Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Unbreakable Road Back | Sam Jones

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The Unbreakable Road Back | Sam Jones · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Apote Production.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand, I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand. In forty years of journalism a lot of it.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: In crime reporting, I've encountered many young people, many of
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: them men, trying to make their way in life from
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: difficult beginnings. Often they spend years in jail before they
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: work it out, before they realize the world doesn't know
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: them a living and the gangster life is a road
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: to nowhere. Queensland Police report a record surge in youth
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: gang activity, with officers warning that recruitment is now targeting
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: boys as young as twelve. It often happens at the
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: age of about forty if it's going to happen, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: a new chapter in their lives opens up. My guest today,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Sam Jones has found that new direction, that new purpose.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And Bandito's Viki faced the Brisbane District Court today on
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: charges of drug trafficking and firearms possession.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: At thirty seven, he's a veteran of the jail system.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: He found fellowship in crime and the outlaw biking world
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: before he realized he was meant for something bigger, beyond
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  Speaker 2: the fake brotherhood of the crime world.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: A new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology finds
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: that the majority of long term offenders in the prison
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: system experienced significant childhood trauma.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Sam's now helping others to avoid the heartache and pain
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: that his experience has brought him.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Unbreakable spirit co literally teaches.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: People how to breathe to help them address deep seated trauma,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: release stored emotions, and step into the most powerful version
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Once behind bars, now helping others heal, A growing number
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  Speaker 1: of former offenders are turning to trauma informed therapy and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: breath work to break cycles of addiction and reoffending.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Sam doesn't see himself as a young man, but I
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: do because this is a rebirth and I can sense
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: all the good he can achieve in his work. It's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: my pleasure to support such important work and to welcome
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Sam to real crime.
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  Speaker 4: You know, Sam, Okay, mate, how a just get me goosebumps.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: It's a very exciting thing that you've been able to do.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Because I'm sure you've seen a lot of guys and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I've seen them as well. They just can't break the cycle.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: They go in and out of jail. They have these
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: grudges and they can't change. What was your journey to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: that point where you decided you could make a permanent change.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was a long journey. You know.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: I had issues with drugs and koh from about twelve
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: years old.
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  Speaker 5: I was had issues with violence and crime from about
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: that age, and I went to many rehabs over the years.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: I went to about seven rehabs all up, you know,
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: But most of the time it was just going there
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: just so I could get out of jail for court
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: for bail. I had no want to actually change, you know.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: I didn't see an issue with what I was doing.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: It wasn't until the last rehabilitation center that I went
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: to up on the Sunshine Coast, I got Supreme phil
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: bail to go there. Yet again, I was just going
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: there just so I could get out of jail to
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: my one month there and then when I get out,
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: just go back to doing what I was doing.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: But when I was there, they.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: Started talking about trauma and negative core beliefs and all
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: this kind of stuff, and I was.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Like, what what do you guys mean?
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  Speaker 5: Like something just clicked, you know, And I decided to
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: stay for three months. And then it got to the
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: three month mark, and then I said, no, I want
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: to stay longer, and I ended up staying there six months.
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  Speaker 5: By the time I left, I was still in that world,
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: but i'd noticed. That's when I really realized that I
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: didn't want to be in that world anymore.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: A lot of these things start in childhood, imprinted by
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: trauma issues that we can't control.
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  Speaker 3: Yours is not extraordinary, but.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: It certainly was a story of broken home the back
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  Speaker 2: of paternal influence.
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  Speaker 3: It was a bit of sense of your background.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, so look, my parents they split up just after
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: I was born, and they were divorced by the time
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  Speaker 5: I was about eighteen months old. And I don't really
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: remember seeing too much of my dad. You know, he
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: was in the military, he was moving around a lot.
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: We moved up to the other side of the country
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  Speaker 5: from where he was and mum, you know, she's a
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  Speaker 5: single mum raising three kids. We had nothing. You know,
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  Speaker 5: she tried her best, she really did. She's a beautiful lady,
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  Speaker 5: but just having nothing growing up, really it was a struggle.
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  Speaker 5: Seeing all these other kids with both their parents and
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  Speaker 5: you know, nice cars and being able to do stuff
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: on the weekends, and I always felt like I was
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: missing out on something. And then in primary school when
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to form friendships and stuff like that, I
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: was just bullied for some reason. It's just I had
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: no friends, you know. It's like even the kids that
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: I thought were my friends when they were around the bullies,
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: they would bully me as well.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: And Dad was a yor to yorder man, did you fell?
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: How did that mixed background impact your childhood and sense
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: of identity and purpose?
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  Speaker 5: I had no idea who I was, you know. It
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: was I was too white for the black fellows, but
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: too black for the white fellas you know. And I
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: struggled with that a lot of my life, and it
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: was not having that sense of identity. I was always
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: trying to figure out who I was, where I fit
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: into and stuff like that.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So, and Dad was out of your life completely for
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: those years.
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  Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But your menage, I think it's this is one of
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the happy ending aspects of your story, is that you
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: have reconnected with him. How important was that in terms
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: of the journey you've made since it was massive?
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  Speaker 5: You know, I growing up and I don't like using
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: this word, but I believed at the time I hated
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  Speaker 5: the man, you know, I remember he was about eleven
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: twelve years old when I started connecting with him, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: he was just fighting his own demons at the time,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: you know, he he had a problem with with the alcohol,
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: but I hated him for that and I didn't like
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: the person he was when he was drunk. But I
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: can realize now from the person I am now that
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  Speaker 5: he was just fighting his own demons.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: He was a broken man as well, you know.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: And then when I finally did reconnect with him and
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: I forgave him and I reconciled with him, that was
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: that was one of the most important parts that probably
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: the last few years, when I actually did forgive him completely,
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: you know, as I said, he's my best friend now, Like, yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: That's great, that's heartwarming actually, And how difficult was it
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to cast off the preconceived ideas and possibly things that
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: other people had told you about him.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: How difficult was that?
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: It was hard.
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to lie, you know, it's I enjoyed
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: being that victim. That was another reason for me to
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: continue using, continue being with my behaviors. And in reality,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: when we're a victim, we're never going to change, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: And it's like one of one of the things I
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: tell a lot of my clients now is you're not
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  Speaker 5: a victim. You know, it's a choice. Now, you're choosing
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: to let this bothery. You're choosing to behave lot this.
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  Speaker 5: You're only a victim when you don't heal it. Now
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  Speaker 5: you know that you can't heal it. You're not a
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: victim anymore. You're choosing to be like that. And I
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: remember it was on his seven, my dad's seventieth birthday,
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  Speaker 5: and we had become really good bye then. But he
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  Speaker 5: went outside, he was having a cigarette, and I said
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: to him. I went up and said, Dad, look, I
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: just need to say something to you, you know. And I
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: started getting really emotional and I said.
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  Speaker 4: I just want to let you know that I forgive you.
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  Speaker 5: And he started crying and we had a big hug,
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  Speaker 5: and it was I'd been chasing that feeling my whole life,
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  Speaker 5: you know. I'd been looking for that, for that father
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  Speaker 5: figure my whole life, and I finally got it.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And how's it now with him?
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  Speaker 4: Great?
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: I mean we saw if not every day, every second day,
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: message all the time. He's helping me out, like he's
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: a very very smart man. He's got eight degrees he was.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: I think he made it up to Brigadier something in
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: the army.
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  Speaker 4: Like. He's very intelligent, you know, so he helps me
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  Speaker 4: out quite a lot.
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  Speaker 5: I run all my ideas off him and he's always
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: there for me now, you know, and he makes sure
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  Speaker 5: that he puts the effort in.
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  Speaker 2: Did you say to him, Dad, listen, look at all
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  Speaker 2: the time you wasted in the sense by not having
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  Speaker 2: a connection.
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  Speaker 3: Did he explain those last years?
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  Speaker 5: No, No, he didn't really, But through my journey I
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: started to understand he's a lot more.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 5: He came from a low socioeconomic area in Newcastle with
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: my pop. My pop left school and I think year
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  Speaker 5: seven to go work on the dogs.
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  Speaker 4: He was a boxer, he.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: Was a fighter, the long line of alcoholics on that
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  Speaker 5: side of the family, and then when him and my
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: mum separated, he lost the three things in his life
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  Speaker 5: that he absolutely loved a bit, you.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Know, his kids. So I just realized I could.
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: Understand where where he's alcohol and where his addiction came from.
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  Speaker 5: You know, I don't blame him for that at all.
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  Speaker 5: Yet again, it's if I sat there and the blame
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  Speaker 5: was lock you lost out her all this time and
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  Speaker 5: stuff like that, I started to become a victim again.
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  Speaker 2: It's really important this realization, wow, and that forgiveness and
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: to give him the space to reconnect without that bitterness.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's another rebirth in your life. It's
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: tremendous stuff.
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  Speaker 4: One hundred percent. Yeah, So let's roll.
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  Speaker 2: Back a bit that absence of a father figure, issues
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: around poverty, issues around crime. What was your path through
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: your teens in early twenties.
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  Speaker 5: I was around when I was about eleven twelve, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: that was the first time in him going down and
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: visiting my dad. He had remarried to another lady who
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: was down to Sydney at the time and she had
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: a son, so an old a stepbrother.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: I went down to Sydney and I saw them, I
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: met him, and.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: I idolized the bloke, absolutely idolized the bloke like he
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: was everything I wanted to be. He had girlfriend, he
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: had cars, he was a gangster. Like I was like, Wow,
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: this guy's so cool.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: And I saw of confided in him what was going
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: on that, you know, I hated my life and I've
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: got no friends in a list and he said, what
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: do you mean? And I told him you know, I
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: was getting bullied and he see he looked at me,
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: and he goes, mate, stop being a pussy and punch
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: him in the face. And I went and he goes,
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: you know how to fight? And I said, ah no,
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: and he said he I'll show you. Taught me how
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: to throw some punches and stuff like that. And I
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: remember going back to school and I was amping myself
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: up because he had been amping me up the whole time.
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: And the first kid that said something, I was just
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: go fuck straight in the face and it was claring
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: everywhere and everyone sort of jump back and was like waw.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: And that taught me, though that age that violence keeps
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: you safe. I took that to the next level. I
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: never wanted to feel like that weak, little little boy again,
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: you know. And from that day onwards, I was no
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: longer that week little boy. I thought I was a man,
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: and I suppressed all my emotions. I suppressed all my feelings.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: The only emotions you saw out of me were probably
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: anger and happiness when I was on the drugs, because
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: it wasn't long after that that I found drugs, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: that taught me that I didn't have to have these
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: thoughts going on up here, I could be happy. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: remember the first time I tried potton. I was just amazed.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: I was like, whow like, I'm happy. I was laughing
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: or smiling. I didn't have any of the depression going
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: on up here.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: And when a kid learns to fight, he often finds
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: himself fighting all the time.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that seems to have been a pattern with you.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: And it came down to the point the man that
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: I now can see that I was just scared the
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: whole time. I was so fearful that people were going
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: to see the real made that I was still that sweet, sensitive,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: care and kid underneath everything. I didn't have a bad
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: bone in my body until I started fighting, you know.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: And I was so scared all the time. They're just
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: like in my.
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: Head, I just had to attack and just prove to
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: everyone that I wasn't that weak kid. No one's going
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: to have it over me, you know. And it just
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: took me to that next level every stage, every stage,
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: and start joining gangs, and we'd just go around on
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: the weekend just wanting to find people to fight. We'd
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: go to parties just so we could fight everyone at
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: the party. And because of the drugs, and because I
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: was suppressing everything down off that was normal.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: I thought it was fun.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: You know, how did the game thing begin?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I guess because if you're a child with not many friends,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: not a strong father figure, these often older boys provide
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a bit of that bitter fellowship.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Is that how it started?
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: One hundred percent?
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: And it was kind of like when I started down
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: that island path and on the path of drugs, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: found other people that were doing the same thing, you know,
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: and it's finally I had something to relate to people about.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: And because they were doing the same thing, it's like,
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: all right, well he must be one of us.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Let's bring him in.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: So I started hanging around them, and then I was
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: just started doing what they were doing. And then it's
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: because we're so young at that age twelve, thirteen and
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: fourteen and fifteen, we've got no idea about what the
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: real world's like. So I just that becomes normal. You know,
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: it's all you see, it's all you're hanging around, it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: all you're here. So going out and fighting people, you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: going doing home invasion and stuff like that, that becomes normal.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And you found your way into the juvenile justice system.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And for a lot of young people, that's the end
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: of education. So what happened with you?
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, not really, Like I went to seven high schools,
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: I got expelled from six high schools and left the
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: final one. Look, I always enjoyed reading and I always
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: enjoyed learning. It was funny because like, I got expelled
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: from so many schools, but I still passed with BS
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: and a's. I was in the top two percent of
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: of science and maths. And that's why I always used
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: to joke about this. Why I said, well, I was
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: so good at selling drugs because I'm good with numbers.
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: But yeah, in the end, I think around year eleven
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: when I got expelled from my final school and I
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: went to another one, and then I was like I
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: don't want to do this anymore, Like this is shit. Yeah,
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: so I should have finished year twelve, But I never
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: did say.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You imagine how different life would have been. I can
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: see a bunch of books behind you right now in
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: your office there, and you're not there for You're not
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: there for decoration. You had a habit of reading, but
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: circumstances got in the way. So rather than doing year twelve,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: what were you doing.
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: Selling drugs, having fun, partying or what I thought was fun.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: You know, at the time, it served a purpose, it
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: really did, you know. It helped me suppress all those
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: things that I didn't want to think about. And then
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: it was about when I was eighteen. I just turned
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: eighteen and this girl that I was sort of saying
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: we were just on and off, she got pregnant and
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: she's like, I'm keeping it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I was like, whoa.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: And because I went to rehab, sorry, just before I
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: just my first rehab was just before I turned eighteen,
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: so I was sort of I wasn't using any what
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: I would call hard drugs at the time, but I
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: was still our party every single weekend, you know. And
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: then when the girl that I was saying said she
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: was pregnant, I was like, oh man, I've got to
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: turn my life around.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: I can't do this for a kid.
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: But yet again, it's just all I did was just
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: start working Monday to Friday. I was selling cars and
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: I was still selling a little bit of drugs on
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: the side. But I thought because I wasn't out fighting
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: every single day that I'd turned my life around, that
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: I was doing well.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: I was kicking goals, so there you.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Are like a life's rushing up to meet you. A
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: child at what age? Nineteen?
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: I was a child myself. Yeah.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: So are you still in contact with that child?
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, she's she's one of my best friends. I've got
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: this sits on my desk here. She wrote me this
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: to my dad, my mentor, my therapist, and my best friend.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the fantastic had these things, and you know they
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: can come upon us.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: We don't choose it.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: But if you've got the wherewithal, your the basic character,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: you can make it work in your life and find
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the joy out of it. This is you've got so
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: many happy ending exam honestly, yeah, and no wonder you
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: want to share it. I think that's what's inspirational about this,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: because you've had the insight.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: But as I said, the out of this interview, a
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: lot of people don't get the inside.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I remember talking to chop Or read about it, and
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: he got to age forty forty two. We'd done twenty
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: three years in jail and that's all he knew, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: he struggled to find his own personality and path after that.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: You have done that much more successfully. And one thing
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in and I've done a lot of work
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: with the outlaw biky clubs, and I've seen the real
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: purpose of them. Some of them have fallen to crime,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: some of them have been genuinely a refuge for people
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: trying to find male role models and try to fit in.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about your path into that scene.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what happened.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: So I think I was still suppressing so much when
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: my daughter was born. You know, It's like I actually
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: loved data bets, but I was miserable on the inside.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: Like I was just I didn't feel like I fit
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: in it anywhere. I had this feeling inside that I
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: didn't know how to sit with it. I couldn't sit
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: with myself. So I wasn't long after that that I relapsed.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: And when I relapsed, straight fall back into that life
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: of crime. You know, I was selling drugs, using drugs daily,
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: going out fighting and going out standing over people, all
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: that kind of stuff. And then it got to the
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: point there was a medi guy and he was in
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: an outlaw motorcycle game and I started hanging around with him.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: No intentions to join or anything like that. I just
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: liked the guy.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: And then I started seeing what he was doing, you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: and the people that he was hanging around with, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: I thought, man, I want that. That's that next level.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: That's that that's the real brotherhood. That's what I've been
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: looking for my whole life.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: What did you see? What were the aspects of that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that were appealing?
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: You know, everyone calling each other brother Everyone's saying to
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: each other they love them. Everyone always answering the phone call,
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: you know, if you were in trouble and needed something,
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: called someone up, they would rock up straight away. And
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I was like, wow, that is cool, Like I want
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: friends like that, you know. And they had money, they
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: had the girls, they had the cars, they had the bikes,
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: had everything.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Same time, you're doing a bit of jail through this
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: period as well. What were your victions in this period
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: and how was jail for you?
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Convictions there's made mainly drugs, weapons charges and stuff like that,
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: few police chases. I wasn't too bad. I'm not going
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: to lie. It's not the best place in the world.
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: You miss out on the time with your family and
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: your friends and stuff like that. But when I got
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: in there, same thing. I just saw other broken people
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: like myself, you know, I was like, wow, this is
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: where we hang out. This is and I always saw
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: jail as part of people like, aren't you scared of
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: going to jail? I was like, no, it's a part
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: of the business. Like this is my job. Crime is
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: my job. If I get caught, unfortunately, jail is a
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: part of it. Like you just go in, you do
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: your time, you get out, that's it. It's like if
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: you had a fish and chip shop, you know, a
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: part of that is if you do the wrong thing
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: in the fish and chip shop, you've got the health
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: inspector comes, he going to shut you down. Well, the
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: police is like the health inspector for crime. You know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: you get shut down for a bit and you go
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: in there. And yet again, I just thought these were
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: the people that I looked up to that I thought
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: were men, you know, And it's I had a very
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: twisted idea of what I thought a man was growing
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: up most of my life.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: So you're in your early twenties now, I'm wondering what
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: you're seeing the future. As are you thinking I'm going
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: to be a gangster here, I'm going to just get
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: to your higher levels of crime. Well, do you always
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: think there would be a turning point that you had
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: some vision of life that you could achieve.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: I thought, honestly, that was my turning point. I thought, then,
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: I thought, this is what I want to do with
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: my life. You know, I just want to be the
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: biggest gangs that I can possibly be. I when I
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: make the most money that I could possibly be, and
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: retire like a gangster overseas and Thailand Are and Bali
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: and millions of dollars, and not have to worry about this,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: and not have to worry about anyone.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Just do what I want, you know. That was my dream.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: That was my goal.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: And when I joined the BI Club, my dream and
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: goal was to become as high up as I could.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: I want to be a national president one day.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: You don't need to name the club if you don't
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: want to, I say, you're calling it a gang. I
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: don't use the word gang in relationship this beause I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: think it's a very motive one.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: And I think it is.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And what I found in my time knocking in with
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the Finx, Hells, Angels, Rebels and a few others, that
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: there was a place where people felt accepted. There was
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: a participatory democracy, You felt you had control over your
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: life to some extent, and there was that brotherhood and
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: that love that people were lacking. And I remember all
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: these conversations late in the evening at various club funds
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: and things with people and they tell me their story,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: and I really came to the view that people were
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: not joining these clubs to be criminals. They were joining
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: as crime came with it. There was disobedience and lack
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of respect for authority, but they were looking for the
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: best version of themselves. And that'll shock a lot of
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: people who've got this instinctively negative attitude towards motorcycle clubs.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: It was a sense of what it was like when
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: you were coming into the club.
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: Well, see, that's what I tell a lot of people,
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: and I'll remember tell me once he goes look, because
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: it was with the Bandidos. He goes, look, the Bandidos
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: don't do crime. Some members do, but the Bandidos don't.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: It took me a long time to figure out what
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: he meant by that, because I was like, what do
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: you mean, I'm a criminal? Lot also do crime? He goes,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: you do crime? The Bandidos don't. They you know, as
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: a club as a whole, they don't. As I said,
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: it took years for me to realize what he meant
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: by that, Like, I was a criminal before I became
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: a biki. I became a viki for the brotherhood, for
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: the connection, for the camaraderie, and at the start, that's
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: what I had, Like the chapter, particular chapter that I
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: was involved with when I first came on, Like, we're
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: all criminals well before we became bikes, and we're just
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: kept doing the same thing that we were doing before
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: we were bikers.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: When we became bikeies.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: You know, it was just we use that as the brotherhood,
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: as a connection and stuff like that.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It's hard to convey to people what it's like to
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: be with a group of men riding, you know, motorcycles
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: in all little town and the country somewhere. You're all
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: together walking to a pub and there are people coming
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: out of their houses to hear this sound. All is
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Harley Davidson's rolling. You're walking in the pubs and it's
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: either people want to come up and talk to you
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: or they want to fight to you, and there is
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: a sense of unity that comes wonder.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: It's kind of intoxicating.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it definitely really is. It's unfortunately a lot of
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: it's fake. It's all smoking mirrors a lot of it,
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: you know, because the moment that you step out of line,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: everyone will turn on you.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: And how can you turn on your brother just like that?
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: And that's what it took me a long time to
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: realize that. How the smoke and mirrors that they show
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden someone's not earning amount of money
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: or someone higher up as a problem with somebody, and
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: then the whole club turns against them.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: It's like, that's not right.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: That your experience.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've seen that a few times happen, you know.
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: That's why I had to go under the nationals one
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: time and I said to him, I so we're one
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: percent is yeah, we live outside the law, I said.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: Our rule book is that thick. How does that make sense? Like?
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Fuck your rules?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So you did ten years in the club, I believe,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: which is long. It's a long span by these days standards.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: A lot of people come in and out of the scene,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and people say it's hard to get in and it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: even harder to get out.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: What was your experience?
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I mean in this particular club you've got
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: you signed a bike agreement at the time it was
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: five years and I think it went up to ten years.
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: So if you leave within the first to say, with
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: the ten year bookinggrom, if you leave within the first
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: ten years, your hand over your bike, you hand over
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: some money, and you can go unless you're out on
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: bad standings. If you're out of bad standings, then you're
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: losing everything, absolutely everything you know. And I've seen it
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: happen a million times. People get put out on bad standings.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: And that's what I mean by this. Everyone's supposed to
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: be brothers. We're supposed to be loyal and his camaraderie,
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: and I'll call you up and say I love you, brother,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: and then the next day someone's got an issue with
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: you higher up and you're out in bad standing.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: So we're to go around there and bash you like
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: come on.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: And there are horror stories sometimes where people have had
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: tattoos removed forcibly by the club and some severe bashing
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: is even worse sometimes, and it's it must have been
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: very disappointing considering how much you needed that brotherhood, it
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: needed that love in your life, and to see that
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: it was highly conditional. I love this idea of a
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: lawless organization with a rule book a foot.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: That's it and then you know, if you break one
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: of their laws, you're out on bad standing. It's like,
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: how does that work out? In my opinion, if you're
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: my brother, you're my brother. Like, if you fuck up,
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: then don't worry, we can work through it, will help you.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: I'll help you fix it, and then we'll get back
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: on track. And that's what a lot of people, especially
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: these kids, they don't see that kind of stuff. They
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: just look from the outside like I did when I
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: was younger. They see it from the outside and they.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: See the brotherhood, the parties, you.
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: Know, all the shippers at the club and everyone's getting
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: along and all this, and then they don't see those
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: bad times like that, and they happen quite a lot.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Right, So after ten years you make a decision. What
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: were the circumstances of that decision?
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: Yet again, it's so I got pinched on quite a
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: lot of stuff, a large large amount of drugs, kind
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: of shooting. So I went to jail and I was
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: sitting in there, and I was in there for about
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: maybe two months, and then I went for Supreme Court
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: bare and that's when I went to this rehab center
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: up here on the Sunshine Coast. When I went in there.
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: I was only going in there just so I could
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: get out of jail. I was literally going to do
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: my one month and get out and just go back
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: to doing what I was doing because you're on bar
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: and now I'll stay out till I get sentenced, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: then I'll serve my sentence. That's when they started talking
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: about these things a lot your negative core beliefs, trauma,
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: while you use, there's a core root of white people
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: are addicted in the first place.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: I was like, what do you mean, I'm just used
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: because I like it, like you know.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: Then I met a girl there as well, and it
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: just I started saying this other side of life, and
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: I was like, and I like this. It was the
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: first time in my life. I didn't have this mask on.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: I was just me, you know, And it was very
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: scary at the start, Like it was very scary, but
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: I didn't have that gangster mask on. I wasn't full
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: of an ego. I was just I was that cool, calm,
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: collected kid that I was growing up. So I standard extended, extended,
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: did my six months there, and then I got out,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: and yet again I was still half in, half out.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: I wanted this new life but all I knew was
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: this old life, you know.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: So I got out and I was still selling drugs.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: I was doing this.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And yeah, now you mentioned you met a girl in there,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Offen The Love of a good Woman Changes a Man.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Was her name Jessica Buny Chance, Yes, it was, Yeah,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: tell me about her?
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so jess she's my beautiful wife. Now, there was
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: something about her. I don't know.
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: It's just I could just be myself around it. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: feel like I didn't have to let my ego, you.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: Know, have the show.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: When I was with her, I could just sit there
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: and talk and I have deep and meaningful conversations. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: there's just something about her. You know, she has a
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: bit of a pass. But she was working there, she
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: had just finished the program. She was actually working there,
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: so it was kind of like we weren't supposed to
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: be doing it, but we just had these deep conversations
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: all the time, you know. And it's like when she
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: looked at me, I could see she was looking at me.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: You know, she wasn't looking at the goal. She wasn't
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: worried about the money, she wasn't worried about that. It
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: was just like, Wow, this is cool.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I know what you mean.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: When you find someone who really, I guess gets you
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: and they look at you and there are no words,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: there's just looking into you. Yeah, and there's no pretense.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: It's a powerful thing. And I think if you're wearing
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: a mask, it's hard to keep that mask on with
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a person like that in your life.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: One hundred percent. It just gets heavy.
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, I could feel it coming up,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: and then I dropped down again. But then we were
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: going through our dramas as well. So then when I
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: got out of the rehabilitations and I did my six
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: months there, and I was up there volunteering a couple
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: of days a week. But I was still because, as
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: I said, when I got out, I was still half in,
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: half hout. You know, I was still in the club,
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: and I still need to make money, and I was like,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: what am I going to do?
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: So I was still doing what I was doing.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: I was about I think i'd been about three or
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: four weeks out of the program. I was in the shower.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: Next minute, this guy's head popped around the corner from
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: the shower. I was like, well, forget the hell out
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: of my house. He's like make police search warrant. I
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: was like what and I was holding it, mate. I
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: had to raise it because I was shaving my legs
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: and he's I put the razor down.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Put it down. I was like, what the hell was it?
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Getting out of my house? He goes search warrant. So
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I got out of the shower. He's like on the ground.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: I said, can I put a tail on? Light? He
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: just put a tail on, then get on the ground.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: So I did that and they just like, mate, search warrant. Whatever.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: I got nothing here. Light so it's the whole place
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: and found nothing. And then they said, oh, mate, you're
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: under arrests for trafficking in dangerous drugs.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: And when are you serious?
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: Because all I'd been done for was possession, and yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: they got me for the trafficking. And they said, oh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: don't worry, you'll be out this afternoon. We just got
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: to we'll take you down. I said, mate, I'm not
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: getting out. I'm on Supreme Court bar and you just
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: charged me with more charges. So I went into the
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: watchhouse and I said, so I'm getting out this afternoon,
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: am I I said, not a chance, mate, stid radio.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: They went to jarn and then they dropped the shooting charge.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: They dropped the shooting charge. My lawyer said, he goes,
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: you want to go for bail again. Look, you should
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: get bail again now that charge has dropped, And I said, nah, don't.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: I'll just start saving my time.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Boy, that's a rock bottom moment.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: You're half in, half out, and now you're losing your
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: free agency and your will going back to jail. It
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: would have been very easy just to give up. A
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: lot of men give up in these circumstances and just
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: say I'm no fucking good, this is what I'm destined for,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: and just resign themselves.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Why didn't you?
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: I think it got to the point because I did
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: struggle with that quite a lot, you know, because I'd
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: been volunteering up with this roly having stuff like that.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: I was helping people, and I was talking to people.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: It gave me this feeling i'd never had before inside,
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: you know, when I seriously spoke to somebody and helped
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: them through a tough time, and I walk away from
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: that just going like Wow, I could feel it in
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: my heart, you know, and I like that feeling.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: So then when I was.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: In jail, it was like I still had to be
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: the person that I was, but I didn't like it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: And that was the first time in my life I
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: didn't like being that person. You know, I had to
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: be that person for my own protection, from my own safety.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it was a real struggle. Trying to be
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: a different man in jail was hard. I'm not going
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: to lie.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: So how many years did you do? This time?
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Three years?
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: So I've got just over a nine year sentence and
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: then in Queensland, if you get under ten years, you
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: serve a third of it before you can apply for parole.
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: So it was about two and two years on a
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: remind before I got sentence. Then I got sentence, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: then I did about another It would have been fourteen
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: six to sixteen months.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: We journalists love to break things down into dramatic moments,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: turning points. Prete easy to go from black to white.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it's not like that. And so what was
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: your journey out of that to where you are today?
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: And that was only a few years ago, by the way,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: what year was that, like, twenty nineteen.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Or twenty nineteen.
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I got out in twenty twenty two. While
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: I was still in there, it was sort of I
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: didn't know what to do, you know, And I was
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: playing up a little bit and then I remember and
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: I got sentence, so I went.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: To go for a low security classification.
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: They're like, mate, there is no way in hell you're
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: ever getting a low security classification whatever.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: Then jam it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: We went up to Woodford Correctional Center, which is a
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: lovely place stuff on the Sunshine Coast. While I was
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: in there, I was still sort of playing up. And
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: then it got to the point though, I was like,
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: I knew I could apply for parole in about twelve
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: months time, and I was like, man, I've got to
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: start behaving. I've really got to start looking at my life.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: Like I just did not like that. I was looking around,
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: I was looking at everyone in there, just going like, mate,
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: look at these idiots just wasting their life away in jail.
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: And I said that to my mate and I said,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: look at these idiots wasting their lives away. And he
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: looked at me and he goes, mate, where the hell
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: do you think you are. I was like, shit, yeah,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: I said, I am an idiot. And I made the
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: decision then that I was going to leave the club
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: when I got out. And it's funny because my Mum
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: didn't realize I didn't tell my mom, and she came
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: up and visited me. And Mum used to be really
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: bad on the cigarette. She'd be packed sometimes two packs
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: a day. And I said, Mom, look, i'm really worried
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: about you're smoking. And she goes, yeah, well, I'm really
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: worried about what's going to happen when you get out
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: of jail.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: And I said, look, I said, I'll do you a deal.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: I'll leave the club if you quit smoking cigarettes, and
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: she goes, all right. Anyway, I ended up getting applied
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: for parole. I got my parole and as I got out, Mum.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Looked at me.
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: She said, I haven't had a cigarette since that day.
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: All right, you guys, are you going to leave the club?
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: And I said yeah, yeah. So it took me about
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: another six months. So I did go to another party.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: And so when I rocked up to that party, I
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: was like, man, I don't know anyone here anymore, like
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: and half of them may be nice guys, but they
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: weren't tough or anything like that. I don't even know
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: what they were in there for, you know. And my
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: wife was with me, and as I left, I just
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: said no, I'm done. I'm absolutely done.
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: It just reminds me actually that Fred I still speak
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to actually, who was in one of the clubs for
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: long time, did a lot of jail, and he talked
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: about a lot of people saying that when they're in jail,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: they're in a static place, not moving. He said, I
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: feel the earth spinning at at six hundred and seventy
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: kilometers an hour. I was a group in the bars.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I was seeing that in my life had another path.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: I wasn't just sitting here, and if you can visualize
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: what that could be, then you can achieve it, and
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: you seem to get to the point where you could
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: do that. You weren't just going to be the worst
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: version of yourself, the joyless victim.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: That's it. Yeah, and that's what I wanted to do,
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: was help people.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Breaking that cycle is so difficult, though, and I'm not
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: going to be able to optimistic. This has only been
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: four years, right, We're still a work in progress.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: If I was, I'm concerned one hundred percent. Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: So well, yeah, I left the club and then I
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: was like, I knew my passion then was helping people.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: I wanted that feeling again in my heart that I
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: was getting when I was talking to people and stuff.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: But I loved it, you know.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: And then I realized I had to get down to
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: the core root of why I was addicted in the
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: first place.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: That was a pretty big journey, you know.
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: And I did struggle the first twelve months that I
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: sort of left the club and that I had no friends.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: I thought I had no friends. I didn't know who
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: I was. I was still trying to find my place
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: in the world. Luckily I had my wife and my daughters.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: They were helping me out. My mum was helping me out,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: you know. They had my back every step of the way.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: I got a normal job. I started studying as well,
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: and then I was like, shit, what's my next move?
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: What's my next move? How do I do this?
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: And I just thought, well, the more I study, the
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: more that I know, the more that I can help people.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: So I just did every bit of stuff that I could.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: I was still a reactive person.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: Through all the counseling, through all the psychiatry and stuff
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: like that. I could name everything going on up here.
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: I could name my triggers, I could name my chrmits.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: It didn't stop them from happening. Though, you know, and
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: I thought, there's got to be something more. What else
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: can I do? And that's when I started doing sort
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: of some breath work and meditation on YouTube. And then
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: I saw the nine D breathwork and I thought, my
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: hey would give this a go. I was at this crossroads.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: You know, I was still a very angry person. I
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: was still helping people, you know, I was running people
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: through drug and alcohol programs. I was counseling people and
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. But in my personal life, I was
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: I was at that crossroads.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: I was like, this is a door die moment, this
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: is a make or break moment for myself.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: And that's when I found the nine D breath work
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: and through it's a holotropic breathwork. I remember going to
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: my first journey and then after that I walked down
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: and it was the first time in my life. I
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: wasn't afraid of my feelings. I wasn't afraid of my thoughts,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: I wasn't afraid of my emotions. I wasn't afraid of myself.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: I was a peace. That's the closest thing I can say.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I'd never heard of this nine D breathwork. I looked
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: it up and it's described as an immersive, multisensory therapeutic experience,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: combining conscious breathing with nine layers of audio why nor
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Well beat soundscapes, frequencies, and coaching to rewire the subconscious,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: release emotional trauma, and regulate the nervous system. It's designed
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: to act as a deep, rapid transformation tool.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: You've done a lot of work. I hope mum stayed
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: off the smokes, right, yeah, yeah.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: Vapes vapes now. But she's off the cigarette, so I'm like,
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: next zep is off the vapes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that nine D work for you was transformational.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: It really was. Yeah, that's the thing.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: It's the holotropic breathwork itself was created by a guy
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: called Stunners Lab Groth who is a psychiatrist and psychologist.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of scientific evidence back to research
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: behind this stuff. It's kind of like when you get
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: triggered in life. The trigger doesn't start up here. You
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: normally feel it in your body. First, your heart starts
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: going fast, your tummy titans up, you get the hot
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: coal flushes. That's your nervous system reacting to what's going on.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: You know, the body remembers what the mind forgets. We
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: can suppress all this stuff down in our I but
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: the body is still remembers. So you smell a certain smell,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: your here sound. You know, you're always in that fight
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: or flight mode, in survival mode, I call it because
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: the nervous system hasn't learned to release that. So through
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: the breath, were connect up to the nervous system and
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: release all that stuff.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: And I'm not going to lie. It's powerful stuff. You know.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of emotions come out as there's screaming, crying, shaking,
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: but afterwards, the feeling you get afterwards that you.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: Can only I say it to a lot of people.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: I'm like, the closest thing I can say is I'm
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: at peace now is knowing that look, I'm going to
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: be like this, I'm going to be like this, but
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: no matter what happens, I'm okay.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm still me.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: You do seem at peace.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: And I've dealt with a lot of people who've come
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: off heavy drugs, crime and so forth, and they struggle
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: to find joy in their lives.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: And that's a recurrent theme.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You've had these high highs of crime, adrenaline, high highs
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: of drugs, and then just this sitting with yourself with
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: your trauma, with these experiences. It's a frightening thing, confronting
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: thing for people. And you're helping people now go through
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that journey. Who are the people that you're working with?
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: It varies.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I've got yoga mums that come and can't come and
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: want to work with us and stuff. Because the thing
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: about trauma, especially complex traumas, it doesn't discriminate. You know,
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: over eighty five percent of the world's population has gone
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: through complex trauma. Because trauma doesn't have to be those
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: negative things growing up that can happen to us, Like
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: we don't have to be basted as a kid, or
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: go through our cooholism, our coholic parents or anything like that.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: We can Trauma can be things that we need that
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: we didn't get. So if we didn't have the love
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: and connection from our parents, if we never heard I
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: Love you from our parents, if we had to wake
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: up every day and guess what the energy of the
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: house was based on how our dad was walking around
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: the house, it leaves us in that chronic fight or
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: flight mote, the hyper arousal, and that turns complex. Obviously,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: trauma turns complex when it happens over and over and
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: over and over again, you know.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: So that's what makes it complex.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: But that in itself can that's where we grow up
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: with these feelings I'm not worthy, I'm not enough, I'm
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: not a good person, all that kind of stuff, you know.
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: So the people that I work with, it's I'm passionate
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: about helping and because I'm Indigenous, Indigenous people, I'm passionate
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: about helping people trying to get out of their life addiction,
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: out of the life of crime. But anyone with trauma
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: like trauma and our colon drugs is my passion really
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: is so anyone that's dealt with that, And I've got
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: so many people that so made. I don't have a
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: traumatic upbringing. I had a great upbringing. I said, Okay, well, what.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: Was the lock.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: You know, we went on holidays all the time, we
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: went overseas, we did this with that. So that's fine,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: I said, when was last time you heard your dad
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: say he loved you? So he's never told me that. Okay,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: did he ever hug you?
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: No?
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: Okay, your mum and him fight a lot all the
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: time as kids. So well, there you go, there's trauma
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: right there.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're looking into my life a bit there,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I must say, because I had a lovely middle class upbringing.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't These were different times, you know, and
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: people saw their role as earning a living, putting food
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: on the table, do what they had to do. Dad
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: was a psychiatrist who was involved in the prison system.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of heavy stuff that he kept away from us,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and he didn't shell and didn't express because he never
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: got it. Some one was a bit more expressive, not
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: always in a good way. I think you're right when
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: you say we all sort of carry the burden that
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: we have. It's relative to us. Yeah, you can't yourself
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: to a gangster who's been done a million years in jail.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: There's still going to be trauma.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: That's it. And that's what I tell a lot of people.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: You don't ever compare your trauma to someone else's because
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: what's traumatic for me might not be traumatic for you.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: But what's traumatic for you might not be traumatic for
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: me either, you know. And there's a lot of people go, oh, well,
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: you know, at least I wasn't bashed as a kid.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: It doesn't matter. You've still got that same feeling inside.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: Because trauma is not what happened to you. It's what
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: happened inside to you because of what happened to you.
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: That's the trauma. Because if trauma was what just happened
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: to you, you'd never be able to fix it because
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: you can never take back the event that happened. But
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: those feelings inside you can fix that, you can heal that.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Are you healed?
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: I'm on my journey. I don't think there's healing isn't
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: a destination. It's a journey as long as you're constantly
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: working on yourself, trying to be that better person every
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: single day. I think what you can notice is you
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: can notice the patterns where the trauma or the negative
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: core beliefs are coming out. You can notice the patterns.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: Once you notice those patterns, you can heal those patterns.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: You know, But there's always going to be something that
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: you need.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: To work on.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: It's a very annoying thing. Destination.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's taken me to my mid sixties
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: to actually just be able to be in the present,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: you know, and not being encumbered by what's happened yesterday,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen tomorrow, and feelings of worthiness And
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: I guess when you had a life of crime, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: you've been involved in these various things. There are these
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: unpleasant memories. How do you look back on those things
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: that happened in relation to where you are now.
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: My biggest thing now, and this is what I try
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: and get through to a lot of people, is that,
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: in my opinion, there's only a select amount of people that.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: Are bad people.
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: You know, the rapists and the people that do stuff
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: with kids and stuff like that, but everyone else. Just
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: because we do bad things doesn't make us a bad person.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: We're only doing that thing at that time because it's
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: what's best serves our interests, or it's what our core
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: belief is, it serves our sense of safety. You know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: we need to do this to keep safe, so we
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: do it. So that's why I look back and just go, yeah, okay,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: I did these things, but it's all I knew at
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: the time. It's the best thing I knew at the time.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: And really that's the truth. It's all on you at
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: the time. I can't hate myself for that, you know,
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry if I made anyone feel bad because of
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: it or added to a lot of people's traumers because
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: of the stuff that I did. And I'm sorry, and
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: I helped them heal from that if they allow me
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: to do that. But at the same time, I can't help.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: I can't hold myself now responsible for someone that past me,
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: that did that, because I'm not that person anymore.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think when you're in that world, you
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: in the game. As people have submitted to those rules
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: where the police are not the umpire, society's laws are
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: not the framework, and as you managed to break out
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: of that. Tell me, have you a lot of guys
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: I know from the club scene have to remove themselves
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: completely in order to reinforce that change.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Have you done that?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: I did for the first few years I had to,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: I really did.
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: But I'm at the point now in life where like
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: I wake up every single day and I'm telling you,
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: there's no amounts of cocaine or anything like that that
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: could give me the same feeling that I have now.
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: And trust me, I've done a lot. I wake up
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: just high on life now and I love it. Obviously,
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: a lot of my clients and stuff that I work
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: with now, especially with the counseling, and that they're still
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: in that life of crime, they're still in that I've
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: got free that I'm trying to help out of that life.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: It doesn't affect me anymore.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: You know, there's no way I would want to jeopardize
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: what I have now. And as I said, there's nothing
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: else has ever given me this feeling that I have
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: in sight.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Nothing like I said when we chat it on the
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: phone before this interview, I said, at thirty seven, yere young.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: He said, oh, thanks for that. I said, well, you are, though,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: because when you look at the decades that spread ahead
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: of you, and you've got a bit of gray in
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: the beer, you still got all the hair. Maybe you die, sure,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: but you can think of all the achievements that you
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: can with confidence go for now.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well definitely now.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: When you sort of put it to me like that,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: and it's just my daughters tell me I'm old at
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: the time of twelve year old, my eighteen year old,
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: you're so old you wouldn't know what would you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, yeah, radio, but you're right, like, I'm
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: just starting. I'm doing a graduate diploma in university at
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: the moment, I'm only very early in my helping other
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: people here career and stuff like that. But I'm doing
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: everything I can to make sure that in ten fifteen
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: years time. I've got a couple of facilities where there's
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: like a half way house of people coming out of jail,
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: Dragon Out Cool Reabilitation center, one for Indigenous base one
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: and then one for everybody as well. I've got a
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: lot of goals and I'm just excited to work towards those.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: As you say it's early on, though, is there a
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: little part of you that still fears that relapse?
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: No, not at all.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: I can honestly tell you that, Yeah, I've got no
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: reservations around drugs and alcohol. There's nothing that I mean alcohol,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: I don't mind. I'll have a drink every now and then,
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: but it's I don't go I wouldn't mind a drink.
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: But if I'm made a function and there's everyone's having one,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: I might grab one.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: It'll take me an hour to finish half a drink.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: But because alcohol is never a really big thing for me,
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: but there's nothing, then I can honestly say I've come
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: to that point where I have healed a lot of
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: that stuff, you know, I've got down to the core
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: root of my rejection and my abandonment issues and stuff,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: my feelings of unworthiness and I've healed those to the
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: point where I'm comfortable within myself.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you're getting those transcendent moments where you're seeing
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: in others what you were thinking was your character, your
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: identity and unchangeable, but you're able to change that. Tell
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: us about that feeling of working with people and getting
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: those sort of results. If you have an example, maybe.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent, it's a look.
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: I've got a client at the moment who's always like
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: he feels like he's failing. He's like, you know, I
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: see all this stuff you're doing, and rah rah, And
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: I was, I may stop comparing. I said, this is
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: exactly what I used to do. I said to me,
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: I've been doing the work for a long time. I said,
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: just because you know, I said, look at your situation
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: right now. Look back six months ago. What were you
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: doing six months ago when things got hard, you'd go,
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: I'd go out on your bender. I said, you're doing
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: that now? He goes, no, He goes, I was get
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: angry for a day. So mate, it's better than going
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: on a bender, isn't it.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: He goes, oh, yeah, that was exactly like Mae. I'd
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: compare myself to everyone else where everyone else.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Is out of life.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: Oh he's thirty seven, he's you know, got five homes,
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: he's got the kids, the misses, all this kind of stuff.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: He's happy, and I'll never get that.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: So what would be your message? We do get people
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: from all sides of life listening to the podcast. What
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: would be your message to someone who's maybe just come
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: out of jail or the involved in crime or drugs?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: What would be your message to them about how they
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: can avoid some of the pitfalls and short circuit the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: process that you took a long time to get through.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: This is my equation.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: If you want to get clean, get off the drugs
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: and out colin, you want to live a happy and
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: fulfilled life, there's three things that you need. One, don't use,
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: don't pick up drugs and you'll be fine. Two have connection.
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: But it's got to be good connection. I mean any
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: of us. I could go hang out with a bunch
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: of bikes right now, and if I did that for
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: twelve months, two years, guess what, I'll probably end up
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: becoming a bike again. Because you are who you hang around.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: So it's got to be a good connection. Make sure
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: you hang around with people that you're idolized, who's got
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: a life that you want to live? And the third
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: one is be of service? How often do you find
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: yourself being of service to others? Whether that's you give
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: someone five dollars that needs five dollars, or you go
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: have a chat with someone who looks lonely? When do
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: you ever walk away from that feeling bad? You don't,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: And if you feel good inside, you're not going to
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: have to cover up any feelings, are you.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I think that's fantastic. I think we can leave it
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: on that note. You've changed the color of my day,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: and I'm really pleased the work you're doing and the
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: insight because a lot of people never get it. A
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: lot of people I've met in this world are dead
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: by fifty, either through misadventure, drugs, or whatever, and they
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: never get to strip away the layers to get back
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: to their essential self. And you've done that. So I
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: really wish you all the very best in your work.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: We're going to put a link in the show notes
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: to Unbreakable Spirit Co and people can get in touch
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: and you can see if you can give them a hand.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate that.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks each having me on there.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: That's Sam Jones from Unbreakable Spirit co And it really
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: just reinforces my optimism about people.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: And I guess I got in trouble.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: At times where people would say it was too close
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: to criminals or bikis and so and so, but I
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: could see in a large percentage of them that there
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: were that little child underneath who were struggling with various issues.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Some of them managed to get out of that, some
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: of them didn't. But I think I could always see that.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And I think if people can take Sam's example and
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: run with it and find that powerful version of themselves,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: look at the good that can come in the world.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: I know this is a crime podcast.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: There's all about death distraction and people are going to
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: jail forever, but there's also a flip side to that
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: where people can have a useful life and help each
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: other find love, reconnect. I think it's great. If you
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: haven't spoken to your dad or your mum for a
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: long time, please go and do it. There's no need
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: for that. That's a real starting point I reckon to
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: change your life. I could go on all day. Let's
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: leave it there. If you want to report a crime,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: please call crime stoppers want a hundred, triple three, triple zero.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: You may not trust the coppers, you can always trust me.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Send me an email Adam Shander writer at gmail dot com.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: This has been Adam shan for Real Crime.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
• 44:57
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• 45:00
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• 45:03
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• 45:06
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