against the the world and just the confusion things were
• 35:28
  simpler and it's just like I was so beautiful that I literally
• 35:32
  watched that same movie every single day until I court hearing
• 35:36
  or whatever. So in with let's talk about that
• 35:39
  too because you had to deal with all of your emotions of losing
• 35:43
  your friend and then finding out that it was because you were in
• 35:47
  this car accident and you know he gets thrown and you lose him.
• 35:52
  Yeah but then you have this whole other world that comes
• 35:55
  into existence that you're going to be charged and you're going
• 35:58
  to have to go through, you know the whole legal system.
• 36:03
  Justice system of dealing with all that.
• 36:06
  Getting an attorney and and going through those steps that
• 36:10
  process, I mean were you just in a state of a blur?
• 36:15
  I mean was it just just dude? Yeah, I mean it's just hard to
• 36:19
  even figure out where to start with that, it was in a lot of
• 36:25
  ways. It was the only way that it was
• 36:27
  good as how I should word that. Is that it drove me.
• 36:32
  Into a relationship with God. Like super hard super fast
• 36:35
  because I was grasping at everything else in the world and
• 36:39
  nothing else was working. And it was like he was my only
• 36:42
  other option but I didn't. Just at first, I was willingly
• 36:48
  going through the stuff and I was hoping like, I didn't want
• 36:51
  to go to prison. I knew I'd, I felt like I
• 36:53
  deserved it. I was like I did something.
• 36:55
  It cost my friend his life, the least I can do is, you know, go
• 36:58
  serve a sentence. You know what I mean?
• 37:00
  But, I didn't actually want to do that but I think that was
• 37:03
  right. Yeah.
• 37:04
  But I didn't I like I reached that for a little while and then
• 37:08
  I didn't like something switched after one of the treatments and
• 37:11
  I'm like, this is like overwhelm.
• 37:13
  I can be serving up to 15 years. Already killed my best friend,
• 37:16
  and having to deal with that. And I was like in.
• 37:20
  Now you're going to make me go to prison for 15 years.
• 37:22
  I'm like, no way. Yeah, so I ended up like leaving
• 37:26
  instead of going back home. I was in a rehab in Florida.
• 37:29
  I ended up leaving with somebody.
• 37:31
  A guy they're going back to his parents house or whatever where
• 37:34
  I was trying to get a passport so that I could flee the
• 37:36
  country. You know, I did some research.
• 37:39
  I was like, I'm going to the Philippines, it's 80% English,
• 37:41
  and Christian, I'm like, I'm just jetting there and it's not
• 37:45
  Expediting. That was the other thing that
• 37:46
  was important to me, obviously, you don't want to get anyone the
• 37:49
  extra. So I was on my way to do that, I
• 37:53
  actually had a passport come and I had filled out for it, had it
• 37:55
  coming. And the crazy thing is is I
• 37:58
  ended up. I don't even know why but like,
• 38:01
  I opened up the Bible and I wasn't reading the Bible at this
• 38:04
  point, but I opened it up and when I opened it up, I read like
• 38:09
  a part of the store. I can't remember exactly where
• 38:11
  it was. But it had to do with Paul, and
• 38:12
  Paul basically given himself up to the authorities, which
• 38:16
  happened when he surrendered himself to Rome.
• 38:19
  And I'm reading that on the page and God is just like, man, go
• 38:23
  home surrender. I don't like what 15 years in
• 38:28
  prison. What like, what?
• 38:30
  Like, what God hit you with something, you'll do whatever it
• 38:34
  don't even matter because he Graces you to do it.
• 38:36
  So he did, he blasted me. And I called my, you know,
• 38:40
  parents up and I was like, alright, it's time to go home.
• 38:42
  They knew I was fleeing, you know, they didn't like it but
• 38:45
  they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 38:46
  Okay. So I ended up coming back home
• 38:49
  and working some programs and stuff like that.
• 38:53
  Working recovery work. My therapist work in Psychiatry
• 38:57
  and I found so much through certain types of recovery
• 39:01
  programs. I found a real Dynamic
• 39:04
  relationship with God and that year that I had on bail and
• 39:07
  house arrest. I mean, it was, it was nuts.
• 39:10
  I started memorizing scripture. It's crazy, right?
• 39:13
  I like it kind of gave you something to hang on to it did.
• 39:16
  Yeah. And the thing that I wanted to,
• 39:18
  especially when you're feeling overwhelmed, I'm sure that you
• 39:23
  were looking for, I needed something.
• 39:25
  Yeah, absolutely. And it was weird because I was
• 39:28
  around people like this particular meeting, In the
• 39:31
  basement of a church and a lot of recovery stuff is in
• 39:34
  basements of churches and Facilities like that.
• 39:37
  So I was there and the recovery is just like whatever you know
• 39:40
  to me like you could believe that your higher power is a
• 39:43
  chair or whatever. Yeah but I just seen something
• 39:46
  different and some people there it's like they knew something
• 39:48
  that I didn't. They have this smirk on their
• 39:50
  face. They had joy that I couldn't
• 39:52
  even think I could ever reach. I was like, I want what they
• 39:55
  got. So I had one of them sponsor me
• 39:57
  and I started doing what he did and one of his big things was
• 40:00
  Like you know, don't walk by God Walk with them.
• 40:05
  I was like I need to do that. He's like read his word.
• 40:07
  So he gave me the Bible, you know?
• 40:09
  And he was like don't just read it.
• 40:11
  Memorize it, make it a part of your life.
• 40:13
  It tells you stuff. It gives you instruction.
• 40:15
  He's like be ible basic instructions before leaving
• 40:18
  Earth, he's like, just keep it simple stupid.
• 40:20
  You know what I mean? Read this do this.
• 40:22
  So, I did and I started growing I had on and off recovery during
• 40:26
  that time, but I kept dabbling with the marijuana maintenance
• 40:29
  program, but I Gained like a pretty good.
• 40:32
  I don't want to call it like a following but it's kind of like
• 40:35
  a tribe of people that, you know, seen me trying.
• 40:39
  And they just kind of flopped around me and Recovery through
• 40:42
  the faith through family through other friends that see me trying
• 40:46
  to do something different and you felt that and I felt that.
• 40:49
  Yep. And it was crazy because the
• 40:51
  there was a girl that was in a similar situation and she had
• 40:55
  two offenses. She was involved in a drunk
• 40:57
  driving accident, she killed her friend.
• 41:00
  And who got objected and she served like a 120 in prison or
• 41:05
  whatever like a treatment basically.
• 41:07
  So I was like, man, that's a possibility.
• 41:09
  I mean like, that would be so cool, you know, and I was
• 41:11
  praying so much. I had everybody in the world
• 41:13
  praying. So many people praying that I
• 41:15
  knew that no matter what happened that day, when that
• 41:17
  judge cracked that gavel, I knew that that was God was behind
• 41:20
  that, you know what I mean? So I'll take you there.
• 41:23
  Let's just go, there were in the courtroom now, okay, half of the
• 41:27
  pews or whatever are filled up with just people that support me
• 41:29
  or whatever. And it's amazing.
• 41:32
  I'm leaving out some of the details that I just want to be
• 41:35
  sensitive to everybody who was involved with the accident.
• 41:37
  So I just won't say much more other than that.
• 41:42
  But we had the hearing or whatever it was a guilty, plea.
• 41:46
  I think yeah because we weren't fighting or whatever.
• 41:49
  We're just trying to do a guilty plea or whatever.
• 41:52
  And I remember when the judge crack the gavel down and she
• 41:56
  said the following, it just, it just blew my mind.
• 41:59
  She was like, all right. And I now sentence, You 28 years
• 42:02
  in the Department of Corrections I'm like wow um totally didn't
• 42:07
  see that comment. I'm like 8 years 8 years, I'm 24
• 42:12
  years old right now. I can't even think about eight
• 42:14
  years you know I haven't even been an adult for that long, you
• 42:18
  know. So everybody in the courtroom
• 42:21
  already, a sad thing, everybody's sad, not the type of
• 42:24
  ending that we were thinking, but I knew I was only person in
• 42:28
  the courtroom that didn't cry because like, I just New.
• 42:31
  I'm like this is where God wants me, is that sounds crazy, right?
• 42:35
  But sometimes he takes. So you weren't shocked, wasn't
• 42:38
  it? Well, so, it's weird.
• 42:41
  I know when they, when they slapped down.
• 42:42
  Yeah, five years on me. I felt like the breath in my
• 42:47
  body. That I like, I all left.
• 42:49
  My, ya know. There was so, did it surprise me
• 42:54
  or shocked me? That.
• 42:56
  That was the turnout. Yes, I didn't.
• 42:58
  I didn't think for a second, it would be that But what was
• 43:02
  coupled with that and what worked in tandem was this
• 43:05
  knowing and understanding you had a, you felt different.
• 43:08
  Mmm because I was like, okay, this is assignment at this
• 43:11
  point. So it was weird.
• 43:13
  I remember my first. So that was, you know, the
• 43:16
  court. And I'm saying my goodbyes and I
• 43:17
  leave, there I go, they probably just think a few and count me
• 43:20
  and take me away. And that weird, it's just that
• 43:23
  said, I walk through a different door than I came in, right?
• 43:26
  And then. Yep, yep.
• 43:27
  And they start booking me and stuff.
• 43:29
  And you're just trying to Says the fact that you will no longer
• 43:34
  see any of the stuff that you just seen for a whole life has
• 43:37
  changed for eight years. That's all gone.
• 43:39
  And I'm like, how is that even possible?
• 43:41
  I can't just go over to someone's house on a weekend and
• 43:43
  just have a weekend break or something.
• 43:45
  Yeah. And I think the thing that
• 43:47
  happens on that to Ronnie is that you have the physical part
• 43:50
  of it that, you know, all the colors in the world, just go,
• 43:53
  you know, to graze and and cows, and yeah, concrete and whatever.
• 43:58
  But yeah, your mental thing is, is you can't.
• 44:00
  Do things anymore. You can't just go to Quick Trip
• 44:04
  or you can't just walk and go for a walk out of watching a dog
• 44:08
  in the car. Can't do anything.
• 44:10
  You want you to think. It's truly everything every
• 44:12
  single thing. So let's do, let's take a break,
• 44:15
  here ya. Go into our other sponsor here
• 44:19
  for the show, which is Aaron Duncan dotnet.
• 44:23
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  Surgeon for bad news. Making it go away.
• 45:39
  Okay, we're back. So we're going to talk about
• 45:42
  Ronnie. You have now stepped into the,
• 45:45
  the other Yeah, Jeff to the other side.
• 45:47
  It's like the reverse of the good stuff of Avatar.
• 45:50
  Yeah, it was like, I went the other way with the other way, so
• 45:54
  which was crazy because it was almost like not going.
• 45:57
  The other way though. I went from one nightmare to a
• 45:59
  different nightmare, which is weird.
• 46:01
  Oh, so weird like my mind and what, like looking back like
• 46:05
  well what is true and walk us through.
• 46:06
  So you go out the other door. Yeah.
• 46:08
  Go out the other door, start processing processing.
• 46:11
  So what what happens next? Well, I ended up getting taken.
• 46:16
  Akin to county or whatever and county jails.
• 46:20
  The worst counties is terrible. Yeah, there's no TVs, there's no
• 46:23
  nothing. But yeah it's bad plus everybody
• 46:25
  just got smoked with sentences act so they're super mad.
• 46:28
  Other people are like in limbo on getting waiting and they
• 46:31
  can't believe they're waiting. Yeah, they're mad and they're
• 46:34
  smoking everybody in there because they think people's
• 46:36
  telling automatically everybody's ass that.
• 46:37
  Yeah. So they're on the phone and
• 46:39
  they're whooping people and I'm just like, what did you guys get
• 46:41
  to be a snack? Yeah, like beat up on him.
• 46:44
  What just, where am I? No, um, so but I had a Bible
• 46:49
  there. I, you know, I got my Bible.
• 46:50
  Remember the first day, I woke up on my mat.
• 46:52
  It was in an open Bay and I'm just like day one.
• 46:56
  Yeah. Like, I don't know what the math
• 46:57
  on but like, take eight years times. 365 there's a lot of one
• 47:02
  day, if you can't do that in prison, you know, that's the one
• 47:05
  thing. Oh, my gosh.
• 47:06
  You have to try to win the day one day at a time because if you
• 47:09
  do not look at that, eight years is to now the world would ever
• 47:13
  get there. He can't the only Thing that I,
• 47:16
  what I would do, because they would give you those little
• 47:18
  like, Salvation Army calendars that are about the size of a
• 47:20
  business card, and they will literally have every single day
• 47:23
  on there and all the months on there.
• 47:25
  I would wait like three or four months before I scratched
• 47:28
  anything off and then scratch and then I would scratch about
• 47:31
  four months off and throw it in a drawer and let it just builds
• 47:34
  up. There should be Ronnie a whole
• 47:36
  book on how prisoners count time.
• 47:38
  Oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 47:40
  Oh my gosh. So so yeah.
• 47:42
  That was day one. It was just Was just weird.
• 47:46
  It was just a different different culture.
• 47:50
  I was, you know, reading the word and stuff like that and had
• 47:53
  my relationship with God, which is awesome.
• 47:55
  I carried that with me and found some guys in there, that we
• 47:58
  started doing some Bible study and stuff like that, which was
• 48:01
  cool, but it was still rough. I remember like, here's an
• 48:05
  example. This is something that you don't
• 48:06
  even think about Ike. I use chapstick right?
• 48:08
  My lips are always getting dry or whatever.
• 48:10
  I try to go without it and it just like my brother.
• 48:13
  Yeah, walks around with all the time I do.
• 48:15
  Yeah, it's terrible. He'll hate it.
• 48:16
  But but anyway. So like I they don't give you a
• 48:19
  ChapStick in there. Like, I mean they you can get it
• 48:21
  but your lips have to be cracked bleeding and gushing everywhere
• 48:24
  for them to move. Literally, like, they will not
• 48:27
  address it right and County unless it's happening.
• 48:30
  So I'm trying to like the butter tricks off of the trays or
• 48:32
  whatever you take the butter and try to put on your, but that's
• 48:34
  not working. In my lips, are all cracked and
• 48:36
  busted and bleeding everywhere and I just can't get freaking
• 48:39
  Carmex for my life finally get it.
• 48:42
  I don't know. It was a couple weeks or
• 48:43
  whatever, but, you know, finally got it.
• 48:46
  And I go to I'm in a pot or whatever for a little bit.
• 48:49
  I actually get ship pretty quick, because I was only in
• 48:51
  county for a few weeks, I think before I get shit.
• 48:55
  So you go to, did you go to your permanent know you went around
• 48:59
  sticks? Yeah.
• 48:59
  So, I went from County to Diagnostics.
• 49:02
  I was in Fulton at that time there were like, massive
• 49:06
  incarceration going on. Like, the prisons were over
• 49:08
  full. It's not good.
• 49:10
  So, they had the bunk beds out, you know what I mean?
• 49:12
  And like, it literally took me. Six months in Diagnostics to
• 49:18
  even get shipped to my main line Camp well.
• 49:20
  So I did six months in Diagnostics before I ever went
• 49:23
  to my main line camp that was a trip.
• 49:26
  So, going from County to that, like, once I finally got into
• 49:28
  the general pot, I could get like a little coffee bag or
• 49:31
  something. I remember the day that I was
• 49:32
  going to get my canteen. Give my canteen bag in there.
• 49:35
  Like, all right, you're getting shipped out and you can't take
• 49:37
  nothing with you. And I like flood because the
• 49:40
  weird thing is about prison is that it's a really big deal to
• 49:44
  get set up like You feel like you have some, I don't have much
• 49:49
  in your world. No, but didn't you get to get
• 49:52
  shipped somewhere. It's like so it's upheaval of
• 49:57
  your world. It's the same thing as like
• 49:59
  moving high schools, moving their schools or whatever.
• 50:01
  I mean, I literally had to do it again but I had to do more on.
• 50:03
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 50:04
  It's so you're right. That's exactly what happened
• 50:06
  just when I started getting cool.
• 50:08
  Some people. Yeah.
• 50:08
  All right, man. I'm getting tired of your
• 50:09
  Rhythm, boom. Time to go and it's always a
• 50:12
  mysterious big question mark. So where am I going?
• 50:14
  Yep. She want to get transferred
• 50:15
  from. From County to falton you go
• 50:18
  through J, Triple C, I believe. I went to Jay triple.
• 50:20
  See that time and then this like the Overflow or whatever or no,
• 50:24
  hold on. No I went straight to I went
• 50:26
  straight to Fulton that time. Matter of fact yeah I was there
• 50:29
  with a buddy. Gosh dang.
• 50:32
  I don't I'm not going to say his name, I don't think he would
• 50:34
  even care but this guy was like, you know, he just did not like
• 50:39
  certain types of people and I'm trying to just be, you know, you
• 50:43
  know. Consider it or whatever.
• 50:45
  But there was a certain type of person that was there and it was
• 50:49
  charge related. I should say, you know, nothing
• 50:52
  culturally, but it was charge related, he had a particular
• 50:54
  case and I'm sure people have been in time.
• 50:56
  You could quickly figure out what kind of case that was in
• 51:01
  the people in County knew not to put him around particular
• 51:04
  people, but they sat down right next to him when he found out
• 51:06
  that that happened and he got mad everybody in unison, even
• 51:10
  me, I didn't even know what I was doing because you're in
• 51:12
  shackles with your hands all the way down to your ankles.
• 51:14
  Goes in. There is a chain in between and
• 51:16
  you can't get up your lock to the seat.
• 51:18
  Everybody just pop their legs up and you literally seen like
• 51:21
  there was probably seven of us with cocked legs aimed right at
• 51:25
  this. Dude's head about to just like
• 51:26
  kick him through the side of the van or whatever.
• 51:29
  I'm like, what is going on about?
• 51:30
  But I was like, I got to be a part of it.
• 51:32
  You know what I mean, I'd it was just like a reflex or whatever.
• 51:34
  So they ended up getting it to where they were able to get this
• 51:38
  guy. Moved somewhere else or whatever
• 51:40
  which was cool and nothing ended up happened in there but I'm
• 51:42
  like wow this is, you know, this is different.
• 51:44
  Seen people getting smoked in count County.
• 51:47
  A guy, literally got knocked out right almost into my lap.
• 51:49
  I had to move and I'm just like, dude, this is nuts.
• 51:54
  So then I go to Diagnostics, and it's a whole nother different,
• 51:56
  kind of nuts, and you hear about soup and soup in people's head
• 52:00
  up and just stuff that you got to do.
• 52:01
  I had to fight a guy over bathroom, right?
• 52:04
  Like he got in front of me in line for the bathroom on the
• 52:07
  wing. And everybody was like, who's
• 52:10
  about it? But I'm just like, hold up.
• 52:12
  Like I'm going to have to fight now, you know what I mean?
• 52:13
  So, I had to go. And fight this guy or whatever.
• 52:16
  And I was never big on fighting. I had my triggers that would
• 52:19
  send me there but I didn't I wasn't really like a combative
• 52:22
  person or whatever. I was usually like a peacemaker
• 52:24
  or whatever. So it was just a different
• 52:26
  environment you know and I had to just turn into a different
• 52:29
  type of person. I hated it was just against my
• 52:31
  anatomy. Yeah so I did and that was
• 52:34
  Diagnostics then I got shipped a Bowling Green which was a level
• 52:39
  4 prison at the time it had a death fence, you know.
• 52:43
  So that was different on this particular prison yard and on
• 52:46
  most prison yards you can't see outside the prison like they got
• 52:49
  the houses and stuff designed to where you can see.
• 52:51
  Yeah. It's almost like it's always in
• 52:53
  a valley to like there was between two houses you could see
• 52:56
  a highway sign and like maybe like you'd see a semi truck
• 53:00
  driving by but that was it. So I was there for a year and
• 53:04
  really confined yet really isolated.
• 53:06
  And how long were you there? I was there for just a year and
• 53:10
  that was crazy. There was many riots, actual
• 53:13
  Riot, there was Having there was just like, I mean everything
• 53:16
  that you're gonna make it look, oh my gosh and I'll scare us 24
• 53:21
  years old and, you know, just gangs and just everything.
• 53:24
  It was just crazy mentors. That try to help you out did
• 53:28
  man, shoutout. Dennis, Patterson, if you're
• 53:30
  listening to this and I'll try to remember to call them and
• 53:33
  have them listen to this. But Danny Patterson, man, he is
• 53:35
  awesome. So big deal with somebody this
• 53:37
  dude through the yep, The Strange World.
• 53:40
  Yeah. He was a super cool guy
• 53:42
  ex-military. Ex-marine and he was just, you
• 53:47
  know, from can I think it was from Kentucky?
• 53:49
  Sorry Danny if I'm getting this wrong or Cincinnati Ohio, maybe
• 53:53
  Cincinnati Ohio. Sorry, forgive me for that one
• 53:56
  of those too, but he's a country boy, you know?
• 53:58
  And he just man, nobody mess with them.
• 54:03
  He had done drunk. Oh my God.
• 54:05
  Like he had done five years and he was, I was his friend and I
• 54:08
  was scared of him. So I see what I mean.
• 54:11
  But he was super cool. I remember this one day and I
• 54:13
  had a lot of You know, cool things happen.
• 54:15
  A lot of, you know, in-betweens and stuff, you know, I you know
• 54:19
  everything or whatever, I experienced it all in there.
• 54:22
  But one of the cool things that happened was there was this guy
• 54:25
  that just got out of you know the whole he was shot caller for
• 54:28
  the Crips. You got put right across from my
• 54:30
  bunk or whatever and he was cutting this guy's hair on in my
• 54:35
  bunker, whatever. I'm like, oh crap, like this
• 54:37
  thing's way bigger than me, dude.
• 54:38
  You know what I mean? Like, he would smoke me in a
• 54:41
  fight. Yeah.
• 54:41
  I'm like I gotta say something to him.
• 54:43
  I like can't be that. That guy, I have to say
• 54:45
  something. This guy.
• 54:46
  I don't want to do that. And so I did and it was so
• 54:49
  crazy. I don't know why I didn't call
• 54:50
  me, Abby or something right there.
• 54:52
  And like, but he didn't or whatever he was just like, you
• 54:54
  know, complaining probably because he's seen that, you
• 54:57
  know, some of the people that I was hanging around with, you
• 54:59
  know, and he was just smart or whatever or he was just, he just
• 55:02
  political stuff. You know what I mean?
• 55:03
  Until like, he was probably just like, trying to see, are, you
• 55:06
  know, I'm going to be barking right now but not say anything,
• 55:09
  deliberate. And just, I'm just want to see
• 55:11
  who all is involved or I don't know what.
• 55:13
  I have no idea. He should have just knocked me
• 55:15
  out. Yeah.
• 55:15
  You know what I mean? I wasn't like a jerk about it or
• 55:18
  whatever I was like you know, as courageous as you could be,
• 55:21
  while being scared to death, you know.
• 55:24
  So he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, I
• 55:26
  had to go to Med pass but it looked like he was kind of
• 55:28
  moving out of the area and I had to go to Med pass anyway.
• 55:30
  So I went to Med pass and I'm like, crap Lacey.
• 55:32
  My shoes up super tight and I'm in my head.
• 55:34
  I'm like, I got to fight this guy.
• 55:36
  Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna get whupped.
• 55:37
  I don't want to fight him. I scared, you know, and I
• 55:40
  remember when I came back, he was smiling and stuff.
• 55:43
  He's like, hey bro, man, I just Wanted to say, you know, my bad,
• 55:45
  you know. I was just at school.
• 55:47
  I just he literally just did a year in the whole like one year
• 55:50
  in the hole and he came back and he was just being cool man.
• 55:54
  You know what I mean? I'm like, wow.
• 55:55
  Like I was like, that's yeah, that's what I was.
• 55:58
  I think it's so crazy how those things go through your mind to?
• 56:01
  Because there, there, there was a night, you know, when they,
• 56:04
  when they did Count, you know, they turn the lights off and
• 56:06
  when people to, you know, put their book lights on or whatever
• 56:09
  and these guys got in a fight and they knocked into my bunk
• 56:11
  bed knows, you know. We'll leave that I should say
• 56:16
  it. But then sinner thinking the
• 56:18
  guy, you know, came up after they got done with their little
• 56:20
  scuffle this. Hitman really?
• 56:21
  Sorry about that. So, that's so disrespectful.
• 56:24
  Was like, oh man, that's cool. Thank you for saving me for
• 56:26
  that. Yeah, so the the there was
• 56:30
  something that someone that had something to do with that.
• 56:33
  Right. I remember you know, the guy had
• 56:35
  said that are whatever super cool had that transaction but I
• 56:38
  was looking over and like my buddy Dan he's almost got a
• 56:40
  smirk over by his bunker whatever.
• 56:42
  And I remember like he pulled up On me and he was like Hey, you
• 56:45
  know, that's cool of what's name and he's like, that's pretty
• 56:47
  cool. And I was like, yeah.
• 56:49
  And like he knew something he was like yeah he was like when
• 56:53
  you left I just kind of, you know, pulled up on them.
• 56:55
  I mean, like not 25 or whatever but I just had to just use your
• 56:58
  charitable. So she was respect that.
• 57:00
  He was a respectful for person and he was just in a real kind
• 57:03
  way. Just like a man.
• 57:04
  Yeah. Hello guys, my partner.
• 57:05
  You know what I mean? You know, do you mind or
• 57:07
  whatever? And he, but he had respect so he
• 57:10
  could reproach a bro like that, right.
• 57:11
  You know what I mean? And another guy that recognize
• 57:13
  that was great. Have that some guy and he did, I
• 57:16
  didn't promise you. I think, you know what I mean, I
• 57:18
  had the opposite of that. I was a Youngster, I had a hard
• 57:20
  way to go, but anyway so yeah, he did that and it was just
• 57:24
  super awesome. We ended up selling I got kicked
• 57:26
  out into the other side of the yard and then I went back to
• 57:28
  the, his side or whatever, and we ended up selling for almost a
• 57:32
  year together. It was awesome.
• 57:34
  And he is the reason why I'm, as clean as I am, because he taught
• 57:38
  me how to GIS. Oh, man, he taught me how to GIS
• 57:40
  cell and this rag for this, this record of that, and we get it.
• 57:44
  Every single day. We cleaned our cell we GI or so
• 57:46
  really. So in washed our laundry like I
• 57:48
  went from I used to be so you know clean but then I ended up
• 57:52
  getting the house and making it a halfway house so I had to
• 57:54
  break those habits, right? But I used to be just like OCD
• 57:58
  with cleanliness because of it so, but anyway, yes, that was
• 58:01
  Bowling Green ended up getting transferred to Pacific.
• 58:04
  I was still sober throughout this period And in the which we
• 58:09
  will call it Diagnostic Center. I gotten high one time in the
• 58:14
  Center. But other than that was sober
• 58:16
  and then was sober all through Bowling Green, except for like
• 58:20
  the week before day before I transferred we ended up getting
• 58:24
  some heroin or whatever and boom, it was Off to the Races.
• 58:27
  I get transferred to Pacific completely different crowd
• 58:30
  again. I got to relearn everything and
• 58:33
  you know I'm in the wing and then decide with people that are
• 58:36
  just like just going hard. And from that point forward for
• 58:40
  five years of my incarceration, I was high almost five years.
• 58:44
  Years or whatever. I was high every single day of
• 58:47
  my life. There was only one day that I
• 58:49
  wasn't and it was like six days that I couldn't get anything.
• 58:52
  And I just felt so lost and scared and anxiety.
• 58:55
  It was yeah, it was nuts. So five years into it, I'm in a
• 59:00
  wing. My buddy, Ryan summer was was my
• 59:03
  Sally shot Ryan summer. I did three years in a cell with
• 59:06
  him. He might listen to this at some
• 59:08
  time and without interviewing. Yep happened.
• 59:11
  Absolutely. So we were in the South for a
• 59:13
  while, we were Jam together was pretty cool.
• 59:16
  And I remember, you know, we were getting high still.
• 59:19
  And at this time, people were just getting told on left and
• 59:22
  right. I mean, it was like crazy, my
• 59:25
  wing reasonably so because my wing had like three or four of
• 59:29
  the biggest dope dealers on the yard and my wing.
• 59:32
  So literally like all the dope fiends wanted to get into sure.
• 59:35
  They what happen there and wanted into to house a wing.
• 59:38
  You know we were there so it was cracking it was going crazy.
• 59:43
  Drop people getting drunk. Dropped six months at back.
• 59:45
  Holeshot instantaneously, you know.
• 59:47
  So that's when I started these Foxhole prayers.
• 59:50
  You know, I had a relationship with God.
• 59:51
  I had pretty much abandoned him. I would talk to him from time to
• 59:54
  time, but I pretty much abandoned them for the those
• 59:56
  five years. I'm like Lord this is a
• 59:58
  different world. I don't really see you in here
• 1:00:00
  too much. I mean like I don't know where
• 1:00:02
  you're at but it's like this is dark, you know?
• 1:00:04
  And it just was easier to just blend in right?
• 1:00:07
  Then to stick out or so I thought.
• 1:00:09
  Anyway, so I was you know, the seals were coming to do the
• 1:00:12
  urine analysis and people were Dropped left and right them
• 1:00:15
  doing these Foxhole prayers and like God if you just let the
• 1:00:18
  seal pass up myself, I'll sign up for a church service you know
• 1:00:22
  Bill me pass up the cell. I'd get the paperwork out, I'd
• 1:00:24
  fill it out, you know, and sign up for another one.
• 1:00:27
  And then I signed up for another one because I'm doing these
• 1:00:29
  Bargains. Right?
• 1:00:31
  Where I'm, I remember, I ended up doing so many Bargains that I
• 1:00:33
  was basically going to church every night of the week that you
• 1:00:36
  could go, you know, and then I was out of bargaining tools.
• 1:00:39
  Yeah. So I'm but I was just like, I
• 1:00:40
  have to like keep going to the services because if I don't,
• 1:00:43
  then I'm breaking my My side of the bargain bargain.
• 1:00:45
  Yeah. So then I won't have anything
• 1:00:46
  to, you know, argue with or whatever collateral.
• 1:00:50
  So I started going to these services and stuff.
• 1:00:52
  And like I said, you know, I had I had the foundation of my
• 1:00:54
  relationship with them but I was getting high still and that's
• 1:00:57
  like you don't really want to be in church when you're getting
• 1:00:59
  high or so. I thought, you know what I mean?
• 1:01:02
  Because it for my whole life I felt like oh if you don't get
• 1:01:05
  your crap together don't work on posture.
• 1:01:07
  Yeah, don't go to church if you still I got Hurts Habits and
• 1:01:10
  Hang-Ups right dramatically wrong, right?
• 1:01:13
  So I Going into church and I was like, wow, it's crazy.
• 1:01:16
  Every time I go in here for one of them accepted, you know.
• 1:01:18
  I don't put my business out there but everybody knows I'm
• 1:01:20
  the biggest dope fiend on the yard.
• 1:01:22
  You know what I mean? And I'm just like every time I
• 1:01:25
  go I always felt good. By the time I left, I heard
• 1:01:28
  something. You know, I got a message, I got
• 1:01:29
  a word, I heard a song, you know, God was speaking to me.
• 1:01:33
  Then I started wanting to go, you know.
• 1:01:34
  So I started going I was the guy in the very back row top right
• 1:01:38
  back corner couldn't be farther out of sight.
• 1:01:41
  And I would see some guys down there and like They'd start like
• 1:01:45
  during worship, they slip a hand up or something and I'm like,
• 1:01:48
  man, I just could never do that. Right?
• 1:01:50
  Was crazy cuz slowly but surely like I started wiggling an arm
• 1:01:53
  up or whatever. And then before, you know what,
• 1:01:55
  I got two arms up and I'm just not caring about what people
• 1:01:57
  think. I'm just connecting to God
• 1:01:59
  through this music, you know. And if somebody would look up my
• 1:02:02
  way I'd shoot my hands down, you know, and just kind of just kind
• 1:02:04
  of play it off with what with like a Little Rock, everybody
• 1:02:06
  cares what you were doing like but I think here what I was
• 1:02:08
  doing but I was so Plex top like something that was a huge like
• 1:02:12
  root of insecurity was I cared what people thought sir oh bad
• 1:02:17
  that it made me such a yeah, it made me not a genuine person,
• 1:02:21
  you know, made me a chameleon. So I'm just in the initial stage
• 1:02:25
  stages of having God lead me through dismantling that right
• 1:02:29
  to just find out who I am and being comfortable being in my
• 1:02:31
  own skin. Have a really funny story about
• 1:02:33
  that too here in a little bit. So I'm doing that slipping my
• 1:02:36
  hands up and stuff and one of the brothers comes up his
• 1:02:40
  name's, Barry Roberson shout out, Barry.
• 1:02:43
  You want to interview? Um he's out here doing good too.
• 1:02:45
  I got a good cleaning service and stuff like that.
• 1:02:48
  Yeah, yeah. Super awesome.
• 1:02:49
  This is like a I don't know how to like Pentecostal you.
• 1:02:54
  No Prophet like you know, when he would speak, you just get the
• 1:02:57
  haze in his eyes and it was just wild, it was a wild experience,
• 1:03:01
  you know, but I remember, he just got transferred and he was
• 1:03:04
  speaking and preaching and, you know, working with some guys and
• 1:03:07
  he was building a choir at the time, right?
• 1:03:09
  He had seen some amazing things in Charleston, which was a super
• 1:03:11
  max was the five and he was Man, I just Gods give me a word that
• 1:03:16
  he's going to do the same thing here.
• 1:03:17
  So he's trying to get people, you know, involved and stuff
• 1:03:19
  like that and he Taps you on the shoulder one day.
• 1:03:21
  He's like, hey I want you to sing in the choir.
• 1:03:24
  Funny thing is. Now he said that I could sing
• 1:03:26
  earlier what he meant is I can rap.
• 1:03:29
  There is a very big difference between the two and had you been
• 1:03:32
  rapping? No, I didn't even know that I
• 1:03:34
  could rap at this point. So that's a very good point.
• 1:03:36
  No, I wrote like poetry is what I would call.
• 1:03:39
  It was like, just like free verse because it was not like
• 1:03:43
  there's a lot. Of rappers in prison.
• 1:03:45
  Yeah, there is there is some very good in some very bad.
• 1:03:50
  Probably more bad than good. You know what I mean?
• 1:03:52
  And they'll let you hear the music that's for sure.
• 1:03:54
  Absolutely. So I'm somewhere in the middle
• 1:03:56
  there but I didn't know it at this time, right?
• 1:03:59
  So he asked me to sing in the choir and I was so tired of
• 1:04:02
  telling God know at this point that I would say yes to
• 1:04:05
  anything, if he was just like, hey, put on a skirt and pom-poms
• 1:04:08
  and be my cheerleader. I might have done it.
• 1:04:11
  You know what I mean? Because I was so desperate to do
• 1:04:13
  something different. So that To get a different
• 1:04:14
  result. So he was like, seeing the choir
• 1:04:17
  and before I could even know, I said yes, I said yes, like,
• 1:04:20
  before I even knew that it happened, I'm like, what did you
• 1:04:22
  just do you idiot like singer? I cannot only not sing but I
• 1:04:26
  can't even sing with autotune and that almost makes anyone's
• 1:04:30
  voice could. But I'm not, I'm being honest.
• 1:04:32
  Like, there's only probably a couple things on a couple songs
• 1:04:35
  little clips that I'll hit a particular note that I recorded
• 1:04:38
  four hundred times that we got auto-tune to make it not sound
• 1:04:41
  terrible and that's it. That is my career.
• 1:04:44
  And singing. So, but at this time, I didn't
• 1:04:46
  know it. So I'm going up, I didn't know
• 1:04:48
  what God was doing. God is so smart.
• 1:04:50
  Got us. So Sovereign I could come back
• 1:04:51
  to that word because he's like all knowing he's weaving.
• 1:04:54
  All this stuff together. He's brilliant.
• 1:04:56
  Remember when I said, picked up that bible heard about Paul
• 1:04:58
  turning himself in. I go turn myself in and now I'm
• 1:05:01
  going into prison but I just knew that.
• 1:05:03
  That's where he wanted me to be had no idea what all that was
• 1:05:06
  about and now he's got me in the services.
• 1:05:08
  Yep. Now he's got me for real
• 1:05:10
  surrendered. So what he was doing was he was
• 1:05:14
  Because my had such a big fear of public speaking, I still
• 1:05:17
  battle with anxiety and stuff at different levels for different
• 1:05:19
  events all the time, never gone away.
• 1:05:22
  Yep. Never gone away but it's more
• 1:05:24
  manageable because me and God have developed a track record at
• 1:05:27
  this point. I'm just like, man God, you came
• 1:05:29
  through like, you know, 150 times before.
• 1:05:31
  So you're going to come through again.
• 1:05:33
  Yep. So you just kind of work through
• 1:05:34
  that. But anyway, so I started singing
• 1:05:36
  in the choir what God was doing, as he was trying to get me past
• 1:05:41
  the paralysis of public speaking.
• 1:05:43
  I have a So fearful of it, that he wanted to put me in front of
• 1:05:46
  people, but he knew that he couldn't just call me up to give
• 1:05:49
  like a story or to speak alone because it'll be all eyes on.
• 1:05:52
  Frites was a choir. So now I am, I was the guy that
• 1:05:56
  was opening like lift my hands up in the back.
• 1:05:58
  Didn't want people to see me shooting him down.
• 1:06:00
  Now I'm in front of people and I'm like man.
• 1:06:02
  Like when I would have certain songs that would really hit home
• 1:06:05
  and I really feel like, you know, God's presence, I would be
• 1:06:08
  able to lift my hands up and I would be in Reckless.
• 1:06:11
  Abandon didn't care what I look like.
• 1:06:13
  I was - to God. And a lot of times, I close my
• 1:06:15
  eyes. It was me and him, but it was
• 1:06:17
  beautiful because it was genuine.
• 1:06:20
  And then sometimes I'd open my eyes and I would like, see
• 1:06:22
  people like connecting to God, through the music.
• 1:06:25
  And then also through seeing me connect to God, genuinely very
• 1:06:29
  important word in that, right? And then I was like, wow, that's
• 1:06:32
  interesting. So maybe I should try to like
• 1:06:34
  press into just like not caring. What other people think and just
• 1:06:37
  try to worship God because it's ministering to people so I do
• 1:06:41
  and and the thing is is I was just getting me used to Like I
• 1:06:44
  said, being used to people seeing me up there.
• 1:06:46
  So one of my other buddies, Eddie cross, you all probably
• 1:06:49
  seen Pacific. He's still there.
• 1:06:51
  He's getting out soon, though. He ended up handing me, a, he
• 1:06:54
  would always had me on Mike's also scared of and he's like,
• 1:06:56
  get ready? You know, God calls up leaders,
• 1:06:58
  bro. This is you you're going to be
• 1:06:59
  on a microphone and I was just scared of it.
• 1:07:02
  Well, he ended up calling me up to give my testimony shortly
• 1:07:05
  after I was doing the choir singing and stuff and I was
• 1:07:08
  involved in church. People kind of knew of me but I
• 1:07:12
  was not sober yet. You know I Still getting high
• 1:07:14
  and struggling but God meant me right there.
• 1:07:17
  That's so crazy. But he met me right there and I
• 1:07:20
  ended up singing are saying my testimony.
• 1:07:22
  One time I did it. I was it was knees knocking arm
• 1:07:27
  shaken. I mean, I was petrified, but the
• 1:07:30
  message that God gave resonated with some people.
• 1:07:33
  They came up to me, they're like man, you got a gift?
• 1:07:35
  Yeah, like you should press into that.
• 1:07:37
  Yeah, terrified. Totally didn't want to but I
• 1:07:40
  couldn't say no. I was tired of saying no to God.
• 1:07:42
  So I was like, all right, I'll do it again.
• 1:07:44
  I'll do it again next month. So one thing led to another that
• 1:07:47
  just became a thing. I just became speaker more and
• 1:07:49
  more comfortable. Speaking regular, yet another
• 1:07:51
  comfort zone. Yep.
• 1:07:52
  And I was still battling sobriety like I mean there was
• 1:07:55
  one service that I was so high on heroin, I was overdosing.
• 1:07:58
  Like I was waking up found out that I couldn't breathe
• 1:08:00
  exhausted like trying to catch my breath.
• 1:08:02
  Like I don't know how long I had stopped breathing, you know
• 1:08:05
  forever, you know, scratch my nose purple.
• 1:08:07
  It was bleeding and I couldn't go to a service.
• 1:08:10
  There was another time I was high on meth for three days.
• 1:08:12
  I didn't sleep in three days. And I had to go to choir
• 1:08:15
  rehearsal Sunday, morning and act like I was tired.
• 1:08:18
  So I was like, trying to fake a yawn to make it look like I
• 1:08:20
  wasn't tweaking or whatever. But I say that and I give you
• 1:08:23
  that, that those Graphics just to encourage people.
• 1:08:26
  Like, you know, if you're not open to the idea of God or just
• 1:08:30
  like, you have this, like experience with religion.
• 1:08:32
  I'm just here to tell you, there is someone, there is a Creator
• 1:08:35
  and intelligent designer out there who will literally meet
• 1:08:38
  you wherever you're at. And it's mind-blowing.
• 1:08:41
  Like you are, so welcome. So I gotta ask you this.
• 1:08:44
  This Ronnie so when you go, you're going through all this.
• 1:08:46
  And then you start stepping into, I think from what I've
• 1:08:49
  read you started this experience that happen for you in that room
• 1:08:54
  and then connecting with those guys.
• 1:08:56
  Then started, you started getting sober but then you you
• 1:09:00
  started really bettering yourself through the G20, go
• 1:09:03
  with Washington University. Can he walk us through?
• 1:09:06
  What I would love to. So this is an important fun fact
• 1:09:10
  are not so fun fact about me, but I was a high school.
• 1:09:14
  About I dropped out dead last in my class made junior year.
• 1:09:19
  So what that means is I was literally the worst student they
• 1:09:23
  mentioned that at my court, hearing in case I forgot.
• 1:09:25
  She's been in price for every sale.
• 1:09:27
  By the way, he dropped out dead last in his class.
• 1:09:29
  That's this guy. This is the man.
• 1:09:31
  So I was the guy that could never get right?
• 1:09:33
  Always struggled in school and I thought that I was stupid.
• 1:09:36
  I had a complex that I was stupid.
• 1:09:37
  I was always just owner and everything else.
• 1:09:38
  So I never knew anything factored that all out.
• 1:09:40
  Yeah. And I never knew anything about
• 1:09:42
  anything. You can ask me about like
• 1:09:43
  something that happened in the world that everyone knew.
• 1:09:45
  And I'm like, what? I was just like an idiot.
• 1:09:47
  My parents would apologize for me.
• 1:09:49
  They were like, I'm sorry. He's been stuck in a.
• 1:09:50
  Stupor his whole life. It was just a thing.
• 1:09:53
  So, but I remember, like, I had done no schooling, so let's back
• 1:09:59
  up. I had said that I was in the
• 1:10:00
  bike shop, right? And I was taking GED classes.
• 1:10:02
  What I didn't tell you is, I took my test, okay?
• 1:10:05
  And out of 20, 250 points, I got 2240.
• 1:10:08
  Wow, failed, never went back to take it.
• 1:10:10
  So this is years later, I'm in Pacific and I Get, you know, I'm
• 1:10:14
  working with God and I'm wanting to get my GED.
• 1:10:16
  Well, he put me in for the classes.
• 1:10:18
  I take the locator test smoke, the score.
• 1:10:21
  Wow! They're like, all right.
• 1:10:22
  Let's put you into the advanced class smoke the score.
• 1:10:24
  They're like, all right, we're putting in for totally different
• 1:10:26
  mindset. Now, totally different mindset.
• 1:10:27
  I had not done one ounce of schooling.
• 1:10:29
  I have no idea how I had any of the knowledge to do.
• 1:10:32
  Any of that. That's included.
• 1:10:34
  They put me through this one crunch class for Math and then
• 1:10:38
  boom. I'm taking my freaking GED.
• 1:10:39
  Wow. I ended up taking the GED and I
• 1:10:42
  got like 2,900 are almost 3,000 points on it, which was like out
• 1:10:46
  of 3,500 or something like that. Then but it was good enough for
• 1:10:50
  like 20 to 50 was passing and I was like almost at three.
• 1:10:53
  So it was good enough to where I qualified for partial
• 1:10:55
  scholarship that make you feel amazing.
• 1:10:58
  Well, because it was like kind of filling you up it's like the
• 1:11:01
  the four-step like people. Look at that step where you're
• 1:11:04
  doing, inventory and honest inventory and you're completely
• 1:11:06
  honest and you tell every dark secret that you ever had from
• 1:11:09
  another person, the stuff that you want to take to the grave.
• 1:11:11
  No, no. You're talking about that.
• 1:11:12
  Like so you look at the fourth step of your life.
• 1:11:14
  I can never do it. Then you do it.
• 1:11:15
  And you're like, wow, I can do anything in the world, same
• 1:11:17
  thing with the GED and that education that.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah, this one of those big landmarks from confidence.
• 1:11:22
  Yeah, so got that and I was like, wow, it's just crazy.
• 1:11:25
  So I ended up getting that before.
• 1:11:28
  I had the really awesome metamorphosis with God and I
• 1:11:30
  said that I had started it before my incarceration.
• 1:11:33
  Yeah. So I still had a gist of God and
• 1:11:35
  I still was walking but I wasn't really walking with them.
• 1:11:38
  I was getting high and blah blah blah but I took the GED smoke.
• 1:11:41
  The scores ended up. What I was going to say, ended
• 1:11:45
  up trying to get accepted into Washington University couldn't
• 1:11:50
  get in. I failed it right.
• 1:11:51
  The first time that I applied, I was still getting high and I
• 1:11:54
  just wasn't ready. I guess, you know, but then I
• 1:11:57
  after I got sober and was grown in the Lord and stuff, the
• 1:12:00
  opportunity presented it again, they did a new enrollment.
• 1:12:03
  And I'm like, man, I'm going to try to do this.
• 1:12:04
  So so when you got sober I'm interested because you were
• 1:12:07
  going to church. Yeah, I didn't tell you when,
• 1:12:10
  but when you got sober though, did you?
• 1:12:14
  And start kind of hanging with different guys.
• 1:12:16
  Oh yeah, for sure. So this that was a pretty cool.
• 1:12:18
  I'm glad you asked these trigger questions.
• 1:12:21
  So yeah I ended up quitting smoking cigarettes.
• 1:12:23
  Actually six months before I quit getting high so I quit
• 1:12:26
  smoking on November 2nd of 2015. Six months later I got sober on
• 1:12:32
  April 25th of 2016 so during that time or whatever.
• 1:12:38
  When I got sober like I said I had like the biggest dope
• 1:12:41
  dealers in the wing, right? And I was their favorite
• 1:12:43
  customer. So I had long money, so like I
• 1:12:45
  was always, you know, they're go to one of their go twos and I
• 1:12:49
  remember one in particular like they all see me like growing
• 1:12:52
  going to church and like now, Ronnie sober and they're like,
• 1:12:54
  that's freaking weird everybody in the world.
• 1:12:57
  This dude sober and one of the dealers like and he was a friend
• 1:13:01
  of mine. He went down there, it doesn't
• 1:13:03
  sound like it when I say this though he went down there and he
• 1:13:05
  was like Hey man hey this rocks for you you know now I've been
• 1:13:09
  watching him cook up my canteen money like the past couple
• 1:13:12
  months because he's got all my money.
• 1:13:13
  I got a little Egg soup at the microwave.
• 1:13:15
  I'm trying to heat up, you know, and he goes, the hand me, those
• 1:13:17
  big, ol Rock a meth, and he went to hand, it to me like that
• 1:13:21
  shoe, bro. Like just on GP and I'm like,
• 1:13:24
  what? I'm like, I'm like, dude, I was
• 1:13:26
  like, it doesn't have any power over me.
• 1:13:29
  I was like, I just don't want, I don't know if I said like, yeah,
• 1:13:31
  hey thanks, but like I'm good or if I just went straight to
• 1:13:34
  saying that like it doesn't have any power for me.
• 1:13:36
  But that's what I remember is. I was like, man, that thing just
• 1:13:39
  doesn't have any power over me anymore.
• 1:13:41
  I was like, I don't even want to get high anymore.
• 1:13:44
  More and he's looking at me, he cannot process, you can't
• 1:13:48
  process it. So then he is just like, okay,
• 1:13:50
  dude, look, you can just have this and you can put food in
• 1:13:52
  your locker off of that one rock.
• 1:13:54
  I could have probably put five hundred dollars or more in
• 1:13:57
  canteen in my locker and been good for a month and a half.
• 1:14:01
  But I was like I just don't I don't want any part in that dude
• 1:14:04
  you know? And I just walked away.
• 1:14:06
  Yeah so is so crazy. Was so neat though because a lot
• 1:14:08
  of people that didn't believe in God, when they seen my walk,
• 1:14:12
  they were like look, dude, I'd still unaware With this God
• 1:14:14
  thing but I know whatever happened to you is real, dude.
• 1:14:17
  We're trying to do what you're doing is real and like it was so
• 1:14:20
  real that I became the guy that would walk around with a
• 1:14:22
  clipboard. Getting people to sign up for
• 1:14:24
  church services and and recovery meetings and stuff.
• 1:14:27
  I was that guy and I would get some of the guys if I was
• 1:14:30
  speaking and later when I was rapping, if I was doing
• 1:14:33
  something, I could always get people that wouldn't go to
• 1:14:35
  church, to come to church because they're like, you know,
• 1:14:38
  I don't know if I'm with all that.
• 1:14:39
  But I like hearing you speak. As I know, it's real, whatever
• 1:14:42
  you're about to say, is coming from.
• 1:14:43
  An honest place or whatever. So is really neat.
• 1:14:47
  Did that answer your question? Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  Okay. Cool.
• 1:14:49
  Because you know there's a lot there was a big transformation
• 1:14:52
  that happened and then you did get into the program.
• 1:14:55
  You did get into the wash youth program for those that don't
• 1:14:58
  know about why. She was really kind of
• 1:15:00
  considered the ivy league of the Midwest.
• 1:15:03
  So there's a prison program that Wash U has done.
• 1:15:07
  And a couple of these people who've been on Jim Brock and
• 1:15:10
  others have gone through that program and You can actually get
• 1:15:14
  an associates degree. I'm not sure if you can get, the
• 1:15:16
  can get a bachelor actually, actually get a couple guys.
• 1:15:20
  Did I think? So you failed the first time to
• 1:15:23
  get through on the application and then you did a test.
• 1:15:26
  Yeah, the second time I did it again.
• 1:15:28
  I reapplied, I had guide, I was on fire, I had prayer and and so
• 1:15:33
  how far are you away from the door Freedom at this point?
• 1:15:36
  Are you? This is.
• 1:15:37
  Oh yeah. So I'm about two years thousand,
• 1:15:40
  important fact. I knew I was going to die in my
• 1:15:42
  addiction like I don't know how To describe it.
• 1:15:44
  But like like I knew I was going to die almost overdosed a
• 1:15:47
  handful more times, right? And people were dying in there.
• 1:15:50
  They're dying from overdose sure.
• 1:15:52
  And I knew it was my number, was there.
• 1:15:54
  It was like, guys, tell me he's like, look, Jack, it's over like
• 1:15:58
  in something at me told me that I had to get sober two years
• 1:16:00
  before I got out of prison. Something in me, I don't know
• 1:16:02
  what it was but it was just, you know, I just, I knew that I had
• 1:16:05
  to and fortunately enough, there was this one service that I was
• 1:16:08
  a part of and when I came back to my cell that day because like
• 1:16:10
  I said, I was still struggling on getting high, I just had the
• 1:16:13
  power. To get rid of the pills that I
• 1:16:15
  had and that was April 25th of 2016.
• 1:16:17
  God gave me the power to just walk away from it all and it's
• 1:16:20
  just crazy. I don't know how to describe it,
• 1:16:22
  but he did the heavy lifting for me.
• 1:16:24
  You felt strong enough that you could push all that away, not
• 1:16:26
  even just feeling strong enough. But like what was a heavy like
• 1:16:31
  duffel bag full of barbells that would drive me to the ground.
• 1:16:36
  It was no longer there. There was no way it was just
• 1:16:39
  like I could pick those pills up like a feather and just flick
• 1:16:42
  them a football field. Go away.
• 1:16:44
  You know there was just nothing to it is so strange.
• 1:16:47
  It is that rock of meth in front of me, had no power.
• 1:16:50
  I didn't even have to get high. I could have sold it so
• 1:16:52
  different for you so different. I still.
• 1:16:55
  Yes, do this. Let's talk about.
• 1:16:56
  So you get into that I'm assuming that you do pretty well
• 1:17:00
  in that program. I did.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah, that's a good thing that she has that.
• 1:17:03
  So that's a pretty cool brag point on God because he came
• 1:17:07
  into my life and everything changed dramatically.
• 1:17:10
  So I went from the high school dropout dropped out dead last in
• 1:17:13
  his class. To, I worked half way towards my
• 1:17:16
  associates degree and wash. You while maintaining a
• 1:17:19
  straight. A grade point average.
• 1:17:20
  Wow, dude, I had a - has an days and it was very cool.
• 1:17:24
  It blows my mind still to this day, like I joke about it.
• 1:17:28
  Like if Matt and Ranae are listening to this video, they'll
• 1:17:32
  joke because, you know, I was like, I'm kind of prideful about
• 1:17:34
  that. But I mean, so they're like when
• 1:17:36
  I bring it up there like, yeah, I see you shoot your shot but
• 1:17:39
  it's like I am like you don't know what I've been through.
• 1:17:41
  Yeah, like to get accepted and I think you probably Appreciate it
• 1:17:44
  that much more. Oh my gosh she's I was the last
• 1:17:46
  person that could do that and then it happened and I was just
• 1:17:49
  like blown away. So I got out of school.
• 1:17:52
  I could still continue to college classes.
• 1:17:54
  They're just didn't make sense for me at the time I went into
• 1:17:56
  construction and then do another business stuff doing Ministry,
• 1:18:00
  stuff wrapping. And yeah it's just it's just
• 1:18:03
  been pretty crazy. So well let's back up a little
• 1:18:06
  bit. So you finally get that day that
• 1:18:09
  you're going to get out. Yeah, and you've basically
• 1:18:12
  transform yourself while Yeah and you come out a different
• 1:18:15
  person, completely seven years something while you're in.
• 1:18:18
  Yeah walk us through getting out like tell us what you tell us
• 1:18:23
  what's going on now. So 25 years.
• 1:18:26
  Yeah, let's walk through for example.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah, that's why I always put so much emphasis on like the
• 1:18:32
  beforehand, right? And I try to force myself on
• 1:18:35
  there's so much, good stuff. Yeah, you need to hear the
• 1:18:37
  recovery, right? So one thing that's cool, is
• 1:18:40
  that I was at Pacific, which is the prison I left.
• 1:18:44
  From 45 years of my seven years that I did.
• 1:18:46
  So I looked at the exit. I seen that exit door for 5
• 1:18:50
  years and when I finally got to the day and the time got you
• 1:18:54
  know, super slow, I did sleep the night before it's a
• 1:18:56
  phenomenon. But when I finally got to walk
• 1:18:59
  through that door, I just can't describe what that feeling was
• 1:19:03
  like and then the first couple weeks of just waking up in, like
• 1:19:06
  normal environment and food and stuff and like it's your workout
• 1:19:08
  to do you walk to your parents or?
• 1:19:10
  Well, my dad. He ended up picking me up.
• 1:19:12
  He was still alive then And he ended up picking me up and I
• 1:19:16
  stayed in his house. You got a house out there and
• 1:19:19
  st. Charles that I stayed at you
• 1:19:21
  know for actually is like my first month and then things
• 1:19:26
  happened so fast. Danny got out me and him.
• 1:19:28
  We're actually going into business together to get to do
• 1:19:31
  tree trimming. So within a month of me being
• 1:19:33
  out, I ended up getting a job or whatever and decided I'm going
• 1:19:36
  to go into business, as, you know, painter, / tree trimmer,
• 1:19:40
  and we get a townhouse, he cosines for it.
• 1:19:42
  Like I'm literally, I literally, We go from doing seven years in
• 1:19:45
  prison, being institutionalized to just on your own legit within
• 1:19:50
  a month. And now I got my own place.
• 1:19:52
  It's problem. It is.
• 1:19:53
  It's that's not normal. Really know and looking back.
• 1:19:56
  I'm just like, man, that is so abnormal.
• 1:19:58
  I don't know how I did. It had a weird spin Danny's
• 1:20:02
  story. Took a different turn.
• 1:20:04
  He ended up, you know, struggling for a little bit, the
• 1:20:07
  day we were supposed to move in was the day that he started
• 1:20:10
  going back Wayward, which he did.
• 1:20:12
  He's got a beautiful. Option story has just took a
• 1:20:15
  little bit more time so you know he's going to be on this
• 1:20:18
  podcast. Yeah and I'm and I mean for the
• 1:20:21
  guys that want to check out the link boy you can see a lot of
• 1:20:26
  different things on YouTube but I think you guys are on Spotify
• 1:20:29
  and other Spotify Apple Amazon. Yep.
• 1:20:31
  It's a lie in K Bo YZ. And yeah, it's a pretty, let's
• 1:20:35
  talk a little bit about this so you get, you get go, because
• 1:20:38
  you've got a two-year-old boy. Now you've got got house.
• 1:20:41
  Oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 1:20:45
  So I was living on my own. I was doing business on my own.
• 1:20:48
  I had a background of painting. Shout out Jim Wells.
• 1:20:52
  Love you bro. He taught me how to paint and I
• 1:20:55
  just went with it. So I wasn't that good.
• 1:20:58
  I couldn't really start our business but I did.
• 1:21:00
  That's what I just did. I started doing exactly that and
• 1:21:07
  there were so many paint in situations that were so
• 1:21:10
  embarrassing and traumatizing and I was called a handyman
• 1:21:13
  painting and Gaping at the time, that's my name because I was
• 1:21:16
  like I just needed Market to whoever.
• 1:21:17
  Yeah everybody is hire me. I will give High School.
• 1:21:21
  Anything. Yeah.
• 1:21:21
  Walk your dog. Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  So I was doing that, you know, I was doing the painting and stuff
• 1:21:27
  and I got better over time but it was so crazy because it's
• 1:21:29
  like living on your own super expensive.
• 1:21:32
  You know, start my own company was super expensive to because
• 1:21:36
  it's like everywhere you turn you gotta pay for more tools and
• 1:21:39
  stuff like that materials and stuff or you lose out on a job
• 1:21:42
  or whatever. So, So it was just nuts.
• 1:21:46
  I did that for a few years and did some other things, you know,
• 1:21:50
  Danny end up getting back out. We ended up doing some link
• 1:21:52
  boys. I was still predominantly
• 1:21:54
  working for myself. It was until about a year and a
• 1:21:56
  half ago that I got a different job and things started to change
• 1:21:59
  on that front but I ended up going to my home Church.
• 1:22:03
  Shout out connect Church STL and Pastor Chris.
• 1:22:06
  He came in and did these Services called connect worship,
• 1:22:09
  which was just phenomenal. He's the reason why I'm getting
• 1:22:11
  back into Pacific, he's one of them.
• 1:22:14
  Shut up. Rick from constructing, Futures
• 1:22:16
  and Andy as well for helping me get in, and then the warden as
• 1:22:20
  well. But, um, but yeah.
• 1:22:22
  So where was I? Was you you start stepping in
• 1:22:25
  and get the painting. Yep.
• 1:22:27
  Yep was routed into. Oh yeah, that's right.
• 1:22:29
  So I had that career as painting and then I went to a hybrid to
• 1:22:31
  where I started working for the church and then I started doing.
• 1:22:36
  I was there, I became the recovery director, which was
• 1:22:38
  super cool. I helped lead Celebrate Recovery
• 1:22:40
  there from the day that I got out like the Next month or to
• 1:22:44
  me, and Brian Brown started leading Celebrate Recovery there
• 1:22:47
  at connect church, that kind of probably helped you connect back
• 1:22:50
  in. Oh, yeah.
• 1:22:51
  For sure my church because a lot of times when you get out you
• 1:22:53
  gotta have people. Yeah, dude.
• 1:22:55
  And that's one of the huge missing links and that's why
• 1:22:57
  when Christian Rick and I were meeting with the warden, we were
• 1:23:01
  like, that is one huge disconnect, but this is what we
• 1:23:05
  can offer, you know. So my church body, dude had fed
• 1:23:10
  me with. So much work, family was so much
• 1:23:11
  resources federally with Ability and just purpose.
• 1:23:15
  This is unbelievable. Yeah, so like you have got to
• 1:23:17
  have people because it's so easy to just get a text from
• 1:23:20
  somebody, from the old life, and want to go out on ya tonight.
• 1:23:22
  Exactly. And he been gone and yes, get
• 1:23:25
  back, good times and all that. But you went on a different
• 1:23:27
  path. So you made that work.
• 1:23:30
  So you've got a two-year-old so yep.
• 1:23:34
  Mary. Yeah.
• 1:23:35
  Mary yeah Mary and you got your own house.
• 1:23:37
  Come on house. Crazy owner.
• 1:23:39
  You're doing will go out with your job doing good.
• 1:23:41
  Yeah, I do sales and development for Servpro.
• 1:23:44
  So if anybody needs any, like disaster services, please call
• 1:23:47
  me? Yeah.
• 1:23:47
  You know what I mean? This is cleaning restoration.
• 1:23:50
  Restoration gave me a shot there and I recently became like a
• 1:23:59
  doing a little bit of some project manager.
• 1:24:01
  What's cool about your story though, Ronnie is that all these
• 1:24:05
  different things that you've stepped through you connected
• 1:24:08
  and networked and created on that cities?
• 1:24:10
  That's huge networking. Yeah, around the right because
• 1:24:13
  they're not easy. I mean, you're an ex-felon.
• 1:24:14
  I'm an ex-felon, it's not easy. Just to walk and say hey by the
• 1:24:17
  way, I'd like a job, no actually you got to fight a lot harder
• 1:24:20
  than that and you have to have your stuff together to get into
• 1:24:24
  an opportunity or you just gotta just really just be a
• 1:24:27
  professional at being able to have a bad day but not doing
• 1:24:30
  anything about it. Exactly.
• 1:24:31
  You know what I mean? Because you have a lot of those
• 1:24:33
  because I just got to get through it, get back up and do
• 1:24:35
  it again. Yeah, there's an old Chinese
• 1:24:37
  proverb to get knocked down seven times.
• 1:24:39
  Get up eight. Yeah, but the reason why you get
• 1:24:41
  up, he's got a reason to get up. Yeah.
• 1:24:42
  Otherwise you stay down. That's cool.
• 1:24:45
  I want to play some of your music.
• 1:24:47
  Yes, addiction. This is addiction like, boys,
• 1:24:53
  but it's cool because he's there in a place where so, and the, in
• 1:24:59
  the scene at the set of this is actually the trailer that my
• 1:25:02
  buddy, Danny was getting high in.
• 1:25:03
  So when you see this footage, it was in the very spot that Bruce
• 1:25:07
  at at the epitome of his addiction.
• 1:25:09
  So, just so crazy over the set, I shoot it there.
• 1:25:14
  Looks, you are in that around that trailer park.
• 1:25:16
  Am I ever gonna quit? It's wild because all the stuff
• 1:25:19
  on the walls and obstacles in ink cause I can't escape, I
• 1:25:23
  could never face them every time I try.
• 1:25:25
  I'm a face in big titty, Abyss when I'm deep in the pits of the
• 1:25:28
  person, when I'm stressing over me and my kids and I'm feeling
• 1:25:32
  so sick. Think I need another fix time to
• 1:25:36
  get the syringe back to the darkness, I live.
• 1:25:51
  You guys check this out because I got good music.
• 1:25:54
  I mean if go on YouTube you can see how like it's the real
• 1:25:58
  stuff. It's cool.
• 1:26:00
  I mean it's it's it's a good stuff.
• 1:26:03
  I got to ask you because I ask everybody this Ronnie.
• 1:26:09
  I mean you've just told us a heck of a story here.
• 1:26:11
  Yeah I mean it certain points I didn't think you were going to
• 1:26:14
  survive but you're sitting here so you didn't die.
• 1:26:17
  Yeah. What do you think your biggest
• 1:26:20
  takeaway through all of the bit? Yeah, I feel like that everybody
• 1:26:26
  has like this whole or this this lack in their life and we can
• 1:26:31
  fill it with everything in the world that we want.
• 1:26:34
  But I don't think that anything is going to truly fulfill this
• 1:26:37
  like like having a relationship with God and which is all your
• 1:26:42
  whole story. It's my whole story like I know
• 1:26:44
  I don't want to seem like a preachy guy or whatever.
• 1:26:46
  I but the only way I can explain it Is but God two words like
• 1:26:50
  like in my testimony it says that you know God but it into my
• 1:26:53
  life and I started walking with them and everything changed.
• 1:26:57
  Everything that I couldn't be, I became from homeless to
• 1:27:00
  homeowner from Dropout dead. Last in class the Straight A's
• 1:27:03
  at washu from single for 12 years to wife and kid, happily
• 1:27:07
  married. I mean, like it's very cool from
• 1:27:10
  like unemployed business owner and, you know, it's, yeah, it's
• 1:27:14
  crazy. I mean, it's a complete 180
• 1:27:17
  everywhere, all this stuff and Up on you and seeing what you're
• 1:27:20
  doing. It's just it just, I guess the
• 1:27:23
  thing about it is, is because this show, you know, it's not
• 1:27:25
  really a prison show. It's about inspiration.
• 1:27:27
  It's about overcoming believing in yourself.
• 1:27:30
  And each time that you could have and specially in prison,
• 1:27:34
  yeah, you really took a fork in the road and just decided I'm
• 1:27:39
  walking away from everything and get a walk a different
• 1:27:42
  direction, but then when you got out, it would have been really
• 1:27:45
  easy. Oh, my gosh, this to fall back
• 1:27:47
  into all All the good feeling like I this is home and and but
• 1:27:52
  you'll there you stayed on the right path and and look where
• 1:27:56
  you're at man. Amen.
• 1:27:57
  Yeah, and the Temptation is very real and it's still there.
• 1:28:01
  It's just now that I got a relationship with God and I got
• 1:28:04
  a network of people and I've got a system you know, different
• 1:28:07
  places and things. Right?
• 1:28:08
  It's huge. It really is.
• 1:28:09
  Yeah, it has everything to do with everything.
• 1:28:11
  So cool. Well Ronnie man, I really
• 1:28:14
  appreciate you coming on. I just before we get out of
• 1:28:16
  here. Well, the best way to get a hold
• 1:28:20
  of you. I guess we can look you up on
• 1:28:21
  link, boy. Yeah, please.
• 1:28:22
  There is with the Z. Yep.
• 1:28:25
  All one word. What's the easier way to get a
• 1:28:27
  hold of you, just you're on Instagram.
• 1:28:29
  Yes book. Matter of fact, you let me pull
• 1:28:31
  my phone out real quick. And I'll tell you what, my
• 1:28:34
  Instagram handle is because I would love to talk to anybody.
• 1:28:37
  That's struggling. You've got good stuff?
• 1:28:38
  Yeah. Somebody out.
• 1:28:40
  I would absolutely love to. So if you slide to my DMs, I'm
• 1:28:42
  not one of those guys that want to shy away from it.
• 1:28:44
  Like, I love it. You know what I mean?
• 1:28:46
  Yep, so let's see here. Or my tag is my personal tag,
• 1:28:52
  which is what I'm going to give you is the letter.
• 1:28:53
  J, 7 underscore, and then link boys Ally in, K, Bo YZ.
• 1:29:00
  And then our link, boys, Instagram is just link, boys
• 1:29:05
  underscore and then 17. Yep.
• 1:29:07
  And then I'm on Facebook to you can look me up as Ronnie are
• 1:29:10
  Owen. And I ej7 just spelled out.
• 1:29:13
  J dash, SE ven Langford and yeah man.
• 1:29:18
  Hit me up. I'd love to talk to you.
• 1:29:20
  I love it because I think you could help people out and you
• 1:29:22
  are helping people out and I'd love the fact that you're taking
• 1:29:24
  this story of your store and so genuine and authentic back into
• 1:29:30
  the prisons because that's what those guys need.
• 1:29:32
  They needed needed to use and find the tools.
• 1:29:35
  So when they get out, that they know that they can make it out.
• 1:29:38
  Awesome. That's a good thing for those on
• 1:29:42
  social media, guys. Go to that little thing on Apple
• 1:29:46
  podcast. The little three things in the
• 1:29:48
  The corner. Let that drop down, follow the
• 1:29:50
  show. Amen.
• 1:29:52
  Lisa, leave a to show ya. And leave a comment on.
• 1:29:57
  You can write a review, it's really easy, just kind of scroll
• 1:30:00
  down the page there. Go to Spotify, you can hit the
• 1:30:03
  Bell, it's easy to follow. Love it when you guys get on
• 1:30:05
  bring kasa.com and we talked back and forth and it had some
• 1:30:09
  fun on Tick-Tock the other day with the Carlos rebellious
• 1:30:14
  episode-description. We've got a lot of good good
• 1:30:16
  going back and forth. If you're looking for a Look out
• 1:30:19
  there. I've got one, I wrote One
• 1:30:20
  nightmare, success, check it out, on Amazon.
• 1:30:23
  Barnes & Noble game, get it at Walmart now, so check that out.
• 1:30:28
  And as I used to say, to my people, when I was typing my
• 1:30:33
  e-mails back and forth in prison, stay strong.
• 1:30:36
  I'll do the same Rowdy Lankford and what a story, what a blush,
• 1:30:41
  a tit, man. Thank you for the invite divers,
• 1:30:43
  success that it out. We'll see y'all later.