I Beat 3,000 to This Role: My Unexpected Journey | Ginjer Wulff DSH #750

They said over 3,000 people auditioned for that job and they only picked like five primaries.

I was

in the middle of the interview or the audition, I was like, Trump grabbed the pussy and that's the American dream.

I was supposed to be on a rant and I was like, oh my god, why is my autism kicking in at the worst moment ever?

All right, guys, got Ginger Wolf here.

Man, you were taller than I thought.

How tall are you?

5'8?

5'10?

damn yeah five ten you're one of the tallest girls i've ever met i think the last girl was pretty tall she wasn't 5'10 though you got tall fan tall parents huh yeah my dad's tall my mom's kind of short mom's like five foot four whoa but my dad's like six two oh that's not even that tall yeah i mean i don't know maybe your great-grandfather was like a giant maybe seven foot player

damn what's new with you though uh not a whole lot you know out here for this i'm doing a lot of different projects right now i've got you know four projects that i'm working on within the next 30 days so i'm pretty excited about those.

Damn.

Yeah, yeah.

TV and film is kind of picking up for me.

Okay.

So it's exciting.

The first one is called Attractive People Can't Be Funny, and my friend actually wrote and produced it.

So I'm very excited about that.

I'm on two seasons of that.

Is that a comedy?

Yeah, it's going to be a comedy.

A lot of,

well, you'll see.

You'll see when it comes out.

I don't want to give a little bit of a spoiler.

Yeah, yeah.

There's another one that's going to be 10,

basically signed on for 10 episodes.

We're going to pitch it to Netflix, and it'll essentially be on one of those platforms, whoever buys it.

But it's a, I am a radio personality who is friends with a woman who's, you know, very affluent and is like a big CEO businesswoman who's having an illicit affair and it's kind of like falling, making her life kind of fall apart.

So I'm a good supporting role for that.

Okay.

Really excited about

kind of the direction of all of this.

Yeah.

And then I'm actually on another film, a feature film.

It's called Our Voices Cry that's based on a true story about a mother that ends up homeless with like mental health and addiction issues.

So, how did you get all these acting gigs?

I heard it was a tough space.

So, New Orleans has a lot of opportunity right now.

And I kind of fell into TV and film.

I did a little bit of modeling in Charleston for the eight months that I was out there.

And then, when I came into New Orleans, I was actually at the gym with my son, and somebody saw us playing racquetball and started a conversation, asked if we had done any TV and film work.

And I said, no, they told me where to sign up.

I signed up online and less than a week later, I was on a show called Sacrifice on BET.

Wow.

So I did three episodes of that.

And this is all like background, right?

Starting out.

And it was amazing for me because it was a great way to segue into, am I, is this the job for me?

Because a lot of people don't understand the work days that come from work.

Yeah.

And like, I get a call the day before sometimes, can you come to set?

Sometimes day of.

I got, I worked on Five Nights at Freddy's and got booked the day of.

Oh, you were in that?

Again, background.

But I got booked for that and like the day of.

I had to literally leave what I was doing and go straight to set.

That was a good movie.

I watched that one.

Yeah, it was cool.

You could see my back in like seven minutes in.

I was like, oh, look, there's me.

See my little hair clip.

I would count that.

I did.

I did.

I was in.

I was on the

oh, what is it?

Amy Schumer and Michael Sarah on Hulu.

It's like life of Beth, Life and Beth, Life of Beth.

I was on the New Orleans.

I'm not the guy, so I haven't heard of that one.

I was on Parish with Giancarlo Esposito.

And again, these are all background, but I, yeah, I did all these jobs within like six months.

My first job that I auditioned for, though, as a principal, was a Super Bowl role.

It was the He Gets Us campaign.

I'd never auditioned for anything.

And there's something called EcoCast now, which is where you like slate and do your whole audition alone in your home and you send it in to your, you know, casting director and they choose you or they don't.

But like, I'm a personality and like an interpersonal relationships type person.

So it kind of kills it for me.

But this was the only job I had ever actually auditioned for at that point.

And it was the only one that they said they had had since COVID that was in person.

Wow.

They said over 3,000 people auditioned for that job and they only picked like five primaries.

And I was like, holy crap.

3,000 people.

Yeah, it was funny because, like, in the middle of the interview or the audition, I was like, Trump grabbed the pussy and that's the American dream because I was supposed to be on a rant.

Like, and I was like, oh my God, why is my autism kicking in at the worst moment ever?

Like, I was so embarrassed.

It took me three weeks to tell me I booked the job.

So I thought I didn't get booked.

So I was like beating myself.

I cried in my car.

And I was like, why would you say that?

This is, it's like a, it's like a public service announcement.

Why would you say that?

And like the other voices, because I got a bunch of personalities in here, right?

So they kind of duke it out.

And the other one was basically saying, bro, they said they wanted to rant.

When people rant, they don't know what they want.

And they say stuff that makes no sense.

You did the job.

Like you did what you were supposed to do.

But it's, it's just interesting.

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Because with jobs like that for me, my head gets in the way a lot of times.

And the jobs that I'm always like, this is it.

This is the one.

Nothing.

Never get a call back.

And the ones where I'm like, bro, I shouldn't even submit.

They don't want me.

I'm not what they're looking for.

It's a waste waste of my time, waste of their time.

Those are the jobs I booked, and they've been pretty big jumps.

Wow, reverse psychology.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

We got to get you an orange is a new black.

Dude, that would have been the best show for me because my prison experience was literally orange is a new black.

You would have been able to tell them how it really was like.

Yeah.

I mean, how accurate was that show?

You think?

Did you watch it?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I was obsessed with that show.

I started watching it like right when I came out.

And did you feel like it was pretty good representation?

For sure.

Yeah.

I went, I was in Florida.

I was at Lowell Correctional.

So it was like the largest women's prison in the country the most notorious for like violence against inmates from staff um like all and violence i use the term violence loosely right like sexual assault harassment you know physical violence uh mysterious deaths things like that were kind of like commonplace at least geez you witnessed some like weird deaths take place so i didn't witness any deaths there were a couple that happened while i was there and then there was one where a girl was beat on the way to confinement holy crap so by other girls or by the prisoner guards Yeah.

By the guards?

Yeah.

When I got out, like, we did something with the Miami Herald, Julie Brown, she did like the Epstein expose too,

before they did like the documentary.

But she did a lot of prison work, and 13 of us kind of like came forward and were telling our story to her.

And then afterwards, we were all approached, and we kind of did a lawsuit.

And then the lawsuit triggered the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the prison.

And within like a year of them doing the investigation, they released like a 35 or page report that said that essentially all the claims that we had made were true, that it was commonplace.

The things that we were talking about that were going on, sexual abuse, assault, you know,

basically deprivation of human rights,

it was just like commonplace at low, and that the officers that wanted to help were in danger, and that most of the inmates were in danger.

And if they weren't in danger from like physical threat, the mold, the rats, the lack of medical care, and the medical care that was accessible was not adequate, You know,

all of that was just a big melting pot for just a lot of issues.

Jeez, you had mold in your cell?

Well, yeah, I wasn't in a cell most of the time.

I was only in a cell for maybe six months.

I was in an open bay dorm with like 80 other women.

Yeah, mold, cats, mice.

So it was just an open room with 80 other women there?

Yeah.

And that was my first jail experience.

I was sentenced from bond, so I didn't do any jail time.

I was sentenced on Tuesday and I was in prison Thursday night.

And I was detoxing because I was hooked on on oxies at the time.

I was on like a thousand milligrams of oxygen.

I was trying to kill myself because I, while I was on bond, I was on bond for two years and like the guilt over what I had done and then not being able to really take accountability for it, like socially, you know what I mean?

It just ate away at me.

Right.

So by the time I I knew I was already going to prison, my brother was in prison at the time or had just come home, I think, actually.

So like I knew the reality of my situation, you know, and I just was like, it'd be just easier to die.

I'm not going to survive prison.

You know, like, and then I had a totally different experience from what I anticipated having going in.

You only had two days before you went.

Yeah.

And so, and I detoxed.

I went through withdrawal.

I'm like getting a kidney and liver failure.

You could die from that, right?

Yeah.

I went to kidney and liver failure.

Oh my gosh.

I just could, I couldn't hold anything down.

I was just so sick.

And they probably couldn't even help you that much in there, right?

No, they had to send me to like outside medical.

They black boxed me because I hadn't even been classified.

What's a black box?

So it's where they chain you and shackle you and then they put a box over it.

Holy shit.

Yeah, you're not going anywhere.

What?

Yeah.

I was chained to the bed.

I was in the hospital for three days with a central line through my leg.

Oh my God.

Yeah, because I couldn't get a stick on me.

I looked was horrible.

I looked all junkied up, you know, had track marks.

It looked, it looked bad.

Damn.

But I got through that experience and then just kind of had to figure out.

what the basic operations looked like, you know, within the prison system.

Yeah.

I'm pretty good at like working my way into whatever social circle i want to so it was pretty easy for me to pick up pretty quickly on like most things i did do some stupid stuff but it was all like funny trivial stupid like stuff you saw in orange is the new black yeah so was there a hierarchy system in there not in the way that the men have there was no like cars or gangs that i really saw and i don't know if it's because of location or just because women but the women are more like pseudo families where you know like we try to rely on each other because a lot of times the women go in and like they don't have much of a support system and they end up getting pen pals or

they try to hustle while they're in there.

And I did a combination of both to be able to survive.

Oh, to sell stuff for money.

Yeah, yeah.

Cigarettes, you know, makeup, perfume, or like you, like, if you don't want to do contraband, then you can do like a hustle where you sew.

And technically it's contraband, but like.

It's not a big deal to have stuff like that because there are programs within the prison where you can acquire those things versus like you can't buy free world makeup and you you can't buy perfume and like stuff like that off commissary or cigarettes towards the end.

Beginning when I went to prison, you could get cigarettes, and then, like, I don't know, maybe a year into my sentence, they removed them from the compound.

So, like, one box of cigarettes is worth like 400 bucks because you could get so the math on it, right?

Because I didn't smoke, so it made a lot of sense to me.

So, I was like, Well, if I can bring in a carton and I have a person that holds it and a person that helps bring it in, I walk it through, then that's 400 bucks for each pack.

Like a carton's got what?

10 packs of cigarettes in it?

So, like, between the three of us, we make $4,000 if you don't smoke it at your profit.

Yeah.

It got to the point where it was like ridiculous.

That's big money.

Yeah, it was good.

It was good.

And like, I kind of fucked up because I was undercutting people that were like lifers.

And I was a short timer.

I only had three years.

Yeah.

And I had like a year and a half left of my sentence when I was doing this.

So

basically, people started to hate me because I could give you a better deal.

Like, if you and I were friends and you wanted a pack of cigarettes, I'd say, hey, you send me 75 bucks on my books right now.

I'll give you $75 worth of canteen for one pack, $75 on my books now.

I'm going to give you one pack now.

And then when the basically front you a pack, and then when the money drops for the other, I'll give you a second pack and then you run the canteen.

Got it.

So, and then everybody ate.

It worked out great.

Yeah, you were spotting people.

Yeah, yeah.

It worked out great for everybody.

I mean, nobody.

But then the lifers got upset at you.

Yeah.

Because they were selling it to?

Yeah, somebody told on me.

So you got in a fight?

No, we didn't.

No, I fought, but it wasn't over that.

I had two fights in prison that were, one was I was halfway through my time and I was just kind of starting to lose it.

And the girl was just dumb and kept.

kind of kept on.

And the second time she owed me 300 bucks, a different girl owed me $300.

And I was actually getting called to move to the main unit like while I was trying to handle it.

But it was more like principal.

It was never about the money.

She just kept lying, saying the money is there.

It's like, bro, there's no money.

And the way she was able to get away with it for a couple weeks was because my account had been frozen.

Because when I went to confinement, because I was told on, right?

I got put under investigation.

I was in confinement for like 47 days or something.

Holy shit.

And they never let me out, not once, other than shower.

Yeah.

Like, I can't.

You're going crazy.

I mean, you get used to it afterwards.

I can adjust, really, because I'm like a cockroach, buddy.

I'm going to survive in whatever environment you put me in, right?

So, like,

definitely wasn't fun, but like, you, you just learn how to how to handle it but that was my second time in confinement but uh basically when i came out you know like things things were just different than what they were before and i could not access my money because i had so much money on my account already i couldn't tell they froze my account to where i couldn't buy anything for three months so i had to send other people money in order to get basic things for myself because they wouldn't allow me to shop commissary.

So it became like a real big process just to acquire things, right?

But I couldn't check my account.

It just kept saying zero or it kept saying $100, but it wouldn't let me spend because I had, if you have over $100 in your account, which I had like a few thousand dollars in my account at the time, every time you swipe your car, it's just going to say 100.

And or like if you, if you have, let's say I have 3,000 in my account, but I spent 50 that week, if your maximum spend for the week is 100, it's only going to read 50 because it's only going to show you what you have for the week.

Interesting.

Does that make sense?

You could only spend 100 a week?

Yeah.

Okay.

And they would just sell you snacks and stuff.

Yeah, deodorant, you know, like personal hygiene items.

Okay.

Stuff like that.

Wow.

So we could never get anything like good.

We couldn't even get solid deodorant, bro.

No, I saw the show.

I forget what it's called on Netflix, but...

Even the snacks, I wouldn't eat.

Yeah, yeah, it's all stuff like high salt.

They're trying to kill you quick, make you fat and slow so you can't escape.

I mean, it's a good business plan, right?

Like,

they definitely profit off that stuff.

Yeah, they charge you a lot for those snacks.

Yeah, for sure.

Anyone try to escape when you were there?

Not legitimately that I knew of.

There were a couple times where they couldn't count and they would lose people.

And someone would be on the main unit or someone would be in the wrong dorm or whatever.

Taking up with a guard.

Yeah.

Yeah, with a guard or with a girlfriend.

Yeah.

That was common, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, both of those were very common.

Yeah, that happens in men jails, too.

Yeah.

For sure.

I wonder if they still have male guards in women prisons these days.

Oh, yeah.

It's predominantly male.

Really?

Yeah.

I think they would have separated by now.

No,

they don't have the staff now to run a facility the way it's supposed to be run.

Never mind, you remove all the men from at least contact jobs with women, right?

I think there were even times in confinement where they had men in there and you basically men couldn't do certain things, you know, because they need women to shower us and stuff like that.

You know what I mean?

When they walk you to the shower.

They had to shower you?

Well, they don't wash you.

Right.

But

they walk you to the shower, you know what I mean?

Because you're cuffed.

If you're in confinement, so anytime you leave confinement, you're cuffed up.

And the only time you leave, really, or I ever left was for one appointment and then to shower.

That's crazy.

You find reasons to take your shower, too.

So.

God damn.

So you're just smelling yourself in the room.

Yeah, it's not funny.

You take a take a bath on the toilet.

You and your cup and your bar.

So

did you have books at least or anything?

No.

No, they took all your, all of my property.

They would give you a Bible if they weren't mad at you.

Oh, my God.

I had to rent property.

Dude, the first time they put me in confinement, they didn't give me any of my stuff because I was under AC confinement, so it was AC investigation.

So I went in with whatever I had on and I was like that for like a week

yeah I went out to court and then when I came back I had to petition basically to get to property request to get my stuff I feel like that would mess you up in court mentally I don't know if that's fair I mean

if you're in solitary for like a week or a month before court yeah because you're not even talking to your lawyer at that point Yeah, I didn't really have any communication with my lawyer at that point anyway, because

I was already in prison for the one thing.

So I was going back to my county for something different that wasn't

reflexes.

Good save.

Some people have not made that save here before.

You might have to fight in bare knuckle fighting with that reflex.

Oh my God, they don't want me.

Not because I'm good, just because I'm bad.

I actually, this morning, I went and

traded with Christine Faria and Otis.

Hold on.

Pimpleton, I think is his last name.

What a name.

Right?

It's a solid name, bro, but he is a good shit talker and he was really an amazing person to work with because like I tell everybody I'm like a bunny, right?

Like I'm soft and I hop around a lot, but like I don't really want any smoke from anybody.

I just don't want you to want smoke from me.

I want to be able to get away, right?

Yeah.

So

I was like, I'm basically just in here to try to work out and like feel good about like gaining strength, gaining confidence and feeling like I'm pushing my body to limits because like if I don't have growth, I die emotionally.

But he was really great with like watching watching my breathing, watching like my footwork and my body movements, making sure I was in the right position because I like to like get excited and I get tired and I just want to hit something.

And it's like, no, listen, you need to do it right.

So it was a great experience.

I actually really hope you get Christine Freya on your show.

I'd love that.

She's a really awesome human being and her and her partner Jules, like.

They're a great team.

They have so much to offer for like not only from a BKFC, like a fight entertainment standpoint, but life like life perspective.

Yeah, like I would love to tell their story for them, but I would do it no justice.

So you have to bring them on.

I'll definitely reach out.

I'd love that.

Learning a fighting style is on my bucket list.

It's important to have that.

You haven't done anything like that?

No.

I did karate when I was a kid, but that's not even fighting.

I mean, yeah, I get it.

It's just like

the discipline, man.

Yeah, I can't remember anything I learned from that.

Bro, you should go down to the Mayweather boxing.

I'm down.

No, I heard it helps with confidence.

Dude, I love it.

I absolutely love the hit mix.

And I tell people, like, I'm old.

I'm 37.

Like, I've never had a public fight.

I had some prison fights, but I don't think they let us count that

you know so it's like if I ever got out there it would be because I had the time and the ability to like really dedicate myself to training you know consistently which I haven't been able to do because I'm I feel like every time I turn around I'm in a different city or a different state like

a different project yeah I actually come home for one day and then I go to destined to look at a property to buy and then I leave from there to go to Orlando for another podcast and then Disney and then I come back and then I fly to Miami

KFC fights Yeah.

So yeah, and then I'm in town for like three weeks for filming and then I'm in Cancun for a week.

That sounds fun.

Good old Cancun.

You were on the show Intervention.

Yeah.

I remember that show.

Yeah, it's interesting.

The people who watch that show are always like people whose family was affected or like people who want help and usually don't have access to it.

Yeah.

And that was kind of what it was for me.

It was like, dude, I'm going to die.

I'm going to kill myself in my backyard if I cannot stop doing what I was doing.

You know what I mean?

I came home from prison.

Like, I was, I was an addict when I went in.

I got off the drugs while I was in and then came home from prison to like the same scenario, the same situation.

And I didn't really have a plan or like any real hope that things would change

because I hadn't worked through any of the trauma or done any of the stuff that I needed to do to be able to heal, to leave that life behind.

And like the people in my community and family were so immeshed in it, it was just easier to pick it up and to continue with it than it was to like move away from it.

So after after I had relapsed, I was like, dude, I just can't live like this.

And I was, I basically had asked God, like, hey, if you can get me treatment, like, I will do whatever they tell me to do.

Otherwise, I'm going to kill myself.

And I set a date.

And it was interesting because intervention came the week that I was going to kill myself after my niece's birthday and before Christmas because my niece's birthday is December 16th.

And I didn't want her birthday to be ruined by it, but I didn't want to do another Christmas

not sober.

Wow.

So my intervention date was December 16 of 2015.

So, that Bible in prison really helped on?

Not really.

I definitely have, I had a lot of resentment towards God when I came in, and I was very grateful for my experience in the sobriety community with 12-step because those people showed up for me and they allowed me to show up authentically in a way that I had never shown up in public before.

And to be vulnerable, and to be able to have hard conversations with other people, and to be accountable to myself and to to other people and to be able to say like God didn't do this to me like I actively participated in all that might maybe it may have been trauma responses or whatever but at the end of the day I have to look at what did I do to put myself in these positions and like how have I hurt other people in the ways that I have been hurt by people right because otherwise I never let go like you know what I mean for sure Yeah, and I know you had trauma from growing up, right?

Yeah.

Parental stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

My mom and dad had some trauma that they never really worked through.

And I think they didn't have a solid life plan.

And life happens the way it happens.

And if you don't have the resources and the ability to be able to cope with that, then I think the consequences of it trickle down to your family.

For sure.

No, absolutely.

I definitely feel like they just didn't know what to do with me, you know?

Were you the only child?

I wasn't.

I had two brothers.

And that was kind of part of my trauma was like, I never really fit in the way they did.

They were were a lot older than me.

They were six and seven years older than me.

And like, as I, I was like the smart kid.

I liked to go to the library.

I liked books.

I was really like artistic.

I still am to this day.

Music and anything art derived and plays and theater and like all those things, right?

All the things that creative people like.

And nobody else in my family was like that other than my grandmother.

So I felt grossly misunderstood by the people I lived with.

And then as I got older, we moved away from like the friends that I had.

So I didn't really have anybody and like the family system kind of became more toxic at that point.

So I became like, it became acceptable for me to be like the scapegoat and for like my family to essentially bully me like at the home and in public.

It wasn't like, I think they thought, well, it's just, we're just teasing you.

You're fat.

So what?

Like, okay, it's interesting because like I look back at pictures, right?

And I really wasn't fat.

I wasn't fit, but nobody else in the family was either.

It wasn't like everyone else was going to to CrossFit and I was going to Burger King.

You know what I mean?

Like,

we'll throw up some picks.

Yeah.

People can judge in the comments.

Yeah, right.

Fat is relative, but there's definitely a certain level where you're fat.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

There's obesity and then there's like, hey, I need to tone up and get control of my body.

And that was kind of what boxing gave me.

Boxing gave me the ability again to after I got sober, hey, I'm accountable.

I also have like chronic pain.

And I think a lot of it is from, you know, car accidents and stuff over the years and not being treated.

So we didn't have medical insurance growing up.

So like for the past seven, eight years, I've done a lot of like physical work to release that trauma and try to reset my body.

And I really attribute like boxing and doing circus arts, like Ariel Silks and Lyra and Pole and stuff like that as like a good emotional and physical healing platform for me.

Wow, circus arts.

Yeah, they're actually really awesome.

They're a lot of fun.

Yeah, I actually have a mount for my silks and my Lyra in my living room.

Oh,

I bought the house I bought.

That's cool.

Yeah.

I'd love to see that.

I went to Circus Dole and I was very impressed with that stuff.

I actually think I'm going to go tonight and catch the show.

Yeah.

Oh, that'd be cool.

I was looking at them yesterday.

Oh, yeah.

Which show?

Is it the one with the water?

I saw that one.

Yeah.

Capalaggio.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That one was cool.

Oh, my gosh.

Some of those dives I couldn't look.

It's so scary.

Dude, I love that.

They're like 50 feet up and they're diving into like, they probably have like maybe a foot of error.

Right.

Right.

It's very precise.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like they could literally die if they miss it by a foot.

Yeah, it's a big deal.

Crazy.

Yeah.

I'm actually looking forward.

I think I'm going to move from the destined place or from my place outside of new orleans to the place of destined just to like i kind of want to get grounded with my roots again i've been going through a lot lately there's been a lot of like flux and change the past year and a lot of growth yeah and like because i got sober in destined and i'm so connected in destin anytime where like something's going on in my life i go there absolutely so it's it's it's nice to be able to like reconnect with that space physically mentally and spiritually um because it's like my grounding almost yeah did you get that tattoo in prison i did actually.

What does it say on there?

So it's my oldest son's name.

Oh, nice.

So it actually looked better when she did it.

I got it touched up when I came home and I should have just left it alone.

Her pick and poke was way better than what the guy I paid to do.

It didn't hurt?

I remember having like one or two tears sleek out and being like, like I was trying to be tough.

And she's like, bro, you're pretty tough.

This is not like an easy thing.

But after a while, it just numbs.

Oh, could you center up?

Yeah, I move around a lot like a squirrel.

I love the energy.

I'm all about high energy.

I surround myself with high energy people, actually.

I mean, I feel like energy is definitely something that's passed between two people.

So if I don't coincide with your energy and I can't like match it in a productive way, then it usually impedes whatever progress we're trying to make.

Easily.

No, when you're around low energy, low vibrational people, it rubs off on you.

Yeah.

And the other way around for sure.

I mean, look at.

Look at how you grew up, that environment.

It kind of affected you, but now you're killing it with, I'm sure you surround yourself with better better people.

Yeah.

And I'd be honest, that was such a big part of my growth, right?

And being able, again, to like,

so podcasting, right?

This is a good way to tie that in.

I felt like when Ian Bick invited me to come on his show, sorry, I might cry.

He was basically giving me permission to tell my story, right?

Like, I had never really had that outside of the attorney wanting to know what happened.

And he didn't want to know from a human standpoint.

He wanted to know from like a dollar and a like

liability standpoint.

Like, how accountable are these people for what happened to you and all these other women in prison?

So I felt like it gave me an opportunity to just get this thing that was like,

I don't talk about the show a lot on TV, on like my social media.

I will allude to the fact that a show saved my life.

Right.

But I don't refer to it, the name of it.

Thank you so so much.

Just because it's so foreign to me when people want to look it up.

It's like, bro, I'm telling you that was, I was going to kill myself.

Why would you want to go watch that for entertainment?

Right.

Right.

And then too, like, it's one thing for me to sit here and tell you to your face, like as a person who's on a healing journey and who doesn't physically represent what that lifestyle was now.

It's different for you to watch it, right?

For me to tell you about it is one thing to be like, well, yeah, you say that.

Could have been that bad or whatever, versus to like have a camera in your face and to be told to do, because like reality TV isn't reality TV.

It is, there's a touch of reality to it, but a lot of situations are presented to show a certain side of whatever that lifestyle looks like or to evoke a response from the viewer.

Right, right.

Right.

Because your show is only as good as the people that are connected to it.

Right.

So

I felt like when I was able to go on Ian's show and tell my whole story from like start to finish, I had some backlash, but a lot of the people, like I get people literally every day, two, three times a day on all different platforms reaching out to say that they enjoyed it, they related to it,

they felt comfortable to either seek out some type of treatment, to seek out help for something emotional, physical, or like some type of abuse.

They share their, some of their trauma with me and how they feel that now they can maybe make an impact because like I guess my biggest thing with podcasting it doesn't bring me any money but like dude it brings me so much like fulfillment because I feel like I have purpose right like there's if somebody else sees value in my story and my experience right

then maybe

it

Maybe there was a reason why I had to walk through the things that I walked through and why I'm around.

I have like some survivor guilt because a lot of of my friends are dead.

Damn, a lot of my friends.

Um, for a while, I had to like stop going on Facebook because, like, a lot of my friends that were on Oxies, when fentanyl became a thing, when Oxies were starting to segue out in Florida in like 2011, 2012, 2013, they're shutting all the pill mills down.

You had all these addicts who had no resources, you know, because they were surviving off of the pills they were selling and then doing whatever profit they didn't need.

You know what I mean?

So, you had this huge epidemic and no, like,

way to care for it as a society.

And society tends to say, Well, it's not a problem.

It's your problem when, like, the pharmacies are getting robbed.

And it's a problem when, like, hospitals are overcrowded because you have people dying and detoxing.

And it's a problem when fentanyl comes into your town and affects your kid because

people are loosey-goosey with it, or like it's being put into everything to get a create a consistent buyer.

You know what I mean?

So,

I don't know.

I um

I guess I I feel like

there was a reason why I was saved, right?

I don't feel like my cry to God was any louder or any more important than anybody else's, right?

But I showed up and I did the work.

And like, I try to keep myself accountable now, even though I'm not like in 12-step community like I used to be and things like that.

I still want to give it credit and I still want to see other people like break whatever it is that is holding them down because why wouldn't I want everybody to be their best?

They're like, we can all win, right?

Everybody can be the best version of themselves.

And like, I feel like with podcasting, I can share my message and you can share a message to people that like, because I'm on, you might get viewers that didn't know you.

And like, you have a huge platform.

So all the people who have never heard of me now have some type of like reference for essentially like what it was like, what it's like to walk through something like that and be able to make it.

So if they have someone in their family, it's like a, hey, if this person could, like, I can do it, anybody can do it, bro.

Like, does it make sense?

I know it's a long-winded way to say it.

I get that too, though.

Almost every day, like a message or someone in person will stop me and say, I've changed their life for the better.

And it's just such a great feeling.

Yeah.

It's like, to me, it's worth so much more than any...

any job that pays could ever give me.

Yeah, it's so fulfilling.

Yeah.

Whether it's like having on someone like you or maybe someone that helps with finances or mindset, health in general.

There's so many ways you could help people.

And podcasting is such a great platform to just share that message to as many people as possible.

For sure.

Yeah.

That's how I found you on Ian Dick's show.

Oh, was it?

I thought you found me on Hopaholics, honestly.

It might have been both.

Because I remember they came on.

They were on your show chat.

Yeah, those guys are great, too.

I really liked them.

I had a really good experience on that show.

Both their stories are insane.

Similar to you.

Yeah.

They were both addicts, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's cool to see that you can overcome that.

Addict alcoholic, yeah.

Crush it.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's like a form of therapy too, right?

For sure.

Being able to talk about it.

For sure.

And I think COVID kind of changed the community a little bit because like meetings weren't in person.

And like for me, it's just like in-person podcasts and like in-person meeting.

Like the magic happens when two people sit down and get together, right?

Versus like anybody can sit on a computer screen and like I just feel like it just feels different.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's great if that's all you have, like show up in whatever capacity you can.

But for me, my emotional change came from physically being in the presence of other people who were doing the deal.

I was surrounding myself with people that were who I wanted to be, you know, who could,

you know, essentially elevate my life.

Because if you're not elevating me, then I'm stagnant or I'm regressing.

Yeah.

And both are death for me.

No, I'm the same way.

I only do stuff in person.

That's why I travel the world and spend thousands to film in other cities because it's just not the same over Zoom.

Yeah.

And I'm willing to invest in the podcast for that if it's a good message.

What do you got going on next?

Basically, just the projects that we talked about.

I mean, I'm going to leave here today.

I'll probably go train again and go home.

Damn, two a day out here?

110 degrees outside.

Yeah, I was inside in the AC, though.

So, you know, but I mean, I kind of got to get in where I fit in because I travel a lot too.

And like I said, I've got a really stacked next three weeks and then I roll right into filming.

So.

Got it.

You know.

I'll get you on some shows.

I really love your message.

You're saving lives.

I hope so, man, because like, I'll be honest, every time I come on to a podcast, I was just telling Ridger, sorry, we're going to cry again.

Every time I come on a podcast, especially something like this, where I'm like, bro, all these people are like super successful.

Like all these people have like big companies.

Like, what do I have to offer these people other than like, I used to be a horrible human being and now I'm not yet.

You know what I mean?

Like,

so.

I guess I kind of struggle with like my own self-image and I feel like it constantly propels me to do more, right to be able to like say well

you know like again I was saved for a reason and like if it takes me 15 podcasts a week to help you know one person you know what I mean like I'm willing to make that investment because there were people that made that investment in me whether it was Ian Vic or you or the hopaholics or the people that were in the rooms of AA and the people that were at the treatment center I'm all I'm still very close with all the people that like worked at the treatment treatment center that i got sober at yeah um like they're a huge part of my life to this day and i think they always will be because like they just were there for me when like i was just going through the hardest time in my life yeah i wouldn't doubt yourself i would just focus on your message like it's not going to be like making people millions but it's going to be a different lane you know i wouldn't compare yourself to like these smart ceos or anything just find your lane and stick with that i think you have a really powerful message i really appreciate that i just hope that like people get something from it and that this isn't that.

I don't ever want to go on someone's show and be like, well, that was a waste of time.

You know, like, nobody related to her.

Girl's weird.

She can't shut up.

No, you'll see.

You'll get messages from this.

You're probably going to save at least 10 lives if I had to guess.

And that's just people admitting it to you over message.

It's probably going to be more indirectly.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really powerful.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Of course, we'll link their stuff below.

If you guys want to reach out to her with any of your issues, please message her.

Otherwise, see you tomorrow.