Latest / Jess Ask / The Truth About Addiction, Shame & Healing | FT George Gilliam | EP156

Transcript

The Truth About Addiction, Shame & Healing | FT George Gilliam | EP156 · Jess Ask

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Yo, it's your girl Jessica and Smith, and you already
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: know that you've entered the safe space for influencers to decompress,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: have fun and just ask God for another Do you
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: already know what it is? And then you know it's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: about to get real.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: To be sure to show your girl the love and
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: like coming scrabe God.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: For another day. Hey, hey, I know we could be
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: another way.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a new weeknd.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: Just as the podcast the safe space where transparency meets transformation.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: It's your girl Jessica as Smith, and I'm super excited
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: about today. And you know I don't do my days
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: without my girl.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Doesn't rate a.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Rate des A ryes a yes, A right does A
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: ray doesn't race. She's overly excited.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Look, just fix it. Just all that I know, I
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: see it. This is my two. That's your two. Uh huh,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: bring it back. It's okay. I don't care nothing by it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We start life. She just out of teaching mode.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: She's teaching somebody how to use the setup for BGT
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: stupid bg TV studios. If you haven't already, go over
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: there and subscribe to our family because we have over
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: fifty podcasts with this network along what I say it over,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: it's not it's over fifty podcasts. So we're super excited.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: She's been teaching, so that's why she acts like she
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: don't know what she's doing right now.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: And it's okay. We're here, though, we are here. How
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: are you? I am great? Are you great? Are you excited?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I'm excited? I mean by not y'alln't already seen. But
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: they might not have a name for they might not
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: have a name for it. And it's okay, so let's
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: just get back to our schedule program because the Lord,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the Lord is gonna forgive. How you doing system? I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: am actually, I'm really happy.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: I'm really have I started this morning with a big headache,
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: but now it's shifted, so I feel like myself and
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: I'm glad because we have a new family member today
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: and we are introducing him to our people.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Because I was introduced to the Man of God from TikTok.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: I was just you know, you read the four you page,
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: you really scroll and sometimes if you scrolling that local page,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: you really get some good content. And I was, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: can't remember if it was a local page or the
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: four you page. We came up with my page and
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: I started listening. I started listening to the story. I
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: started listening to not only the story, but seeing what
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: he was doing. This man is not just a business owner.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: He's a community builder, and I love a good community builder.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: I'm excited to get to know him.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Today. You might know him as Uncle g Uh huh.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: That's Uncle Jee's Pizza out of Burmaham, Alabama, but he
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: was born as George Gillim.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Can y'all give it up our new friend to do this.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Listen when I saw when I saw you on TikTok,
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I was overly I was moved like I've been.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like addicted to your content.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: So the first video I saw was of you telling
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: your story. You had different clips and you start explaining
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: some of the things I want to dig into today.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: You're not originally from Birmingham, correct, right, And so what
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: brought you here was? I felt like I connected today
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: because I love like a testimony of a transition and
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: being open and honest about it. Because what we believe
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: here is Revelation twelve and eleven, where we all came
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: by the blood of the Lamb in the word of
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: the testimony, and When.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I heard that, I was like, oh, he gets it,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he gets it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: And then I started binge watching and you've been delivering pizzas.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: Just just just kind of started doing that, like.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, so let's bring let's bring the people bags because
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: that's the case we take taking them two things because
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I'm excited. If you can't tell, I'm excited. And so George,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: I did just mention that you are were the owner
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: the founder of Uncle Jee's Pizza.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: How did we get Uncle Jee's.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: Oh man, So it's it's hard because there's so much
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: and I don't know like where to start something.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Let's start. Let's start with COVID. We'll start with the COVID.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, part portion of it because then I want
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: to take it back to how we even got to Birmingham.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Sure, So COVID. I was like just doing. I
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: was didn't really have a career going. I was like
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: in school, but I was not super passionate about what
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: I thought I wanted to do, which was social work.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be a counselor and like maybe work
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: at like a rehab or something. I was also thinking
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: about like working with like children that have autism because
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: I just love. I just love children that are on
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: the spectrum. I don't know if that's a weird thing
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: to say. I'm so delighted by like I don't know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I don't know, but anyway, so I won't go down
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: all that. But I didn't really know what I wanted
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: to do. And I was doing third party delivery like
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: a Instacart and a lot of door dashing during COVID
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: side note, I was very lucrative. There was a lot
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: of money to be made if you were like just
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: out there running groceries, which I was doing, and it
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: was fun. But what that did for me was it
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: gave me a test, sorry, a sample of what it
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: felt like to work for myself. And I think I
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: got addicted to that. I was like, I can't go
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: back to working for somebody else because it's just great.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: Like I, you know, I'm my own boss, my own hours,
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: so I can I don't have to be anywhere at
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: any certain time. I just got hooked on that, and
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: I I started making pizza. Like I've always been somewhat
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: of a home cook, yeah, like help my mom, you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: at home. Lots of good memories growing up cooking, but
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: not like professionally, Like don't still don't really consider myself
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: a chef per se. But I have always loved food
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: and I always loved making food, and serving food for
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: others gives me a lot of joy. So when I
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: when I started making pizza, I was kind of just
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: like trying to do like a life hack. Like I
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: was trying to just like learn how to make good
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: pizza at home so I didn't have to you know. Yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: I love pizza, and during COVID we were eating a
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: lot of it, so I was like, I should try
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: to try to figure out how to make this. And
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: I started messing around with it, and I just I
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: just fell in love with pizza, like from a different standpoint,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: I guess, like learning how to make it. Getting into
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: the craft, I got super obsessed with like the the weeds,
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: the nitty gritty, all the little details, the science, the
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: chemistry that goes behind fermenting dough properly, and like all
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: the steps. And I found that there is like making
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: bread is like a thousands and thout like millennia long
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: tradition and essentially what we're doing with pizzas we're just
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: making bread. We're making bread to serve like sauce and
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: toppings on, and it's a community. It's like it is community.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: The food itself is community, so it's like it's meant
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: to be shared. So I I just I just kind
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: of like started trying to harness that power of the
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: power of pizza, and I just I just started, you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: giving it out to neighbors. I was making so much
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: of it. Like my wife was so sick of pizza already.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: I was like waking up at eight am checking my
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: dough and like eating pizza by ten am, like for breakfast.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: There's another level.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: Of yeah, I'm serious. So like I got really obsessed
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: with it, and I spent a lot of time on
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: the internet, like in old message boards like people like
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: pizza making forums and stuff, and there's so much good
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: wisdom about how to make bread basically. But this, this
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: tradition of making bread is like I found myself trying
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: to like figure out this craft and really start to
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: try to learn how how to use it and respect it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: And it just felt really really great to be part
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: of something that was so much bigger than me. Yeah,
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: because you really just have to give yourself up to
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: it in order to learn it and it takes a
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: long time.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: I think you're saying something really important that I don't
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: want to skip over because desiree.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: You're hearing the same thing, the same pattern every other sentence.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Is like, I wasn't just a diition. I was passionate
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: about it. I zoned in on it. I learned the craft.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: I focused on one thing, and I focused, and I
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: did it well, and I learned wisdom from other places.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Because even when you were talking, I'm a visual person
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: and I'm visualizing you making this bread right. So I
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: don't know about it. So you can call me out
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: of my ignorance, but I'm visualized, Like is it called.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Kneeding needing the doe?
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: Like that's a whole process, and you focus in on
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: that process and build up on it. And I think
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: a lot of entrepreneurs inspire. Entrepreneurs can see so much
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: out there that they can do, especially like being multi facy,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: but they don't look at the one thing. And what
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: I'm hearing you say is I focused on one thing
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: and I grew from there.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: Yes, one hundred percent. It's totally a matter of focus,
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: which is focus is really hard, especially for those of
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: us that have ADHD and other you know things wrong
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: up here. But I ultimately like there's a craft to everything,
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: I think, and you can learn that craft and go
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: really deep into it, whatever it is. But ultimately it
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: comes down to like how are you choosing to spend
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: your time and how are you focusing your energy? I think,
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: And for me, like I've been thinking about this a
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: lot lately, so this might be kind of a theme.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: But coming back to the present moment as all has
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: been the key for me because to me, like God
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: only exists in the present moment, and when I'm worrying
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: about the future or I'm like stuck on something in
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: the past, I'm not truly experiencing God, Like there's no
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: God in that, it's just my ego sending me thoughts.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: You.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: So, coming back to the present, like having something to
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: do to focus on really helps you like tune your
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: ability to do that and helps you like practice just
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: being in the present because you just have to be
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: like what is the next step? What is the next step?
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: And what am I focusing on right now? So I
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: think that like treating the eternal moment as sacred is
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: like ultimately where all the magic happens.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: I think no, I can feel you on that, and
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: I'm with you, Like it seems like you're very visual,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: very like in tune with yourself.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: But if it's okay to say this, it doesn't based
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: on what you've.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Said on your platform, you haven't been always been that way,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: like being able to focus in on the prison, being
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: able to focus period. Possibly can you take us back
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: to old George, like where where are you originally from?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Again?
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: Virginia, Virginia?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, Virginia, And so what what does Virginia, George look like?
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: Okay? How how how like explicit can I get on this?
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: So if I'm talking.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: About like like d R U G S, okay, just
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: tell us, just just just say it.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: Just use the words yeah, so because I just want
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: to be sensitive without that. Yeah, families and kids and stuff.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: But I.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: I was a drug addict, So like I started out
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: life super normal. I was born with a lot of
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: privilege and silver spoon type of thing. Like, I was
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: blessed in a lot of ways, but like was very
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: blind to it and didn't really understand how. And I
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: was extremely focused on proving myself to like my parents
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: or to others or whatever. And I was very wrapped
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: up in ego as a result of that, and like
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: fear I think is what accompanies that. Yeah, it was
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: just a lot of like just a lot of a
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: lot of fear.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: I don't I think I just I was just clinging
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: to the wrong things, Like I was focusing on things
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: in the physical realm.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: I uh, I was brought to my knees by by drugs.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: I started out just you know, like drinking in high
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: school and then moved on to like harder things because
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: I just was I was looking for something. I was
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: trying to fill a hole in my soul.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: It's impossible to fill that hole with anything in the
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: spirit in the physical realm, you know, So I, you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: the drugs eventually just stopped working. I I'm I'm a
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: very obsessive type of person, like very addictive personality. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: so when I get into something like with like, I
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: into it and I push it like as far as
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: it can go. And I was doing that with all
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: the all of the drugs. And so by the by
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: the end, like when I was like fully just brought
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: down to my knees, I was smoking crack. I was
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: cooking my own crack in my apartment, learned how to
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: do it on YouTube. I read it and uh and uh.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: I was also on heroin.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Wow, so I at the same time, like in the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: same moment, yes.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, wow yeah, because and eventually those stopped working too,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: And that was like when I knew that something was
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: like really really really wrong because I had nothing else,
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Like when the drugs stopped working. Yeah, you don't have
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: any coping skills.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: So when you say stopped working, because you know, I
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: haven't been, I haven't done that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I've know people that have experienced that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: But when you say stop working, can you give us
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: like a understanding of what it means for an addict
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: to say this is not working anymore.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: So it's basically like my tolerance to those drugs grew
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: and grew and grew, and it got to the point
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: where it's like, you know, we're talking about coffee. If
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: you drink like two cups of coffee every day, eventually
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: you're you're gonna kind of normalize to that. You're going
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: to adjust and that's just going to feel normal. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: if you wanted to keep pushing it, you could add
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: a third cup of coffee. But eventually you would kind
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: of adjust to that too, and same with the fourth
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: cup or the fifth cup. And as a drug addict,
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: you are only being driven by your compulsions and you
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: have no ability to choose whether or not you're going
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: to do the fourth or the fifth cup of coffee.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: You have to physically be separated from it in order
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: to start recovering, which is like the rehab and you know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: the detox process. But as an addict, you keep pushing
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: your tolerance up and up and up, and eventually, like
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: the way I got on crack was from doing coke,
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: but the coke putting it up my nose, like it
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: just stopped working that way, so that the next stronger
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: way to do it is crack, And so that's what
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: I was doing. And then eventually that also stopped having
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: any effect on me because I just pushed it to
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: the max. So that's scary when like those drugs don't
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: do anything to your brain. I was like, Okay, I
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: don't even know what I'm gonna do now because my
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: only solution is no longer a solution, and so I
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: was my rock bottom And I don't love that term
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: because it can always go lower. But my rock bottom
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: that I experienced in July twenty seventeen was I was
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: at the country club that my family belonged to my
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: dad's seventy fifth birthday. My dad is a huge party,
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: like maybe two hundred people. It's like a wedding sized party. Yeah,
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: and my dad is like, you know, pillar of the community,
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: like lots.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Of like you know, because you got mine yaga.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he was like, you know, bank board and stuff
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: like that. So like he I was smoking crack in
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: the basement of the country club and I had been
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: up for like three days. I hadn't slept. I was
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: just coming off a bender, and before that I knew
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: that I looked pretty bad because of not sleeping. So
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: I was pale, and I had dark circles under my eyes,
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: super skinny. Just looked horrible and like kind of splotchy skin.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: Just looked really unhealthy. And I went to CBS and
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: I bought random makeup whatever I could find, and started
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: like trying to cover up, make myself look a little better.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: The color at least met I have no idea.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: I think I looked probably like a clown. I think
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: I looked insane like I looked. It was probably horrible,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: and I was going around talking to like my dad's
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: important friends about like aliens and stuff like it was
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: everybody knew that something was wrong with me. It was
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: like I was. It was a colossal embarrassment to my family,
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: Like it was just like it was just a rock
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: bottom moment, and so I was. My family sent me
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: to treatment shortly after that, and again like so much privilege,
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: like just many people don't have the resources to get
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: the treatment that I got, and so like I acknowledge that,
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: and that bothers me a little bit, but I'm working
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: through that. I just I have had a lot of
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: gratitude to my family for not up on me. Because
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: this was actually the second treatment, my second time, Okay,
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: so I was like on a relapse and like I
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: had already been a problem.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: So how far how long had it been since your
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: first treatment in that moment?
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: About a year? Okay, about a year, so I'd gotten
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: sober for the first time twenty fifteen, stayed sober for
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: about nine months and then maybe six months, so maybe
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: like a year and a quarter year and a half,
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: And it was the relapses get worse every time because
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: it's a progressive disease. Yeah, so like if I were
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: to go back now, like I would be way worse
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: off than I was in twenty seventeen, almost immediately, like
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: within a couple.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: Of weeks, all right, because it's almost like would you
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: consider like you binged the drugs, like say something like that, and.
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: Like your nervous system never really resets unless you like
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: allow it to, and that's a whole different process, I think.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: But like your body remembers like what it was like
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: to be in that state, and it brings your tolerance
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: back up pretty shortly, Like it doesn't take that long
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: to get back to the rock bottom. It's like shorter
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: and shorter every time. So I had that experience, and
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: I'm so grateful that I had the experience of the
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: relapse because it allowed me to understand that when I start,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: I can't stop. And that's just something about me that
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: is like different. And when people talk about like alcoholics
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: anonymous and like the first step is admitting that you
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: have a problem, it's it's that because I without if
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: I don't consider myself an alcoholic or a drug addict, yeah,
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: then I am going to think that I can maybe
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: have a beer and like be okay, Yeah, and I
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: just know that about myself that my brain is a
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: little differ. And when I start drinking beer, like I'm
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: gonna be smoking crack by sunrise.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Like's no, it is no gap.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: And I think that you're saying, you're talking real good,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Uncle G uncle G over here talking real good.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, No, Like I hope you.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I hope the audience is catching this, because it's like
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: you had to make the correlation of saying, Hey, if
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: I do this, I'm already there. It's no gradual for me.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: Once I drink the beer, the crack is coming. Like
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: the other drugs. I am going to try to get
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: as high as I can so that I can gnumb
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: or ignore this space.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: This is so good. So now we're at the rehab.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: It's the rehab where you.
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: Came to Birmingham, Alabama. Yeah, Warrior, Warrior, Alabama. Okay, okay,
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: place called Bradford Health Services up there, and I don't
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: know what it's like now. These treatment places have a
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: tendency to change pretty rapidly because the staff comes and goes.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: But when I was there in twenty seventeen, the team
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: of people that were taking care of me were amazing,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: Like I owe them my life for sure, and a
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: lot of them were the same ones that were looking
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: after me in twenty fifteen. And in twenty fifteen, I
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: was there also had been using heroin, but lied to
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: my treatment team the entire time, told him I wasn't
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: really doing heroin because they were talking to my parents,
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: because my parents were paying for the treatment, and I
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: didn't want my parents to know that I was doing heroin.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: So when I got to the second treatment, I wanted
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: to keep that same lie up because I still didn't
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: want to like get real on that level with my parents,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: like I thought that they were I was just afraid.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, did you think they were going to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: abandon you?
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: I don't Yeah, maybe or just think of me in
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: like a different light. Like I felt like I had
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: to present a certain version of myself to them that
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: they wanted to see, and I had been doing that
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: my entire life, and like I think internally, I was
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: just very tired of trying to do that and because
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: it wasn't real.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is that what led you to the drugs in
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the first place?
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so, there's definitely a factor, for sure,
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: But but yeah, I mean I had to I had
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: to have that experience of like having the relapse and
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: then like experiencing not being able to stop, because I
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: hope that I'll never forget that, you know, because it
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: enables me to work an AA first step every day
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: when I wake up and I'm like okay, yeah, like
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: I'm still me. I'm still here in this body, like
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: nothing's changed, and if I if I have a beer,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: then it's gonna be it's gonna be bad.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's so much discipline.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. I think so, And I like
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: I didn't intend for it to be disciplined, but I
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: think part of like maturing and growing up and just
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: realizing who you are in life is realizing when you
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: don't have to give energy to something. Because I spent
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: a long time in my life thinking that I had
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: to just kind of frantically give my energy to everything
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: that popped up and learning when to like step back,
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: and like, if you're a musician, learning when not to play,
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: like that's that's so good.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: On the g you know what to say, Uncle Jing Jesus,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that's good.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Knowing when not to play is a powerful thing. Because
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: we got some talented musicians.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and people want to be heard, and people want
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: to play, and people want to talk.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But that's so good.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: So take me to the moment, like I want to.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: I want to visualize and be there with you, to
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: the moment where you made the decision. If I go back,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: then I go back to this.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: Yep, this was the moment where, like I think my
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: spiritual journey started. I was sitting in treatment in like
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: a lecture with like maybe fifty people, and this guy
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: was giving us a lecture on like emotion or something,
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: and he something that he kept saying. He kept saying, like,
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: you have to be honest, Like you've got to get honest.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: You have to be honest. Nothing can truly start until
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: you're really honest. Yeah, And I just kept rattling around
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: in my head, and I'm like, I'm just doing the
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: same thing I did last time, you know. And if
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: I can't like expect anything really to change, if I
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: don't make some sort of like change here. And so
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: I got up out of the lecture, I walked up
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: to my counselor's office, like in a separate part of
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: the building. I walked over there and I knocked on
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: his door and I said, I'm ready to tell my
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: parents that I was doing Heroin. And mind you, I'm
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: a twenty seven year old man at this point, like
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: and I at this point, I have a very like
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: unhealthy relationship with my parents, Like I'm too tied to
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: them at that age. I think because I was, it
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: was you know, we were just in that kind of
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: relationship and I that moment when I told them it
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: was it was like a moment of like self actualization,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: I think, where I really took ownership of myself and
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: my past and the things that I did and the
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: decisions I made. And I was like, yeah, I was
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: doing it, and like this is who I am. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: immediate freedom, immediate weight off of my shoulders, like that
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: was my big secret, you know what I mean. And
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: and to be free of the big secret. You know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: you're a big secret because most people have one. Yeah,
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: to finally let that go is something that I hope
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: everybody can experience because everything immediately changed for me, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: you know, it still requires effort daily, but I think
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: I started to get out of myself and truly start
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: to experience like the beauty and like all of them,
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: perfection in life.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: That's it, right, I am about to go. I'm about
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: to go run three lauts. I don't know if I
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: want a crowd, don't know if I want to run.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: I don't want to want to speak in Tonge. I
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: don't know what I want to do.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: Jorge, I'm afraid I'm going like way too deep.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, this is a safe space for a
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: reason and the reason and what I'm I'm about to
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: share with you if that's okay. So what you just
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: said is so real. I the first thing that came
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: upto mind was my freedom talk with my dad. I
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: was raised by my father. You know, my sister Kendall
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: kinda tried it, and we were raised in the same household.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: And so my dad is military, right, but we didn't
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: have a silver spoon. So we had a just different
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: like it was just certain things we had to do
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: and a standard we had to meet because there was
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: no wigar room, preach just kid, I mean all that
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: type of stuff. A lot of expectations on a budget.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: On a budget, okay.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: And so I'm this grown woman and I'm you know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: I'm doing life and I'm in this world where I
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: want to be married.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to be married.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: I want to day and then boom, life happens to
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: where not once, but twice I experienced adultery, right. I
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: experienced what it is like to be the other woman,
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: the additional bonus to a man's life that is out
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: of the will of God.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: And so I'm I'm this preacher's kid, I'm a minister.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: I know how to speak in tones, and I know
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: how to pray and help people through their stuff. But
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: I'm losing my mind. I am literally losing my mind.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: And so I remember taking my dad to eat on
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Father's Day. I had a little money, you know what
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: I'm saying. I went, we went to Perie, you know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Parry on the two eighty, you know. And so I'm
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: sitting here and just involved in this conversation with my
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: dad is just a one on one and I feel
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: led to tell him that I experienced this situation.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Twice and this one.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, when I tell you, I was just I had
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: just told I had It was interesting because I had
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: just told some other leaders of mine, but not willingly
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: it came out. And so it's not the same. It's
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: not the same being caught. Like being caught and being
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: forthcoming about something.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: Two different experience like a cellular level.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: It's very because you have power, like it being ownership, right,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: And so I'm sending your telling my dad at this right,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: I was like, Hey, I have something to talk to
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: you about.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you digest it, but I just
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: feel led to tell you.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: And so I tell him, Oh, I have not told
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: this story out loud, but I tell him and he
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: looks at me. Who He looks at me, and he says,
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: you know you're better than that. You know you're beautiful,
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: you know you're smart. You know he was trying to
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: figure out.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: If I knew who I was. You get what I'm saying.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: And not to say my I didn't think my daddy
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: thought those things. But because he was the only parent,
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: he only had, he only had space to prove, to
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: focus on provision, because you're the soul parent of two girls.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: It's like I'm trying to you know, discipline, if I scared,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: maybe if I use a fear tech this y'all won't
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: get into it.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Just got to keep it together. So the.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: Identity portion, it was something that I missed a little
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: growing up, but it's being in that moment he went
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: to there, went to that place and then afterwards, we're
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: sending a car and just talking and he's getting vulnerable
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: with me, I'm being vulnerable. It was just such a
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: beautiful moment and I like just but even with that,
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I still had shame of how everybody else would feel
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: about it. And so last year, it's last year in July,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: that's when I had my freedom, that's my freedom date.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: Whereas I was speaking to some other women and the
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Lord led me to share that testimony and I cried afterwards,
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: and the women was like, Hey, you not the only
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: one that has experienced this.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: You steal this, You're steal that. And I just broke
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: free from it, and scripture supported me and being free
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: from that. And so I want to tell you that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: your story are you sharing that portion is no deepness
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to it, because there's details that people need to hear,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: not even just from you, like as an attic standpoint,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: but I want to get back into the viewership of
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: your parents, because there are parents that are dealing with
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: this right now and they don't know how to navigate
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: through their child being addicted to drugs. So what encouraged me?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: How would you tell them to encourage them to keep
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: not lose hope on their children.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it is probably the hardest thing. And I don't
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: say that based off experience. I have two kids, but
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: they're very young, and I hope they don't go through
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: the same struggles that I did, but I know that
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: there's a pretty good chance that at least one of
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: them will.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: And the.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: I think that the answer is typically like go to
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: some form of like alan On or like There are
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: groups that are like alan On based that are it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: sort of like the AA program, but it's for family
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: members and it teaches you basically how to lovingly disconnect
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: and how ultimately, really somebody that's experiencing addiction, the best
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: thing that you can do for them is not enable them.
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: But we lose sight of what that looks like, and
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: we start to enable. As parents, we start to enable
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: our attic children in ways that we don't necessarily see
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: as enabling. We think we're trying to get them on
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: the right path. We're trying to provide them with shelter
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: or like get them off the street or whatever, and
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: we think we're doing something loving, but really all we're
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: doing is prolonging they're suffering because they have to arrive
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: at that place on their own and be brought down
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: to their knees on their own for real. And if
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: you're always kind of the air just to kind of
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: catch them, then it's just pushing that timeline down further.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: And like we said, it's like a progressive disease, so
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: you really want to get it early, like cancer kind
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: of like if you get it early, like then maybe
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: it won't spread kind of thing. So the best thing
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: is to really let go and allow them to just
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: have their journey. And it's terrifying because especially right now
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: with like feentanyl and like just the stuff that's out there,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: like it's literally Russian, like you just you don't you
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: don't know what you're putting in your body, and so
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of danger. But I would make the
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: argument that it's even more dangerous to prolong their suffering,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: you know, I think that that leads to uh more
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: heartache down the road.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: That's so, that's so good.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: I think I think you're helping so many people right
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: now because I'm learning. I'm learning a lot right now.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you just said
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: that the Holy Spirit will not let me let you
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: just say that and not respond to it. So let
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: me let me ask you a question. First.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: You you just mentioned that you hope your children don't
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: get into it, but there's a chance, a good chance
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: that they will. Is that because you have had other
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: addicts in the bloodline.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, it's absolutely. I believe it's a genetic there's
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: like a very hardcore genetic component to it. Because my
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: mom was an alcoholic and she got sober like right
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: after I was born, and she like, I don't know,
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's a lot of mental illness in my
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: family on both sides.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: But I.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: My experience has been that all the like real addicts
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: that I know, not just people that like problematically drink
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: or whatever, but like a real real addicts like me
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: really just always have someone related to them that's also
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: an addict. So I I really do believe that it's
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: it's just passed on genetically. And you know, me and
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: my wife we talk about it. We hope that it's
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: not in their future.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: But.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: You know, we just so so let me ask you
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: this too. So it has your wife experienced, No, she's.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: Not an addict, Okay, she you know, she's got her
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: own her own journey and her own like demons, like
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: everyone else, right, and she's she's done some amazing, amazing
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: things and she uh, she's come back from a lot
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: of a lot of things too. And I'll I don't
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: want to tell her story.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: She she hasn't experienced the drug addiction in the way
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: that I have. Okay, so she she's learned a lot.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: So this is this is why I'm asking this because
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: I'm really big on like bloodline generation, breaking generational patterns, right,
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: And it starts with, for one, noticing the pattern, like
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: like you, you would say, I'm gonna admit admit this.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: So not only did you notice the pattern, but you
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: cut yourself all from the pattern. And what happens is
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: when we cut ourselves off from the pattern, the legacy
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: that we leave is a powerful one versus a submitted one. Right,
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: maybe what if your mom was able to cut off
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: the pattern and share with you, you know, some things
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: and be vocalized. I think right now, the reason why
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: we feel like certain things will be passed now is
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: because for when we don't talk about them, right, we're
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: not honest, We're not transparent, forthcoming about things.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: So I wish this is what I wish.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: I wish my parents would have talked to me and
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: told me married men still seek after single women.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I wish we would have had that conversation.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: I wish I would have known that my family wasn't
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: a picture perfect family, whether they call the name of
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: the Lord or not, that they was cheating and they
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: was outsiding, and this is not how you do it.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking that I'm just easing myself in and I'm
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: a disgrace to my family not knowing that they have
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: been practicing these things. So now I'm at a disadvantage.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: But now because I know, I'm gonna make sure my
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: children are not at a disadvantage. You have a choice
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: that right. I'm passionate about that because what the what
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: I believe is that evil? What have you believe the
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: enemy would have you believe that it's not possible for
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: your bloodline to be delivered from a pattern. It is
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: because now that you what do you do with your awareness?
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: What do you do? What are you submitting to?
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And you've submitted to positivity, like your life has.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: Changed, George. You don't want to go back, nor will
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: you go back. And that means that because you are
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: the head of your household, you get to make a decision.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: My family won't get the experience these My family don't
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: have to experience this because I get the choice to
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: be forthcoming with my kids about X, Y, and Z.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: I want you to know that you have a decision
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: not to drink just as much as you have a
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: decision to drink. I want you to know that just
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: because I experienced this, I don't want you to experience this.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: And this is why you're gonna go much further than me,
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: because not only do they have a responsibility to manage
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: your name well, but to you have a business that
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: you're you're you're gonna leave his business to your children,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: and so just giving them that idea and that that
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: that that vulnerability I believe works against the pattern.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I agree, No, and I'm glad that you
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: pointed that out because I think all things truly are possible. Yeah,
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: and yeah, like why limit ourselves? Yeah, and you know,
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: physical realm thinking. But but but I think you hit
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: the nail on the head. I think the vulnerability thing
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: is key because I don't know that story about you
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: and your dad like really resonated with me because when
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: you said that he started getting vulnerable after you shared
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: your vulnerability that happens almost every time, you know what
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: I mean. And that connection where like two people are
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: being truly vulnerable together, like that is intimacy, you know.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: So like George, I didn't know what intimacy was before
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: in life, just like at age twenty seven, like I
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: figured it out. Yeah, you know, I'd never really had
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: that experience, or if I did, it was very fleeting.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: But yeah, the vulnerability is where all the magic.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Starts, is where it is the crossworld. Yes to change. Yeah,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: either you go with.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: The vulnerability and move forward, or the vulnerability can invite shame.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: So that's why it's so important for us at the
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: point of where we are to be vulnerable at the
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: right space, at the right time, and even having the
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: people to manage us will like desilready back there when
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: I was I had experienced that. She was literally one
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: of the first people or the first person I just
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: willingly told I didn't feel the pressure.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel Yeah, yeah, I felt safe. And I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: think that one thing I think.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: That you have displayed without even realizing it, is that
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: you're safe enough to approach You're safe enough to have
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: those conversations with that. I think that's also probably why
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: you desire to be like a counselor or whatever. And
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: also with your connection with autism and autistic children, like
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: it's because they think differently, they have a different need,
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: and you just have the ability to nurture that need.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: I think also like you just I don't know if
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: you look at it as like a gift yet, but
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: there's a safety that's needed for someone that is a
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: community builder. You are a community builder. I can't just say, oh, yeah,
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: you're owner of Uncle GE's pieces. No, that's a tool
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: for you to build the community. And so I don't
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: know if you've considered that, but I think that you're
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: safe enough and you're gonna get people after this. Uh,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: this this airs to be like, oh, I want to
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: go to support because I know he's gonna help the
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: he's gonna help the add he's gonna help the person
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: that that that lacks.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Let me get back to one thing. And because this
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: has been so good, George.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: You have you.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I am enjoin you. Like I knew
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: it was gonna be good, but my goodness.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: Earlier you talked about, well several times you brought up
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: having the civil spoon right, and can I just keep
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: it to one hundred with you. For a white man
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: to say that out loud, it's freeing. I'm just gonna
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: keep it a buck with you. I don't I don't
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: know if I've ever heard so much humility in a
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: statement like and I think, no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: I'm just being I'm being transparent. I want to call
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: a thing a thing because there is so much and
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: even in the area we are.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: In Burnment, Burnham, Alabama, there's a lot.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: There's a history of civil rights acts, even what we're
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: going through with the voting and all that stuff like that.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: I'm not very political, but I paid I try to
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: pay as much attention. You don't understand how how the
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: door you just open being able to say, hey, I
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: know I had privilege, and I don't you know, I've
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: had privilege here and this is why the way I
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: was able to do this because I had a you know,
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: my family did this and this was unhealthy. Like I
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: don't I personally, I haven't really experienced it on a
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: level like this. For you to say that, when did
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: you realize this silver spoon was not healthy for you?
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: And how did you remove yourself from that?
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: Well, I think I realized it really early on because
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: my parents would tell us like, hey, like other kids
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: from other like public schools, they might like when you
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: tell them what school you're from, they might kind of
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: like look at you a little differently. And they tried
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: to kind of explain that, probably age nine ten something
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: like that, and because I was starting to do, you know,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: stuff like reck basketball out in the community or whatever,
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: and that immediately made me feel very self conscious because
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, like I kind of just want
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: to like connect with people, and now there's like this
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: thing that I have to be aware of and worry
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: about because my parents told me about it, and like
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: it's you know, it's a thing, and I kind of
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: like tested it out and I was like, oh, like
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: that is real, Like that's the thing. I'm like being
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: looked at differently, and I I was just really self
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: conscious of it, I think, but it wasn't That wasn't
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: the key though, because for me, like I was still
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: taking a lot of advantage of my privilege without realizing it.
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: And I think what that takes is like really honestly
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: like looking at the world around you and seeing like
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: what's going on and how people are being treated for
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: real and just taking an honest look inside I think,
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: and just seeing like there were many times where I
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: was like shaken down by the cops and I had
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: drugs on me and they let me go with a warning,
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: and I was like had alcohol in my breath, like
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: you know it just something where like if I looked
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: if my skin was a different color, I would have
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: been in jail that night, And just really honestly like
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: coming to terms with that. And there was a period
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: of time, I think in between two where like I
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: was aware of the privilege, but I was still using
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: it to my advantage because I was in the middle
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: of addiction and I it was like survival, I think.
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: But and when I say using it to my advantage,
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: I think, all I really mean by that is like
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: I wasn't doing anything about it. I was just kind
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: of like going with it.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: There's a there's a big, big problem with white men
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: right now, Like I don't I'm I'm afraid to kind
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: of even say that because it like immediately becomes this
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: politically charged, like people like take it as this political statement.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: And I think the first thing I'll say is that
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: I just really don't like how divided everybody is right
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: now politically, I think that the elite want us divided,
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: and they want us fighting against each other, and they
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: want us at odds because it takes it takes the
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: visibility off of what they're doing. And you know, I
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: think that if all of us came together, all the
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: red and blue and we came together, we could make
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: really really positive change. But it takes getting over that
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: ego where you know, we it's it's like self preservation constantly,
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: and like in America, it's like this rugged individualism like
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: was is like built into our DNA kind of, but
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: it's it's not great for the soul. Like it's great
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: for building a life where I can be isolated from
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: everyone and get delivery McDonald's to my door and not
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: have to like interact with anyone, and I can sit
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: on my phone and like it's great for getting shopping
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: like delivered to me and like I don't have to
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: interact with anyone for anything. And I think that's the
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: direction that a lot people are moving right now and
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: not don't realize it, because I was definitely one of
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: those people. And I just read the news and I
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: just I bought into everything that society was doling out
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: without kind of unplugging and realizing, like what's actually going on,
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: and what I think is actually going on is just
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: like a big spiritual like sickness that a lot of
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: people have, and that sickness like wants to make the
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: wedge that divides us bigger and divide us even further
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: away and put bigger locks on our doors, and all
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: that buy guns protect ourselves, keep us, you know, not
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: just keep us isolated. And ultimately, I think it comes
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: down to a choice just between fear and love and
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: every moment you have the ability to go either direction.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: And you know, I think like this, this comedian Bill
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: Hicks back in the eighties, he said it best. He said,
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: the eyes of fear want us to put bigger locks
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: on our doors by guns, you know, isolate ourselves, and
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: the eyes of love want us to see us all
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: as one, all connected. We're all humans, we're all imperfect,
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: and we can do great things when we come together.
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: But as long as we're divided, like, our power is
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: extremely limited. And I just I hope that there's there's
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: a big wave of change coming. I think a lot
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: of people are ready for it, Like are just tired
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: of how things have been. Yeah, and it feels like
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: things are changing. But those of us that feel convicted
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: and feel strongly that you know, we can we can
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: do positive things as a human race. I think we
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: we will ascend in some form or another. And uh,
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: I just want to get more people on the bus.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I love that. That was powerful.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for willing being willing to like
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: talk about that because I know that you know, at
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: the end of the day, you still got to go home,
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: you know, and we make statements that we don't know.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: As a podcaster, I didn't.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I have been like, I've experienced some things where people
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: are like, why did you say that?
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, because I said it, Like it's what
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I say. It is okay that I said it.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: And I think I'm I am overly excited to support
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: you in multiple different ways because you are George.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: You are that guy, you are you are differently that guy.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: There's a ray I know we've been talking about. We've listen.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: He feels like I feel like I can keep going
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: in this conversation like real bad. I want to hear
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: your thoughts since no this.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Has been a.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Very I want to say kind of encouraging conversation like one,
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: I just love your your your story and your testimony.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. One, because you recognize that
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: you're living in the grace that was given to you. Right.
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: We all have a past, We've all done things that
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: you know that we're not proud of, and you know,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: and things like that. But the truth is, as a believer,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: as a son, God has granted us grace. And that
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: grace looks like, Okay, let me share my testimony, let me,
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: let me, let me, let me let the people know,
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: like what God has brought me through and what we're
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: still walking out. And even the moment where you where
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: you begin to share about privilege, right, I think right
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: now it's such a we're in such a heightened atmosphere
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: that it's almost that people are almost afraid to even
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: just just share, right. And So what I believe is
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: happening right now, it's really just a mirror on reflection
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: of where our heart is as a people as well
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: as a country.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And so I think I.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: Get a little sad because you can't tell me, you
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: can't tell me that you're a Christian and you love
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: God and not love his people.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: You can't tell me that you follow the God of
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: the Bible. You don't love his people all all his people,
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: you know. And so to me, that's the saddening part
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: where we are because that's not God, you know. And
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: I think God uses everything. So I really believe this
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: shaking everything that's happening now. I think it's necessary for
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: people to be able to take a step back and
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: really evaluate their heart posture. Yes, you may have learned
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: some things as a child. You may have your parents
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: may have taught you some things. And this is on
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: all sides, right because even us, you know, you're a person,
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: you know, like there are certain things that we're taught
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: for protection and things like that. But at the end
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: of the day, we still have a choice to still
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: choose the love of the Lord. And I think when
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: we can get to that point where we can see
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: people as humans, humanity as humanity, and begin to fully
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: walk in the love of God, we will begin to
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: see generations change.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: And that's what I'm excited about.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: I'm really excited about that because I do believe spiritually
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: there's been some shifting and shaking that's been happening, and
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: we're just seeing the the natural manifestation of that thing.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: But God is still God, and so I still believe
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: in God, and I still believe in Jesus, and I
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: still believe that He uses all things. And so I'm
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: just grateful to have you here today to be able
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: to shed another uh layer of conversation because this is
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: what this is.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: This is just hey, let's have this.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: We can have this open, honest, vulnerable conversation about this thing. Right,
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: there's no your opinion is right. My opinion is right.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: Is let's just have a conversation about what's happening, and
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: let's see if we can move the needle past.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm like you, I'm like you, just says, I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: don't think this is going to be the last time. No,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't you have an open door power.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: We don't.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: Let's let this very clear. We don't do this with everybody.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: We don't even because you know, sometimes it's a one
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: hit wonder. Okay, But uncle G, I would like to
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: extend the invitation, the open invitation that just asks is
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: a home for you to where we support you business,
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: the business, brother, the sister, like I pray that you experienced,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: what we're experiencing from you is just a bridge right
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: to where we can cross over and ask questions and
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: be open minded with the communication. And so as a
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: traditional just ask, we we allow our guests to have
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: the final word, right. I would love if they didn't
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: hear anything that you said. What's the one thing that
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: you want to leave them with?
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: Ugh, I would say, and this isn't the No, there's
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: not the same because now I think I think the
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: final thing is that, yeah, fear versus love. I think
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: if people could just think about that and put a
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: little bit of thought into it and see and just
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: look at their own lives and see, like where they've
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: made decisions based off of fear and where they've made
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: decisions based off of love. You know, I can. I
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: can make decisions based off of fear all day long
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: out of you know, trying to protect myself or whatever.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: But making decisions based on love is you know, that's
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: that's where all the good connection happens.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: I think that's so good. Listen, we support Uncle Gee's
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: over here. Okay, so yeah about because this is I mean,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Pete started the conversation. We can, we can, but we're just.
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: A tool that Pizza definitely is the tool. Okay, Pizza
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: got us to see you, all right, I can't wait.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: I haven't a confession. I haven't tried it yet.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go try I'm gonna go try it.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: Okay, we just as gonna have to come over there, man,
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: So just there, but you, guys, we we want to
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: hear from you.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: There was a lot said. There was a lot said
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: in this conversation. I also would like for you to
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: go follow Uncle GE's. I don't care where you are
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: in the United States of America. I want you to
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: go follow Uncle Jee's. Let him know that this community
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: supports him, and also give us give him some feedback.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: What was it a part of his story that just
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: resonated with you the most? And also let's let him
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: know that we're praying for him. We're pushing him in prayer. Okay,
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: we about to about to come in agreement with praying
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: for George. All right, and so what I love you
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: guys until next week. Until next time, Remember, life could
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: be much more simple.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: If you just asked thank you for tuning in to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: this week's episode. Since you've made it this far, you
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: might as well. Connect with us on all social media
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: platforms at Deep. Jessica S.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Smith, I know I won't see you back until next week,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: but until then, remember to love always yourself and always
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: thank thank God.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: For one another day.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, I know we could be another way. Hey,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: pray thank God for another day. Hey Hey, I'm just
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: thankful for another day. Hey hey, another day? Oh, another
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: day wise, another day to get it right, another day
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: to rise up, another day living another day. We loved ones.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: I always remember hold it down for a ball one. Yeah,