From Addict to Healer | with Brandon Novak

Michael: I am brought back to reality by this disgusting man's voice. This is your last chance, kid. This dirty old fuck is getting frustrated that I am stalling and letting him buy my body. And I make my decision. Tomorrow, I need to end this, but right now, I'm sick. I need heroin, and I will sell myself. I go completely blank, cold. That is an excerpt from Dreamseller. By Brandon Novak who's a guest on today's podcast Welcome my friend.

Brandon: That's not a fucking intro. I don't know what it is, that was great. I like it I love coming out of the gate strong.

Michael: When I read that I was just like fuck you know you think about what we have to suffer through as human beings to Find the thing that brings us salvation the thing that we think brings us joy or love, compassion, hope, whatever it is. Sometimes it's a needle, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's money. But we will do anything that it takes to get that. One of the things that I really wanted to ask you, as I was researching you and leading up into this moment, is why do you think that you're still alive?

Brandon: For me, it's what I know to be true is it's nothing less than God's grace and mercy. Because that as is anyone in recovery who's been blessed with this gift. Unfortunately, it doesn't play out that way usually, right? And if you follow the statistics, the analytics, the data that's collected, it from all these studies, it states that, I, a guy who's sober and I've been blessed with this new way of life, it states, statistics state, theoretical evidence dictates that I am to be high or dead. The fact that I'm not is (A), miraculous, equaling a miracle, and (B), it defies logic. So I firmly, and my wholeheartedly of hearts, believe that I went through what I went through to be the man that I am today to help those who are where I once was, which is why I have this really sick place in my heart for drugs and alcohol, can't get enough of it. Today I just go about it in a really different manner. As a direct result of the blessing I received, my poison has become my medicine, and I've been put in this position, I believe, to God willing inspire those that may come behind me just as the gentleman by the name of Chris Herring did for me when I was coming through the doors. And I saw his video and said to myself, if he can do it, maybe I can too.

Michael: It's fascinating to sit across from you for a multitude of reasons, but predominantly because same. Statistically, dude, I shouldn't be here should be dead or in jail. My three best friends are dead, murdered over drugs, one stabbed to death, one got shot in the head. The other one, I just don't even have the balls to talk about, to be honest with you. Drug addict, parents, alcoholic family, the whole nine didn't graduate high school. And I turned that mess into a message, guiding millions of people every year, not only through this show, but through, taking this pain, man. This thing that consumed me, what would it take in my fix? I'm the addiction side of the healing journey. It's fascinating because you're like in this place, at least for me, where I was like, oh no, this is life. It feels good to hook up with 30 different women a week and it feels good to make millions of dollars and it feels good to do all these things and yet on the inside, you're like totally empty. And your journey is fascinating in part and parcel one because of your ability to be so resilient, and I wonder where that resilience comes from. Most people don't get to have this conversation. I include myself in that, and yet here we are, and of course I can leverage miracles and God, spirit, universe, whatever it may be, but I also think there's something a little deeper. Do you feel like you've been destined for greatness?

Brandon: I believe that I was called on or picked for this position that I find myself in today, but I also believe that it could change in the blink of an eye. But nonetheless, here we are, and I believe what better person for the job than myself. I'm an amazing man when it comes to playing devil's advocate. And I'm insanely understanding of accepting people where they're at, truth be told I got sober only because the drug stopped working. And you hear that often the alcohol stopped working and I, it legit stopped working for me by way of, I ingest a speed ball, I fucking sniff a line, I hit the pipe, swallow a pill and this delusional effect is created without fail that has shown up for me for the better part of 21 years that allows me to escape this fucking terrible horrific reality that I've created again as a direct result of my addiction and without foul in just the drink of the drug the delusional effects produced which allows me to escape that fucking harsh reality for a period of time just long enough to like not only make homelessness manageable I'll make it desirable like it, it disconnects me from this reality. It takes me into this really abnormal place, but because I go there so much, it's normal, and that's great. It shows up for me. It does exactly what it's supposed to do. But for me, in my case, at 38 years old, having attempted sobriety on so many occasions, in so many different ways, I did the worst thing I could have ever done for my first career of drinking and drugging is I acquired some knowledge and ignorance was no longer bliss. And I started to become accountable for my actions and see the part that I played in these outcomes, and that moment of clarity that's talked about in those brief periods of sobriety that usually create change because the outcome is no longer acceptable, depending upon the individual for me at the end, I'm not even lying. I couldn't put another drop of water on the syringe or the plunger would pull out like that's how much I'd load it and I'd blast off with a serious speedball and that effect was no longer being produced. I was no longer able to escape this reality, meaning that moment of clarity that I was enduring was taking place when I was sober and high. It stopped fucking working, it no longer did what it had always done for so long. And at this point, I had come so far. I'm a 38 year old fucking homeless heroin addict. It does what the excerpt from that book read. I stand on the corner and wait for men to essentially buy me for an hour, for ten minutes, I'm animalistic level, and all is fair in love and war. None of it's personal, it's just business, I'm immune to this way of life, I'm numb to feelings, I'm so desensitized and dehumanized that is, a Monday morning cup of tea. And it was good while it was good and the heroin and the cocaine and the wine produced the effects that I desired. But what do I do when it stops? Fuck.

Michael: That's when you find out who you are. Yeah. And that's so scary.

Brandon: That's when shit gets real, ‘cause then you're forced to face everything that, for me, I got high over for years. Oof.

Michael: That's the baseball bat to the face it's so funny because people think that the healing journey begins at the rock bottom, but it actually begins in the moment of clarity

Brandon: I always say my bottom, that last one wasn't my lowest by any means, but in reality it was because it came up to meet me, right? Like I couldn't, you Justify or minimize the severity of the situation anymore. I could no longer blame it on the ex fiancé because she's now the ex. I couldn't blame it on the father who was a crack addict who taught me how to conduct myself when he went to prison because he's dead. What, I'm running out of people and places and things to put this on.

Michael: What I think is so interesting about your journey though, and we haven't touched it, but I want to go into it. Not that it's the crux of this conversation, you go from fame and fortune and celebrity and travel and the things that people dream about. You're a pro skater getting your board with Peralta, you're like doing the thing and I'm a bit younger than you, I'll be 40 very shortly, but my brothers and I, we even in the hood, this is how powerful what you guys created was with Jackass and CKY. In the hood, we would get blunts and get high at 12 years old and watch your guys videos. And my little brothers would go and attempt stunts because they're, I love you guys, you're dumb, let me rephrase that. You were dumb, you were dumb, and I would just watch them, like you guys are fucking ridiculous. And then here you are 38 years old with nothing. What eight scarves and a bag torn clothes and a needle and a spoon and a restraining order and what the fuck are you doing, man? Yeah, what are you doing? Like how do you even get there? And this is the solution I'm always trying to get to like, how do you mitigate the risk of a Brandon?

Brandon: That was the million dollar question how did I get here? Like that was never what my intentions were because, believe it or not, as a young kid, I had these goals, I had these dreams, I had these aspirations and ambitions that I was going to be somebody. But more importantly, who I was not going to be was my drug addict father. That's who I was not going to be, and I made it a point throughout the majority of my life, when I still had a say so in the matter to excel at everything I did in my life. To prove that I would never be that bum of a drug addict father called Jerome who gave birth to me, and Low and behold, not only did I become him I like made him look like chump change at the end.

Michael: Do you think that's like I grew up without a father and my stepdad was a dude, he was a monster. Guy, my size six foot three 200 something beating up a seven year old and so my measurement for manhood was like, honestly, it was Jay Z and it was movies and it was Bitches and money. And that's what I chased. And it like, dude, the addiction was so intense with women. I only had one, I've only shared this one time ever. I'm going to share it with you, ‘cause I want to create this space. I've only had one nickname in my entire adult life, that wasn't coach. And in my twenties, my friends called me my space whore. Because I'm out here just hooking up with every chick I can connect with on the internet chasing that high three, four chicks a day, like literally it was out of control. I'm shocked that I don't have 400 kids, but it was like, if I can feel the whole of this fatherlessness and be better than him, right? Because then it became about money and became about being like this influence and all these things, and then I found like there was nothing I would ever fill that hole with externally. How did you? Like, when I think about that journey and you're like measuring yourself to your father and you're on this deep, painful journey, what was your thoughts about your relationship with him? Did you subconsciously or even consciously think to yourself, I'm walking in his footsteps?

Brandon: Later on down the road, I had the clarity and peace of mind to see reality for what it looked like, but as cunning as addiction is, I actually use that to continue enabling my behaviors with my mother, right?

Michael: What does that mean?

Brandon: My mother, I'd live with my mother and my father was around enough to let us know he wasn't around, and he I'd be out skating and I'd come home from skating with my friends and he'd be in the kitchen making dinner and we had just packed up in the middle of the night and literally ran out of the house in fear of our lives, hiding from him, selling homes, ducking, dodging, just, and then I'd come home and he'd just be in the kitchen making dinner as if nothing had happened and no one skipped a beat. And it was that, so as my addiction progressed, living with my mother, stealing from her, becoming him, right? Stealing the car when she'd go to bed, stealing her purse, stealing her pocketbook, stealing her money, anything that again, would enable my addiction, I would do while living under the roof with her. And when she would attempt to create these boundaries and hold firm. That I was not going to do those things under her roof. My immediate go to was if you didn't marry my father or let dad back in, I wouldn't be this way. When that was not the case, but again, that's just…

Michael: It feels logical, right?

Brandon: And I would, I think I meant it too. I definitely meant it at the time for sure.

Michael: It's amazing what we will justify. Yeah, man. Some of the shit that I've done I remember one point I'm 26 and I'm in a relationship and this woman like, bless her heart. I feel bad for any woman who knew me in my teens or 20s. And it was like, there's no way she didn't know about all the other people, but we turned a blind eye to it, and that's what love does.

Brandon: Yeah, love makes you do crazy things.

Michael: Even love from your mother, or your mother's love for you. Because there must have been moments where you're just like, Why is she letting this happen?

Brandon: Oh, for sure, for sure. And that's, I can relate to that. Because now, what I do is help people for a living, and I can help any stranger in the world, but God forbid you're someone that I'm personally invested or connected to and I love in one way, shape or form, I'm not the one to help you because I'll start believing that you are different than the million other people. And maybe you can do this one specific thing and have a different outcome than all the rest, love will blur the lines. So I get that and you want to see the good in people, I don't, who wants to see their father, their mother be this womanizing whore who just takes from the woman you love the most and just completely walks all over everything.

Michael: Yeah. And then you walk in those shoes. And then you have to look in the mirror. When going back, do you remember the first time you got high?

Brandon: I remember the first time I stuck a needle in my arm. The first time I ingested a drink or a drug, the very first one, no recollection at all, because my story isn't one of I was in search of or lacking this, I always talk about skateboarding did for me at a very young age. What drugs and alcohol did for me at a later age, right? You give me that skateboard at the age of seven, you put me in a room with the world's prettiest models, I'll not only believe that they've been waiting for me, but that they're dying to marry me, right? Drugs and alcohol would later on produce that same delusional narrative that I really believe. So with the skateboard I didn't feel like I was missing out on or needed to be better at or felt less than. And the reason why I'm getting so descriptive with that is because I think it's very important. Because if you're anything like me, you'll listen to something like this and hear both of our stories and be like, God dammit I'm so grateful that man or those guys found the answer for which they're looking for, but that can't be me, that won't be me. And justify and minimize the severity of their situation off of the depths of the story and tales we're telling, I've seen me do that. And the reality is, the disease of addiction doesn't discriminate.

Michael: It does not.

Brandon:  It doesn't, Yale or jail, the White House or the outhouse, the results are all the same. It doesn't give AF about your age, race, creed, religion, lack of religion it knows no boundaries. So therefore, I don't remember the first time I ingested a drink or a drug, but what I do remember is the very first time that someone attempted to stand between me and a drink or a drug.

Michael: Interesting.

Brandon:  That's what I remember.

Michael: It's like war, right? Just in my story is what that looks like is anything or anyone that attempts to stand between me and it.

Brandon:  Must and will go and it's not personal at all. It's just business.

Michael: Yeah, it's really interesting. And again, that's that justification and people do it in all elements of their life. You can factor out addiction. You can replace that with anything. You

Brandon: Just subtract drugs, alcohol with sex, food, porn, gambling. That's all just the byproduct of the actual problem. Which is the behaviors that lead back to the solution.

Michael: Yeah, and you're in it and if you're in it and if you're in it deep enough Yeah, you're like this is my life.

Brandon: This is the norm,.

Michael: Dude, it's crazy that at 26 years old I'd made a million bucks and I was 50, 000 in debt living paycheck to paycheck, you know.

Brandon: That makes sense to me.

Michael: Here's how I hate that we're in this club together, right? But here's the reality of it. I would sit and I would just scour the internet trying to find these chicks to hook up with. And my idea was because my drug was women. I grew up with a mother who cut my finger off, I grew up with a racist grandmother, I grew up with women who were abusive and who molested me. And so it was like, I will do whatever the fucking takes to get your love and admiration for 6 to 13 minutes, depending on the night. And my idea was every single night. It was like, I have to go out on dates to the most expensive restaurants in town and flash this cash and make sure that they know I'm important. And then you realize that you're, it's not that you're not important. It's that you're actually worthy before that moment even occurs, and I think about constantly trying to define addiction, and I want to ask your definition, but mine is the willingness to do whatever it takes to fill an in external source of goodness that makes you internally whole for a moment.

Brandon: And the reason why I smile or laugh because my answer is literally the exact same, just spoken a little differently. With a slight tweak of a few words, but it's just simply filling this internal void with an external solution to alter the way I feel about this exact moment, time, place, feeling.

Michael: Did you ever have a moment in where you like, I feel good. Did you ever actually, you talk, you often hear about, and I've never done heroin. Let's be very clear about this is one of the few things I haven't done. Was there ever a moment where you're like, I actually feel amazing on the backside of the high.

Brandon: Under the influence. I'm like do while I'm caught up? Sure. Like it was amazing, I had some of the best times in my life while under the influence of whatever I may have been on. But the truth of the matter with my story is at first it started out as this amazing party doing things that people could like only even dream of at times to at the end, turning into a full blown hostage negotiation where I was not allowed to leave, ‘cause I wanted the party to stop and the party had stopped at the end. But with my addiction, the power, the magnitude, the reality of the situation is that I lost the ability to have a say so in the matter when it came to my life anymore.

Michael: Which is probably necessary.

Brandon: Oh, absolutely. It 1 million percent is because like you were saying before, to get to that place, to to work on the problem, how do I even know it's a problem until I find myself in a position where the pain becomes so un fucking bearable that I'm willing to do the thing that, I've never really done before, which is admit, maybe what I do know is that I don't know. And furthermore, taking a step further, picking up that phone that feels like 10 billion pounds and reaching out and not only asking for help, but be willing to show up for an open minded, to believe what you're saying and blindly step out on faith without reverting back to my comfort blanket, which is a nice speedball that allows me to disconnect reality because all of a sudden I'm not under the influence I'm walking around at this very moment like a stranger in my own skin, trying to figure out who the fuck let me in and why. So there's a lot of steps to get to that point where then I can start acquiring some knowledge, building up a defense, and learning that, hey, it wasn't until I uncovered the problem that I actually discovered the real problem, and then I had hopes of recovering from the fucking problem. Before that I had no idea it even existed because they were great times.

Michael: Yeah, and that uncovering is inside of honesty, which is the real fucked up part about it.

Brandon: I'm only telling the truth and I'm only honest when my back's against the wall.

Michael: That's exactly right, and you're like, it was me, I admit it.

Brandon: And I’m only saying that because it might get me out of this.

Michael: That's right. And you will do anything to get out of it. Which is so fucking crazy, and you're in a position where. It is your lifestyle celebrated like I was thinking about this in the lead up to talking with you today. Growing up, watching you and you guys being this, you guys being jackass CKY, the skateboard community, the shit that you guys did growing up and watching that and seeing like the disclaimer on MTV before it would air on Sunday afternoons at five o'clock, right? Right after church, of course, it's always don't ever do anything that these guys ever would imagine, do it right? Yeah. And you're this impressionable kid looking up to you guys as role models and my thought was like, why the fuck are these guys role models?

Brandon: Totally. Which appeals to our demographic, ours meaning, a lot of addicts and alcoholics, because what I know to be true in my story is that when I put my hand up and I qualify myself as an addict or an alcoholic, all that means is that I'm defiant by nature, I hate authority, and I refuse to conform, because I possess this job that generally places me in a lot of positions I don't want to be in, and it allows me to feel a lot of feelings I don't like to feel, and that job consists of knowing everything. The moment that you kindly suggest to me what I could ultimately do to save my life, I kindly suggest why you should fuck off. Yeah, because I know so you tell me not the point of that is tell me no I'll tell you yes and show you how it's done.

Michael: Yeah, you're contrarian by nature.

Brandon: Yeah, if I'm already cut from the cloth of if it doesn't make sense to me, it's wrong.

Michael: Agreed, my best one of my very close friends one of my best friends Jason. He's amazing tattoo artist He's tattooing me a couple weeks ago and obviously I'm covered you're covered and we're having this conversation I was just like dude I don't know anyone who had like a good childhood who was tattooed and he was like, I don't think I've ever tattooed anyone who had a good childhood and that, that point that I'm leading in that are you familiar with Dr. Gabor Mate? No. So we wrote a book called the myth of normal. And it's amazing. I interviewed him a couple of years ago. He's the most world renowned childhood trauma expert on planet earth, okay. And he said that all addiction, he also wrote an amazing book, dude, you should absolutely, I don't ever recommend people should do anything, but if you would take into consideration that books find people.

Brandon: I don't think that people find books. So I love these kinds of recommendations.

Michael: There's a unbelievable book, a change in my life called. In the realm of Hungry Ghosts.

Brandon: Yes, I have it at my house. Okay, yeah. I've read it.

Michael: That's Dr. Gabor Mate.

Brandon: Okay, I'm very familiar with him.

Michael: His presupposition is that all addiction stems from childhood trauma. Mine is that all childhood trauma eventually leads you to where you are in this moment, right? Both of these things being true, however you want to look at it. Was there like some outside of was there a key awful? Some moment that you think you were trying to get rid of by chasing the drugs and the adrenaline and the chaos and all of the things that shape to create that. Insane couple of decades of your life?

Brandon: I think, looking back, there were a few different reasons that spawned this outcome. I was insatious, incestuous with work ethics, and it came from skateboarding as a child, and just being relentless. And, but the only way I became a guy who didn't fail is by failing enough until I figured out the method that would lead to success, and that takes a lot of fucking work. And I did that through skateboarding, and I tried a trick for days, weeks, months, years. And it really instilled in me a lot of ethics and core values that I live by today, which is. That failure is not an option. No is unacceptable. Skateboarding leads out the quitters, for sure, I believe this. But in doing so, that becomes fucking tiring, it becomes tiring. That, coupled with the fact that I believe I'm genetically predisposed for my father's addiction, and his father's addiction, It runs in our bloodline. I was raised and morphed into, something that wasn't gonna be good. My father would take me to the strip joint, and he'd be in the back conducting business, and the dancing girls would sit me at the bar and pour shots of ginger ale and Coca Cola in the shot glasses. I would do the shots, the girls would applaud, my father would give me that look of approval.

Michael: Pure grooming.

Brandon: Yeah, for sure. I was being groomed for an interesting I don't know, case study if you will. And, I remember driving around, me, him, and my father, I was the only kid by my father. My brother and sister were by a different man. They had no issues like I did. But my father also had another kid by another woman. And it would be me, that brother and my father driving around. I remember they'd be smoking herb and they would hide it when they were driving past a cop car, like I remember the behaviors. I didn't know what was happening at the moment, but I was being groomed for that lifestyle for unbeknownst to me because it's you know as a child you're a sponge and you just absorb that to where it became pretty normal and I remember him paying the you know the, I lived in Baltimore and they're called the BG & E, the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. And they come out and they read your meters to see what kind of electricity you're using through your houses. And he set up this elaborate weed farm in the basement. And I remember him paying the BG & E guy to dick, a piece of copper or something in there to break up the amount or Watts he was using to grow this. So they didn't pick, like I remember him telling me before when we were selling the house, don't you say a word to this real estate moment about that room in the back. I remember that stuff and yeah.

Michael: It's so wild how those moments and impress on you. Your understanding of the world because you're a child and you don't know anything totally and you know I would watch my mother hustle people. I she once sued a major retail corporation for a lot of money in one.

Brandon: My dad was a sue happy guy, too.

Michael: Oh, yeah, so it was fucking crazy to watch her get in accidents. I'm doing air quotes, if you're listening,

Brandon: I'm very familiar with those acts.

Michael: And then be like, the water company and come turn our water off and she would teach us how to hustle and get the water back on or, go across the street and steal it from the neighbors. She was always the last one to show up to the parent teacher conference, normally higher drunk and that becomes acceptable, and you think about that and you're like no wonder my life got so fucked up. How could it not? You do have the outliers. Let's be clear, you and I both know people who they had fucked up childhoods, who they're great. A lot of things have just worked in their direction. I'm the kind of guy, being like you a contrarian by nature, at five years old, I stuck a fork in the electrical socket after being told not to, ‘cuz I need to know. I need to know and if you're always in that place of I need to know, it leads you down this path where you will destroy everything to find out and when you do that, man, there's just so much fucking shame and so much guilt and pain. How do you reconcile some of the things that you've done and the experiences that you've been through when it comes to shame and guilt?

Brandon: I had a spiritual experience. That's how I reconciled all those that at one point in time were the defects in my life that have now, because of that experiential experience, has become the assets. Again, the poison becoming the medicine, I started looking at the part that I played in it, I surrounded myself with some really good mentors that took their time with me and they taught me about the reality of the disease that I have been diagnosed with a long time ago. And to make it even more layered or complex, if you will, as if it needs to be, with addiction. I was a product of that environment. All of those negative things that you were talking about, I can relate to. And it's funny, right? You and I are very similar and I think at parts of our journey, being in the same place, we were staring at a particular painting, but having two different outcomes or takeaways from this painting, because, like you were talking about, just fuck it, here we go, we're in it for the ride, let's keep I, on the other hand, looked at my father and said, you know what, I will never ever become him. And I will make it a point to excel at skateboarding well enough that like I will be a successful productive family guy that shows up and doesn't hurt His children or his wife and doesn't cheat on his wife. I really I and that at the full circle moment is one of the blessings that I've had from that spiritual experience Because the definition of a spiritual experience is simply a psychic change meaning that I no longer look at things the way I did then and it allows me to be great at playing devil's advocate. So when someone calls me and says, I want help, but I'm only doing it this way, or I don't want your fucking help. I don't need your help. Where generally it's pretty easy for one to get very agitated, angry, annoyed, discouraged. Why can't you see that this is the right way? This is the way to the promised land. Oh I've seen me do what they are doing, so I think, although at the time, same as you, I was so consumed by the mess that I was incapable of seeing the message. Once I bought into this process and I really took advantage of the suggestions from really intelligent people that have my sincere best interest at heart I could reap the benefits and rewards of that journey. And it allows me to see that everyone's exactly where they're supposed to be. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. And I accept them for where they're supposed to be. But that's the magnitude of the place we're in with the enemy we're up against, which is addiction. This epidemic is unlike anything I've ever seen, but there is a way out.

Michael: Yeah. There is. And that support you talked about, man, it's so necessary. I went to the first time I ever walked into AA, I was seven. And I was there with my mother. And I just remember my understanding of addiction and what it really does to a human, has drastically shifted with more knowledge. When I was young NAA, I would look at guys like you. I'd be like, that guy's weak. Fuck that guy. My mom's weak. Fuck her. My stepdad's weak. Fuck him. ‘Cause you're a child and you're like, we don't have food. But you have a bag of weed on top of the TV stand. And we don't have electricity, but somehow there's a six pack on ice in the bedroom. We don't have new clothes for school, but there's these orange pill bottles all over the bedroom floor. So you look at it, you go, fuck these people. And then I realized that through my own work and my own recovery and different elements of my life and my own healing journey, that really what it is, it's these hurt fucking people trying to hide from the most painful experience of their life. And they do have a lot of shame, they do carry a lot of guilt, but I think the cornerstone and the thing that shifted for me was what you just said. It was like, they're fucking humans, man.

Brandon: That's, really what we are as human beings, not human doings, and this life didn't come with an instruction manual. And for a lot of years, I carried a lot of baggage for my father, and again, so interesting, the parallels to our stories, staring at the same piece of art, but having two completely different perspectives of it, you went there and saw all these weak fucking people, I went there and saw my fucking father. Fuck you, I'll never be you, which prolonged my inevitable. It kept me out there longer. It allowed me to justify and minimize my behaviors. Because fuck you, I'm not, I'll never be him. I excelled at everything to prove why I wasn't or going to be, therefore, I just skirted around facing the facts of my situation. And then, yeah, that's really interesting to me.

Michael: You can't run from it though. And that, that's the thing that, my brother called me 23, almost 24. My brother called me and he goes Hey man, mom died and Brandon, it was the most peaceful day of my life because it was like, I was finally free and I did not get to reconcile with her while she was alive. I don't necessarily regret it, but I will say this, it took a lot of work to get to a place called forgiveness. And one day I'm sitting in my therapist's office, I moved to Portland, Oregon, of all places 2,000 miles away from anything that I knew to go and work with this guy who was like fucking incredible. And I'm sitting in his office one day and I literally look at him just like this and I go, I'm so fucking tired of seeing your face every week, dude. And I meant it, right? Because for years, every Wednesday night, I'd sit in the same chair, drink the same shitty chamomile tea, and look at his fucking face and be like, I cannot stand this. And this one day I just go, dude, I'm just, I'm done. I don't want to be with you or in this anymore. Why do I have to work on fixing problems I didn't cause? And he said something that changed my life forever. And he goes, have you ever paused and just thought about what your mom's childhood was like? And that was it. My whole shit changed in a fucking moment. But there were, obviously moments leading up to that, were you able to reconcile with your father?

Brandon: It's funny you said that even I had one of those moments too, and it came by way of me. Seeing a therapist, and I'm sitting in her office, and I'm still getting low to the time, but I'm making a somewhat vain attempt to get better. And she said I want you to do me a favor, Brad. And I said, what's that? She said, I want you to dig two graves. I said, for what? She said, one for you, and one for all this baggage that you carry. And I may have heard that before, but this day the timing, the place, the space, it aligned and it hit. It made a lot of sense to me, and allowed me to look back at our relationship throughout time. And what I knew to be true is that, Jerome, my father, was a good man, and he did the best that he could with what he had, he was a sick man. And how dare I fault him because I fucking became him, you know what I mean? The gall of me, but not really, because I was ignorant to the facts, and I had this tunnel vision on and I only saw it the way I believed it should have been seen, and then someone came along, her, Christina, my therapist, and she changed my perspective, and she taught me when you change your perception, you can change your world. And at that moment, I started to heal. And I remember, when my father died, they he had nothing left. And they donated his body to science, just so they could have him cremated for free, because no one was going to foot the bill for that. And after it had taken place, They were going to put his ashes out with the trash and I said fine But my sister of all people who really didn't like my father she said you should go get those and I went and I got those and I took those ashes back to this house where we grew up and I jumped the fence and sat behind this tree next to a pool and I emptied The ashes and I'm still getting loaded and I hadn't even began any work on healing myself and the internal Voyage I was about to embark on this is strictly face value pain becoming great enough seeing things with a different perspective and I got rid of the ashes and I actually made amends to him before I got sober and I really wish if I had the chance to go back and give him a hug and say, I love you, man, and I understand it's okay, and I am not upset with.

Michael: That's freedom, dude.

Brandon:  It is.

Michael: People don't get it, man. Like I try to explain this like when I'm coaching my clients and they've been through this dark shit and they have backgrounds like ours. I'm like, you got to let go, if I gave you a backpack full of bricks, how long are you going to carry that shit, man?

Brandon:  I got tired of shooting dope at you. Fuck, man. And the sooner I stopped pointing outward and faced it inward, then I could actually create some form of change. So what I've learned throughout my journey is there's no such thing as their part, there is no their part. Everything comes back to self. Good, bad, or indifferent. If I'm here and I'm agitated with you, it's something within me that's creating this agitative state where I'm uneasy. It has nothing to do with you.

Michael: Every decision we've ever made has led to this moment.

 Brandon: Literally, absolutely.

Michael: If you would have been across from 12 year old, me smoking a blunt, listening to outcasts in Indianapolis, watching fucking CKY videos with your face on there doing the dumbest shit a human could ever fucking do. And you said, I'll give you a. Billion dollars. If you can tell me in 25 years that you'll be sitting across from this man, talking to him, I'd be like, you're fucking crazy.

Brandon: Say, and I would say the same people will call me, ‘cause I give my number out for people that want help and I'll answer and they'll like, ah, they hang up or they don't believe it's me. And I got, I wasn't expecting to talk to you today. And I said the fucking feelings mutual, right? And the truth of the matter is I was ignorant to this. But once I had that spiritual experience and I became aligned with higher power and, you spot it, you got it and I see these synchronicities, it's very easy for me to look back and recognize the synchronicity in life's events that have landed me literally to the right here, right now, that proved to me the God of my understanding, my higher power has been doing so much more, so much broader and bigger than my feeble mind could ever conceive. Like why aren't I in the next apartment in the next building talking to the next gentleman? You know what I mean? This little skate rat from Baltimore city who's five, six years older than you, why here? Why nothing is done by chance. It was meant to be everything is destiny and fate.

Michael: I agree with that. I was having a conversation with my mentor, just an amazing man who has supported me tremendously in my career more so than probably the past, but there's little nuances that he presents to me that just because that's what it is. It's like someone sits across from you and tells you the thing that you need to hear and everything becomes different. And one day we're having this really incredible dinner, people pay this dude hundreds of thousands of dollars for one on one time. And he asked nothing of me except to come to dinner with him. We're having dinner and we're talking. And I was telling him like, dude, I'm frustrated. Like I feel like I hit this wall in the business. Yes. I've got all these clients. Yes. I'm on Times Square billboards, all these things, but something's off. And he just said something to me that was so profound. He goes, don't ever forget that you're being protected and promoted at all times, at all times. You're being protected and promoted by something that loves you more than your own mother. And he told me that, dude, and I'm telling you, it just changed the way I think about the world. And so in these moments of serendipity or synchronicity, or coincidence, or however you want it to look like, you are meant to be here. But how do you know that you're meant to be here, and you look back on the past, and you go, but I was meant to be there too, and that past is fucking ugly, and I did bad things, and I hurt people, and I broke the law, and I went to jail, and I God knows all the things I haven't even talked about. How do you navigate that?

Brandon: We talked about it we touched on it briefly earlier, but I truly believe that we are all entitled to our process. Anyone would have robbed me of any part of my process, whether it be one less night of sleeping on the streets, one less car that I got into to prostitute my body. One less trash can that I ate out of one less needle that I shared. I really do not believe that I would be the child of God that I am today who has devoted his life in helping others. I do not believe that. I am asked often, would you take back or do you regret anything from the past? And my stock answer for so long was, the only thing I would take back is the pain and the sleepless nights that I caused my mother and other loved ones. But the more I thought about it, the more I think that's a fucking lie. Because again, if someone would have robbed me of one last night of my mother sleeping because she stayed awake crying over me, buying me a plot waiting for my death. I don't believe that, that would've inspired some kind of willingness to find a better way of life. Like I don't believe that without the repercussions as a direct result of my actions, a.k.a. behaviors any change would've ever taken place. I don't believe that. And I work a 12 step program, and the third step in my program is turning my will and my life over to my higher power, and I've experienced that. Anytime throughout my day, when I am full of fear, at any level, all that is lack of faith. Me stating that I don't believe in, in the entity that's carried me when I couldn't carry myself.

Michael: Yeah, it's impossible that you're here. By the way, I don't know if you knew this or not. It makes no sense.

Brandon: No. It defies logic, it's a blessing.

Michael: And it's like that old adage. It's like the truth is funnier than any story.

Brandon: Yeah. And I can get so consumed in the rigmarole and the day to day of things that I forget. I forget when, all I wanted and prayed for was to just get sober, but didn't even believe that was possible. So anything else is just a fucking added bonus.

Michael: I didn't think I'd make it to late teen.

Brandon: I'm on bow time, man.

Michael: Yeah. And you know what, maybe that makes me a little bit more willing to jump off the diving board. Do the crazy thing, not crazy like they used to be, but now take the bigger risks in business and relationships and my own personal journey, ‘cause I'm like, fuck it, dude. I don't know. Like I, it's so crazy to me when I'm young and people like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I remember just literally telling a teacher one time I was like alive. There was, I didn't think I would be here. And I know a lot of people listening to this don't think that they should either, but it's divine whether or not you're spiritual or religious or you believe in God or Buddha or Allah, like whatever, like we are these eternal beings who chose this life.

Brandon: That's what I believe this in my heart of hearts, but all those really what one would consider traumatic experiences and hellish things to have to endure. I choose to see that as me being divinely inconvenienced at the highest level, and that's exactly what it is. That's it my, yeah I also, I often get discouraged about really getting into God talk, because I know that can be very discouraging to people, and I don't ever want to turn anyone off for what I'm saying, or how I'm saying it. What I do know is, I never gave much stock to the God thing, people say, I don't, that God and the reality of my story is that, the pain that brought me into recovery, far outweighed the fear of learning about this imaginary God or shall I say the fear of returning back to active addiction far outweighed the talks of this imaginary figure that was going to do for me what I couldn't do for myself. So all I know is that, I don't know what God is or isn't, I don't know if it's a man in the sky with a robe and a beard, a woman, a son, the universe, what I do know is that it's not me, it's a power greater than me. Yeah I believe that, without the things that I've been made to endure how could I understand others who are enduring the same thing?

Michael: Yeah, I could never help all the people that I help, I never could.

Brandon: No one would want me to.

Michael: No, of course not, they'd be like, what are you talking about, dude?

Brandon: It's we can spot it. If you got it or you don't, and I'm gonna tell in a very brief period of conversation whether that we're on the same wavelength or you're just doing what you do for whatever reason for sure.

Michael: Yeah. We're humans and we all I'm very empathic.

Brandon: Yeah, same.

Michael: I feel energy. You can't, to be honest, like at prop, I think it might be more. I'm trying to nurture the nature coming from the background, needing to read people for safety, needing to understand what do you want from me? Am I safe in this moment? And really being able to pick up on energy very well. And when you're in connection with people.

Brandon: My life depended on that.

Michael: Dude, a hundred fucking percent, and then it's like when I'm in connection with people like bro, you can't fucking lie to me. Yeah. It's almost impossible. No one rarely gets anything over on me because I've been able to harness that gift And it allows me to help people it's real fucked up I'm real good at lying to myself.

Brandon: I know, there's a reason why I'm a 45 year old single man that lives with three cats. It's because is it a, because I really do genuinely love myself and like I'm self sufficient and I will not just give my time to anybody or is it the fact that I refuse to look at certain areas of my life because there's a lot of work that's entailed there, and am I willing to do the things that I don't really want to do?

Michael: The work doesn't stop, ever. What are you scared of? What really fucks you up right now?

Brandon: Being vulnerable to someone close. Hence, another layer of why I'm single. I do a lot of, I don't do a lot of spiritual retreats, but I do them. I just got back from one in Mammoth. And I really enjoy digging deep and seeing what's going on with me, ‘cause there's a lot of fucking baggage in me that I haven't even tapped into yet, well aware of that and the newest revelation that was shown to me is that I'm scared to be vulnerable to someone intimately. I can do it with a stadium of thousands of people. I can, as transparent as you want, but God forbid, like you're in my personal space, and that's a direct result of things I endured from my father.

Michael: Same journey, I'm in that myself right now and I ask myself, is the very thing keeping me safe, keeping me empty, right? It's the golden handcuffs scenario. And my hope is no, and I continue to do the work, but it's dude, it's fucking terrifying, getting your heart ripped out.

Brandon: It's not enjoyable. It's not like I wake up and I'm really excited about this task.

Michael: Yeah, but you don't want to be the fucking 65 year old guy with six cats.

Brandon: So on some days. But no, and the older I get, or better, because I've been blessed with this amazing life and I can create the schedule and I'm really set in my ways and my routine and it's only getting harder to let someone come into that space and fuck it about.

Michael: Yeah, maybe, or maybe that's exactly what you need because you have gotten really good at your routine.

Brandon: That's what my therapist says. She's tasked me with jobs of coming home and Throwing like pillows and blankets in the middle of my floor because everything has a spot and you walked into my place, it's same deal bro. Not addition the same book to be honest, everything is mine same way.

Michael: Yeah, it's control It's safety right and it's the thing that

Brandon: which is something I never had.

Michael: Yeah, of course. Same, which is why I do it, and like, when I've dated women in the past and I'm like, there's toothpaste and bro, if there's toothpaste in this, get out. We've been together six years, just leave.

Brandon: Yeah, and that's, I'm good, I much prefer just to, to just, cut and walk. I don't want to drag this out. I don't want to have a conversation about it because then I have to be vulnerable and I have to sit there and be exposed as a raw nerve and endure these really uncomfortable feelings. Yeah, but that's the game. That's where the growth, I get it. I know it, I get it, it's like, how do you I believe it. I'm just not quite willing to embark on it yet.

Michael: That's the heart. The yet is the key word, right? Because the yet creates opportunity.

Brandon: I'm willing. Yeah. When the opportunity presents itself, aligned with the timing and the pain.

Michael: Yeah, and it's and then don't ignore it, right? This is what I keep reminding myself. It's like dude, don't fucking ignore it. Don't ignore it. If it's right roll with it Yeah, because it's like you can only protect your heart so much dude, and then you're like fuck man You there's a book I read called the regret of the dying and everyone sounds interesting, dude. It's phenomenal. And the people who have been on their deathbeds, their biggest regret is never about the business or fucking podcast, this nonsense, right? It's always I didn't love deep enough. I didn't show up enough. I didn't forgive enough. I didn't. Instead of working that extra day, I should have went to the baseball game and watch my kid hit that home run. And it's like the number of relationships I've lost over the years chasing

Brandon: It's like, why filling this internal void with that external solution? I have this card that an ex gave to me. And she's still a very close friend of mine and it's on the mirror walking out of my house and it says pay attention to the little things in life because one day those little things become the big things and it's just a smile shared, a memory made a laugh had. Far off from new business created, another house purchased, those aren't the things that I remember looking back. They're great, but generally they happen so quick, that it's just a splash in the pan, but I remember those little odd, quirky things.

Michael: Yeah, ‘cause those are the things that, those are the experience you're having you're remembering something.

Brandon: I totally am.

Michael: And you remember those experiences and it's bro, I've never been on a first class seat. I've never been in a stadium speaking on stage. I've never done anything that brought me more joy than like hanging out with my boys and having dinner. Yeah. Waking up next to her, whoever she is hugging my little brothers and kissing my nephew on the forehead. We're so lied to, man, about what it means to be a man, to be a man of value, to be a man of substance and character. And I see you now, right? Knowing your path in your journey, doing my due diligence to try to have an amazing conversation of this nature.

Brandon:  Thank you for that.

Michael: No, for sure, dude. And the thing that I take away more than anything about you is, you went from selfish to selfless.

Brandon: Yeah. I just I think, again, timing and alignment is so crucial with one's journey. And for me, these seeds were continuously planted along my journey, my process. And at the end, when the timing and space and the stars just aligned, It's like the sky's part of it and I just walked across the sea and everything that people tried to get through to me literally just erupted out of the ground. This full blown beautiful tree just grew in the blink of an eye and it all made sense to me. And it all became really clear what they were saying then and then upon embarking on my own journey and surrounding myself with my people and having these experiences in these spaces what's beautiful and freeing for me today is that the longer I stay sober, the more that I know that I don't know, I don't know and what better place to be thing for an alcoholic such as myself who really was not a big fan of accepting responsibility than to have the ability to relinquish control and just give it to something else that isn't me. And I always say this thing works when I don't work it. It's impossible for me to use the very same brain that thought me into this problematic space to in turn think me out of it. So I'm a big fan of understanding that the behaviors of the problem, the drinking, the drugging, the porn, the sex, is the solution. So if we know the behaviors of the problem, or the behaviors of the problem, the drinking is the solution. If I If I take my brain out of the equation and I just continue to bring the body surrounded by good like minded people with my best intentions at heart, I will create a better outcome. Think less, do more. Just bring the body. It's inevitable that the mind will follow. I truly just had to dumb myself into this equation. And then once I got to this spot where I think from the from the external perspective, people say, he's got it figured out in my mind. I'm still waiting for the grownup to show up and take care of everything. And that's a beautiful place to be in because I'm not placing expectations on things, places or people that I'll never have the ability to control, so it makes my life lighter and easier to maneuver through.

Michael: Yeah. And I'll add an and to your sentence, if you don't mind, you're of tremendous service and you don't have to be, and you create a Novak's house and you speak, I remember the first time, cause I was like I just assumed you were dead just to be honest, which you probably hear all the time. And I was like on Instagram two years ago, maybe something. And I saw this clip of you talking just about your journey. And I was like, fuck that is so crazy. This dude's still alive and now you're of service. Yeah, talk about Novak's house. What is that about? What does it do for you? And what does it do for those men?

Brandon: It's funny. I'm simply a product of that environment. I went to a very similar sober living house after I Completed a 90 day inpatient treatment center stay and that house did for me it bridged the gap where the ball was always dropped before and it did for me what I don't want to say what no other place had ever did but more so it did for me what I would never allow any other place to do and and it taught me how to reintegrate or merge back into society. It taught me how to make my bed. It taught me how to wash my clothes, to brush my teeth, it consecutively, consistently, right? Cause that was my problem, the behaviors, and I was rather erratic and sporadic, and irrational and just wherever, whenever. But this place taught me consistency. It taught me how to continue to show up in spite of what the problematic brain told me over and over. It taught me how to set a set of non negotiable standards that I have to hold myself to when I don't fucking feel like it. And it taught me how to hold my head up a little bit higher and speak with a little bit more conviction and be a little less fearful of what you think of me when I leave here today. And I never could forget the power that house, had over me in a positive way. It really, it held me accountable to a set of standards I didn't even know existed. And I couldn't forget that. It was a magical experience. So I promised myself when I was in a position, I was financially, I would recreate that house. And I did with a gentleman who I also lived in that house with, who's one of my best friends now. And we opened up Novak's house. It was one house with 10 beds. And that was on my fifth year anniversary, literally May 25^th, and today there's six houses with 65 beds and I travel around and I raise money to provide scholarships for any man in need. My mission statement is to never allow resources or lack thereof finances to be a deterrent as to why someone can't find adequate, safe, accountable, sober places to reside in. And that's what we did, and unfortunately we're growing at a rapid pace, I wish that wasn't the case, I wish that my service wasn't in demand. And Novak's house was bang, I truly wish that was the case.

Michael: Yep. I get that.

Brandon: But it's not. And I know that I can create anything I believe in, so I'll meet the need.

Michael: Yeah, same everything I built and think unbroken. is with one mission that hopefully I'm obsolete one day. I'm like, what the fuck do I have to do so that I'm not necessary? It's a weird, it's a challenge, right? And it's a, it is the ultimate challenge. And I, it's, I have just come to recognize that it will not happen in my lifetime, and I'm okay with that. But I will do whatever the fuck it takes to make sure it happens on some lifetime. I want to go back to that house. You said a lot of things that taught you how to brush your teeth, how to be responsive, how to make your bed. Dude, when I started my journey, like brushing my teeth, I was like, what? Yeah, I got to brush my teeth, which is insane, right? You're like a normal person doesn't go through that. But in the depth of depression and anxiety and suicidality that I was in after putting a gun in my mouth, I was like, dude, if I can just brush my teeth today, I fucking won the championship, right? Did it teach you how to love yourself?

Brandon: It did, but not by way of just looking in the mirror saying, I love me. Like the positive affirmations. It didn't come by way of that, everything that I've achieved in my life to this point, all the good that sometimes I believe I've played a part in creating, it's happened unbeknownst to me. To come back to that, I showed up in sobriety, recovery, the eight scarfs, the jacket, the needle, the spoon, the restraining order, fit into this bag, the devil is my pillow, homeless. And so it was pretty, pretty safe to say I lacked self esteem, right? And that was evident. It was apparent. I knew it. I'd tell you it. But the only problem was I didn't know how to find it. I didn't know where to get it. I didn't know how to implement this thing that I knew I didn't have, but didn't know where to get into my life, if I knew how and where to get it and do it, I would have done it and not ended up in a 12 step program. But what happened is I was beaten and broken so bad I was finally demoralized in just such a fashion from drugs and alcohol, literally beaten into a state of reasonableness that I came in and surrounded myself with really good people who had my best interest at heart and I bought into their suggestions and I was open minded long enough to follow through with what they told me to do and I got a job at a diner washing dishes, Mary Ann's diner for 6 an hour under the table, 38. And I had heard that word humility, but it never really made much sense because I never applied it to me. It sounded good, but it just was what it was. And At the time, my brain told me I should have at least been the President of the United States. Not washing dishes at Mary Ann's Diner for 6 an hour, next to a 14 year old kid named Brian. But nonetheless, that job, little did I know, was going to become like one of the foundation stones of not only my sobriety, but my life. And my mentor said you show up to work 15 minutes early, you stay 15 minutes late, you take pride in every dish that you wash, you make that restaurant as successful as possible, and you look at what you can bring to the table, not take from, and I did that, and what happened was, through washing those jobs at that, what I thought was a very meaningless job, and dead end, no end game in sight. I was going to start making a couple bucks. And with the couple bucks I made, I was going to open up my own checking account. Not with one where a woman's name's attached. I'm going to start paying my own 165 a week sober living. I'm going to then start paying bi weekly. I'm going to start buying my own groceries. My own cigarettes I smoked at the time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it a step further I'm gonna go to the TV bank, and I'm gonna I'm gonna open up a pre secured credit card right and through doing these esteemable acts following the suggestions right bringing the body all of a sudden these esteemable acts turned into self esteem, and I started speaking with a little bit more conviction I started to hold my head up a little bit higher and tell you how I felt without fear of what you thought and that pre secured credit card turned into a credit card, that credit card turned into four credit cards, one's an American Express with no limit, that 165 a week that I was paying that turned into my bi weekly rent at a sober living house has turned into me owning not only one home, but like five. In turn seeing and recognizing what my God had done for me, stepping out on faith, really believing in the power of, I said, you know what? I've acquired enough knowledge, more importantly, I have a really great relationship with my higher power. That sees in me what I don't see in myself, and I believe that I can create something bigger, something broader, something better than Novak's House and I created Redemption Addiction Treatment Center, and it's like Novak's House on steroids, but in doing so I borrowed money from three different people, I spent every dollar I had, and I maxed out every one of those credit cards, took a hit on my credit, and I swear to God there's days, there were days, where I, my head was so heavy that I just couldn't wear it anymore. I was getting beat by this thing called business, just tiring, and I'd come home, and I'd open up my closet and I'd pull that bag out, that used to double as my pillow, and I would stare at that bag. And just yesterday I paid off all those credit card bills that I acquired, every one of them. I'm now, seeing the light at the end of that tunnel. I'm, the, reaping the rewards from that deal. The ends are justifying the means. And what that will do is it will continue to ensue in me, and more ensure in me that my God is real, and there's evidence, and the evidence comes by way of. I'll show you my phone. I had a 22 year old kid who, from California, he was in six different treatment centers. Couldn't ever conceive that he would not only be able to get sober, but stay sober and find a life that he believed was worth living while sober, and he was one of the first clients that came through redemption. And his name is Felix, and this is Felix. Two weeks ago, 90 days sober, successfully completed my program, standing in front of Novak's house, waiting for his ride to his first day at college, that's the fucking faith, that I bet the bank on, and if I would have gave in to what my brain said, which was just stay where you're at. You have a really good position at another facility. It pays you very well. You have good health benefits. Treading water at best.

Michael: Then that doesn't happen, there's my favorite, there's a book that changed my life forever. I'll always bring up books because books changed my life.

Brandon: I love that.

Michael: I read The Alchemist. I don't know if you've read it or not phenomenal story. I think it's been a minute. Yeah, it's like my favorite personal development book. I left Indiana at 29, I sat down with my best friends at the time and I told them just everything. I told them about the abuse, being molested, I told them about being homeless as a kid, growing up in the Mormon church. I told them about the chaos of watching my friends die, getting kicked out of high school, starting doing drugs when I'm 12, and I was trying to explain to them that I had to go on this journey. I had to leave everything that I knew to go and find out who I am, and I leave, I'm driving, I'm in Cincinnati and I get the urge, I'm like, call your buddy. So I call my buddy CJ, I say, hey man, I'm gonna be in Cincinnati, can I just pop by, grab dinner with you, and then I'll be on my way to Salt Lake. I was trying to make that trip in a day, and we go to dinner and we're sitting, he's I have a book that you need to read, and you have to come back to my house and you need to read this book, take it with you on your journey because it was given to me and I was told that when it was right to give it to someone else and it's right for you and there's a passage in the book that I think about Brandon literally every day, fucking every single day, it comes into my head and it's that the universe is always conspiring in your favor.

Brandon: and it just is every time there's no, you cannot fail.

Michael: Yeah. If you do not quit, if you got to max every credit card, f g max every credit card. If you got to go f g hold a sign in the middle of the street that says I need money so I can eat, you go hold the fg sign. If you got to close the business and travel the world and for me do things that I never imagined I would do, you do it. Because life is very I have figured out the solution to life is one very simple sentence, you do not do what you want you do what you have to and if you do not do what you have to do, you don't help Felix. You don't fix your shit you don't the snowball effect who God knows the number of people who are going to listen to this. If I don't do what I have to legit and I wish that more people would step out of victimhood When you're an addict and you're in that low place and you and by all means, dude, I'm not taking victimhood from you. Life is hard. Yeah. But at some point, you gotta decide to be the hero.

Brandon: I always say that. I'll never disrespect anybody and pretend to understand the pain that brought them to this seat at this table or on the other end of that computer watching this podcast. I will not disrespect you in that matter. But what I believe in is if your journey brought you to a place to hear this and you recognize more similarities than differences, it might make sense to pay attention. But if not, that's okay. I'll support you in any direction you're headed in. And thinking about it, the redemption, the blessing that came from that was birthed from what at one point in time I believe was my inadequacies that I was dealt in life, right? I had no stable foundation, there was no security, there was no stability, there was no structure, there was no safety. And therefore that's what I yearn for and always wanted the most. Found that in sobriety and then it gave birth in all these other different places. But then I got to a place with my last employer where I outgrew it. I knew there was going to come a point in time where from a business perspective that rug was going to be pulled out from underneath me because like they could pay someone else way less to do just as much and more probably. So there was only a matter of time before that was going to happen. So I stepped out almost on this faith to just secure the stability that today allows me to never let anyone pull it out from underneath of me and I would have never recognized that unless I did the internal work that was required.

Michael: Which required you asking for help.

Brandon: Oh it required me to just admit complete defeat like when I admitted complete defeat was the exact second I secured the ultimate victory.

Michael: So yeah, dude, what's so crazy about that is you look at your experience and in your life and some people, they're rock bottom, you're rock bro. You're rock bottom was like fucking rock bottom, like my rock bottom was, 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, getting high in the morning, 50, 000 in debt, car got repoed, getting kicked out of my place, girlfriend finds out I'm cheating on her with fucking 8,000 women, but the one that of all of that, and this is in a window, we're talking like a month of all this shit going down, the thing that hit me the hardest though, my little brother, I call him, he had just gotten back from being overseas in Afghanistan, doing his tours, serving our country. And he'd been home for months, dude, I hadn't called him, text him, email or go, fuck you, nothing, and one day I'm like, I'm going to change my life today. And I'm in the gym, I'm fat as shit, but I'm in the gym trying, and I called my brother in the gym and you can hear the vitriol in his voice and he goes, what do you want? And I go, hey, man, I'm just, what's up? How you doing? How's life? You're back because I've been back. I go yeah, I know. And I'm like, I've been over here doing these things, destroying my life, right? And part of it, to be honest, Brand, I just didn't want them to see it. Yeah, it's fucking embarrassing. And he goes, and this was the moment for me that really solidified the change. He goes, you're not my brother, don't talk to me and hung up on me. And it just, yeah, destroyed me, man. It's the same brother who, a year ago, helped me pack the truck and drive here, with all of my shit from Denver, where I was previously. I was able to mend that relationship and relationship with my other brother and with my sister and with people that I destroyed and I hurt and I took from and I love that you call it redemption because that's what it is.

Brandon: Absolutely. We all deserve it. We're all worthy of it and we're all capable of it, if you're willing, if I'm willing to face those really uncomfortable things that I'd prefer to not, until pain sets in. That's, I'm not the guy that people call for the easy or softer way, I don't have the answer to anything, I truly don't, I just have my experience that led to this present and that's genuinely what the fuck this is. I really do my best to treat it as such. And, if there was never repercussions for my actions, if the pain wasn't endured, if someone would have provided me an easier, softer way, I don't think this outcome would have been created. I'm a fan of, and I got that from my mentor, my main mentor, Lex. When I called him, I was stranded at BWI Airport. And I said Lex, I'm stranded, they denied me access to a flight. I was insanely intoxicated, out of my mind, and I sent him a text and I said, Lex, I'm stranded at BWI airport and I want to kill myself. And his response to me was a picture of a poppy plant. It wasn't like, oh no, please don't do that. It was like, you bought this, and then it was followed by, If you get on a train, come back to Philadelphia, and this is Memorial Day, 2015. He's with his family, he's at a cookout, he's with loved ones. He said, if you get on a train and you come back to Philly, I will pick you up from 30th Street Station. I will let you stay at my house, and I will take you to treatment the next morning. He fuckin saw in this hopeless, helpless alcoholic what I did not see in myself. And that's the man who was one of the many men sent to me through my divine experiences to let me know that like, when I was ready, he would be willing and able to walk with me, right? Not above or below me or direct me in a fucking place or position, to walk with me, shoulder and shoulder, to have an experience with God together, and I could wrap my head around that, that I could get down with, you're not looking at me from above or below, you're simply saying we're just two fucking bozos on the bus that are about to have an experience, if you're willing to come, and I could do that.

Michael: And I can't help but think reflecting you being a mirror for me in this moment, oddly enough wearing like the same color. Like this moment. I know a lot of similarities here Yeah, and just having this moment of you being a mirror across from me cannot help but think that the universe has interjected my life into my life amazing unbelievable men because I did not have them In my boyhood, right? And here you are with this guy who all you needed this whole time was a man to walk next to you and to guide you. And you got it.

Brandon: No doubt. And I always say, if you plan on embarking in this journey with us and you are going to stay sober, be careful what you fucking ask for. You'll fuck around and get it, and now I have an abundance of people that hold me accountable and my mother who, bought me a plot and served me with a restraining order and prayed for my death just so she could finally have a peace of mind. She's now become like my best friend, your brother's story, it's that in abundance, and now it's a lot that's required there to be a friend to your friends, to be a brother to your brothers. That's, there's a lot and I have to show up for that and those are the blessings.

Michael: And that's how you know that you're healing. Brother, it's been amazing conversation. Thank you for this, genuinely.

Brandon: I'm excited to get into your book, man.

Michael: Thanks dude. I appreciate it.

Brandon: This was rad.

Michael: Yeah, it was. Before I ask you my last question, where can everyone find you, learn more about you and interact with you?

Brandon: If people are out there and they need help with addiction, alcoholism, they can reach me and my partner directly at 610 314 6747, Redemption Addiction Treatment Center. Either myself or John will answer that phone call. If you want to just go down my web, down my hole, just go to BrandonNovak.com. That's everything encompassed in one. It'll take you to, to the pages, to the sites, the platforms. If anyone out there finds it in their heart to donate a penny, a dollar, five dollars to the scholarship fund that I, to provide beds for any man in need. You could go to Venmo and it's at @Novakshouse and N O V A K S H O U S E all one word.

Michael: Amazing. And we will put all those links and more in the show notes and inspired by my friend, Brandon. I will, any proceeds we make in terms of revenue from this episode will be donated to you. Just so you know in advance.

Brandon: Thank you.

Michael: And I will be matching it personally.

Brandon: Wow, man.

Michael: Further, just because I always like plugging books because I am an author and I love reading. Brandon's written two amazing books. Dream Cellar, An Addiction Memoir. And The Streets of Baltimore, both, which are, like, Fucking Jesus Christ, dude.

Brandon: I just did the narration for both, too. So I actually read them, and that was an interesting exploration I went on. So if you're into audiobooks, they're there as well. I'd love to have you come speak to my clients at the treatment center or the houses. So if you ever find your way towards the Philadelphia Baltimore Delaware area, be an honor, you should absolutely continue this.

Michael: Be an honor. Philly is one of the most underrated cities in the entire country. I'm a huge fan. That said, my friend. My last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Brandon: To me what do I think of when to be unbroken is that I could never be unbroken if I wasn't broken.

Michael: Simple, yeah. Love it.

Brandon: Thank God for the brokenness.

Michael: Yeah. Dude. I agree, I got a tattoo on my knuckles.

Brandon: I have yard work on mine, slightly similar.

Michael: It's basically the same thing. Brother, I appreciate you tremendously. Thank you.

Brandon: What a great outro.

Michael: For everything that you do, for everything that you will do for your honesty, your vulnerability, for your strength, your love, your courage, your wisdom. And Unbroken Nation, please check out thinkunbroken.com for this and more.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends,

Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.

Brandon: Thanks for the love.