Zac Gulbranson On Being in Prison, Witnessing Overdoses & Overcoming Drug Addiction | DSH #167

You know, students with, they call them, you know, mental disabilities or disorders, right?

Um, when really it's not a disorder, I'm just a growing 13-year-old boy going through puberty, right?

And I'm not, my attention is not being captured

the right way.

So, yeah, it's terrible.

They tried giving me outdoor in like fourth grade, dude.

Yeah,

like a 10-year-old.

Wow.

Yeah, it's like, are you serious?

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour, guys.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

Got with me a very interesting guest for you guys today, Zach O'Branson.

How's it going?

Good, man.

Good.

I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, can't wait to dive into your story.

You got a pretty incredible journey.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been crazy.

Pretty excited to be here, though.

I've definitely watched a lot of

clips, the episodes, the page.

I like what you guys got going on.

Yeah, so walk me through the start.

Like what were you like growing up?

Like what was the family dynamic like as a kid?

And I want to learn like who you are early on.

Yeah.

So basically, I mean, growing up,

I had, you know, both my parents were together.

I had two sisters.

And

I was the middle child.

So

the big thing was, is like, I always kind of felt like I longed longed for like a brother or a male figure.

My dad was, you know, working a lot where he was gone for, you know, weeks at a time.

So

for me, that obviously put a toll on me just being at home with, you know, two women all the time.

So I started to attach to people that were, you know, outside

outside of the family.

And a lot of them.

became, you know, kind of bad influences on me.

But

obviously, like, you know, which we'll get into my story a little bit more as we go but um

a lot of that just came from um you know just wanting to kind of be noticed or have a have a uh some sort of like a brother uh father figure around yeah they're doing a lot of studies on like kids growing up without father figures and how impactful it actually is yeah so my and just i just want to be clear my dad was he was there

he was there

just wasn't there a lot right he was working a lot yeah exactly so he he uh, he drives trucks.

So he would leave for like two weeks at a time.

Yeah.

Come home for like a day, but he would be just so tired.

Yeah.

He would literally just sleep.

I remember he'd just sleep in his chair

like all day, the day, the day or two that he was home, and then he'd take off again.

So I remember like vividly throwing the football up to myself a few times.

Now, obviously, I don't want to make it seem like I completely didn't have a dad because there are obviously people out there that are going to be like, look at this guy.

He actually had a dad, like, there, that was there, like, a couple of days.

I had no dad.

But,

I mean,

I feel like,

you know, just the attachment to some sort of, you know, father figure,

you know, I was kind of, I was looking for.

But we're, we're cool now.

Nice.

And, and, you know, things are good.

But by the time he started to be home a lot, um, I was out of the house, you know, I was out of the house at like 16.

So,

yeah, so I, I left pretty early

and just got

you know got to live in the lifestyle.

Nice.

So 16, you're in high school.

You leave the house.

Where are you at from there?

So

I had a good friend and he had three brothers.

So obviously me being middle child with two girls and my mom.

Yeah.

You know,

I

became really good friends with him.

And he had three brothers.

So I was always there, like constantly.

I think I would go to my house maybe like once a week.

That's it.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Plus, you were already sleeping there pretty much.

I was sleeping there, living there.

I considered them my family, my brothers.

So,

you know, I found kind of like the brother or father figure in them.

Unfortunately, they weren't doing the best things, right?

They were, you know, selling drugs and, you know, making money that way.

And,

you know, doing.

doing other things that obviously were not looked at, you know, as

good things to do, I guess you could say, looking back on it now.

But then during that time, I was like, man,

this is what I wanted.

This is definitely what I wanted.

And that, you know,

being, I feel like I didn't have anyone to look up to, I looked up to the wrong people, right?

So I would look up to them and they were, you know, making money and had a lot of girls around and, you know, new cars and things like this.

And

then obviously they would go to jail for a little bit and they'd get out.

And I just thought it was normal.

Like that's just what became normal to me.

So,

you know, I just found myself in in,

you know, just a lot of trouble because of that.

All right.

So are you going to school at this time or you dropped out?

Yeah.

So I was going to school.

Okay.

Yeah.

I was pretty smart all through school.

So the big thing is, is like I was, I never really struggled.

I started.

I got prescribed Adderall in ninth grade

because the teacher actually was like, hey, your son can't sit still, and he's always getting up and going around and sitting next to girls and talking to girls.

And so they did an evaluation, they came back, they said, he's got ADHD, they put me on Adderall.

And obviously, at that age, and this is a big thing that I feel like is wrong with like big pharma and the medication and prescription industry is.

They label someone so quick when really you got to think like a 13-year-old boy, you know, that is not being fulfilled or my attention is not being,

you know,

gravitated towards what the teacher is talking about.

Yeah.

Like, I'm not interested in it.

You know what I mean?

So I'm going to get up and I'm going to go sit next to girls, which I am interested in.

So like,

and I think that's just a normal thing, but they're so quick to throw medication because obviously that's how they make money.

And these teachers, are actually looked at as good people for reporting kids.

You know, hey, I think your son might have ADHD.

We should get him checked out.

They actually get praised for doing that.

I wouldn't be surprised if they even get a kickback, honestly.

They might get a kickback because you got to think about it.

The big thing is, is

people

or teachers, right?

They get not only praise because they're like, wow, this teacher is not only looking, you know, teaching the class, but they're also looking to help, you know, students with.

they call them, you know, mental disabilities or disorders, right?

When really it's not a disorder.

I'm just a growing 13-year-old boy going through puberty, right?

And I'm not, my attention is not being captured

the right way.

So, yeah, it's terrible.

They tried giving me outer all in like fourth grade, dude.

Yeah,

imagine like a 10-year-old.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's like, are you serious?

Yeah.

And like, thank God my mom talked him out of it.

My dad wanted me on it.

And honestly, like in high school, it was kind of like a cool thing to be on those.

Oh, yeah.

100%.

And honestly, that's like what I feel like.

It was kind of the gateway to other things things because what happened is I got on them and I was doing really good in school.

Like I didn't have,

I feel like I'm pretty naturally smart.

So, you know, the school work came easy.

I'd pay girls to do like my test or my homework for me and I'd come in and just ace the test like not even knowing anything.

So like it came pretty easy, but

it was the gateway because what happened is I got Adderall and then what did I do?

I started selling it to other kids in school

where, you know, I became known as like, oh yeah, Zach has adderall right and then they would come to me like hey do you have this or do you have that right so then i'm like no but i can get it i'll look around for it right so um

and and obviously you know being just around that crowd i i would just became known as that person so i feel like i always had to kind of live up to that persona you know growing up um which inevitably was not good yeah but i'm I'm still to this day, and I'll say it, you know, forever.

I'm still to this day so glad that i went through every single thing that i went through because i wouldn't be where i'm at today um without without having going through those things yeah everything happens for a reason right yeah

so how high of a level were you getting to like did you keep doing it after high school oh yeah so like basically i started selling um

uh Adderall in ninth grade, which also turned me into pain pills.

Started getting those.

Funny story, or not, I shouldn't say funny, but a story.

My, my good friend in school his dad was a professional skier

and he had broken every single bone in his body so he had you know oxycotton you know

and and my buddy came to me he's like yeah dude my my dad has a whole bottle I can get them for you and I was like cool yeah let's do it so he gets them for me and they're like the real like OC like the original back in the day that obviously now they got discontinued because you know you could smoke them and and all that but and they're just super strong but um i got those and then i kept a pill cutter in my locker and just would cut cut into cut it into fourths and just sell a fourth for like 20 bucks and ninth grade and you're selling you know one pill for 80 right making 80 because you're selling each quarter for 20 bucks dude you're balling you know what i mean like that age yeah oh yeah ninth grade and and the big thing is like you know everyone everyone was, you know, then they just kept coming to me for more things.

And then, you know, I ended up getting pretty heavy, heavily addicted to pain pills

in ninth grade.

And then by 10th grade, I wouldn't even go to school unless I had pain pills to wake up to.

Wow.

Just because I would get sick.

And going through something like this at such a young age was like.

It was crazy.

And everyone that

I tell this story to,

they're like, man, that is young because I went right in from that

and and luckily made it through and then in 11th grade

still heavily addicted to pain pills still selling my Adderall 11th grade I got kicked out of school for selling Coke in the bathroom they would look at the cameras during like the break hours

and they would see you know five six people going to the bathroom with me every after every hour you know and we were going in there and doing lines and things like that so

they ended up bringing in like the cops and searching my locker.

And then

I think a few kids even like told on me.

So this is in 11th grade.

Yeah.

And then

at this time, I'm in sports.

I'm in like basketball.

Yeah.

And

the crazy thing is, is I got, they kicked me off of all sports, right?

They said you can't do any sports anymore.

I think they

expelled or suspended me for, I think it was 30 days.

And

then obviously coming back to school, everyone knows what happened, right?

And then at this time, I'm still taking pain pills and still on my Adderall.

Obviously, I'd gotten in trouble for like the Coke.

They sent me to the, to the, to take a, uh, a urine analysis, right?

And my mom is there.

And I still shout my mom out for this, like, even though she knew what I was doing was wrong, but she looked at me and she's like, Did you do it?

And I was like,

Yeah, I did.

And then she went into the principal office, and she was just like, My son would never do that.

He would never do that.

Yeah, because I mean, obviously, that's my mom, right?

So, I mean, obviously, I got home and I still got, you know,

you know, she obviously cared, right?

She was like, Hey, we need to get so she didn't know you were selling any of this?

Um, she didn't know I was selling.

She knew that, uh, I think she had an idea I was using.

Yeah.

But at that time, my addiction to pain pills got really bad I ended up going to treatment um my first rehab uh when I was in 12th grade I got sent I went off to rehab so um and that was my first one um and then I went like five other times

but uh yeah so it's been a long road yeah um but yeah after high school um I got into uh I couldn't find pain pills, so I ended up running in

fell into that and and then obviously anything that I would get, I would start selling because I was like,

I don't want to be spending all my money on this.

I'm going to sell it.

So I would always start selling whatever I was using.

And then I, you know, started getting into other things like and things like that.

And then I'd say fast forward like five, six years.

I've been in and out of REIT, like about five rehabs.

And then in and out of jail a bunch of times.

And then when I was 23, I went to prison for about eight months.

Yeah.

So

and then I got out, continued in the lifestyle because it was the environment for me.

You know, I was more addicted to the lifestyle and being known as, you know, the guy and, you know, with the connections.

And, you know, and I thought people looked up to me for that, which is crazy, but crazy to think and look back on now.

But,

but, uh,

and then I got out of prison, started, i i think i lasted like 30 days um about about 30 45 days and then i started using and selling again and to you know make money because i yeah got a job and i was making nothing right i think i got a job at like taco bell or something

and i was like what the hell is this like i i can't do this um

and and yeah and ended up fast forward two more years um

or two and a half three years uh when i was 26 that's when everything changed um i have almost eight years clean now nice congrats um yeah so i'm i'm 33.

um so yeah everything changed and basically i just had to move away from everything yeah i can't wait to dive into that part of your story were you sober in uh prison yeah yeah i mean you can you can get things in there i think i might have done things a couple times but um obviously like things cost a lot of money in there yeah um like money talks in prison right yeah like double some double or triple sometimes what it would cost out here yeah um and i just didn't want to get in the mix in there and obviously sitting in there i was like i knew i had really screwed up so i was like

i i'd be an idiot to just keep going down this path right yeah um um which we can get into into prison a little bit more um in a minute but it was just like

it was you know when i was 26 and i was and i had a couple different events that happened like within the span of like a couple months that I was just like, I can't do this anymore.

Like I need something different.

Because the crazy thing is, is

for the whole time that I was using and heavy, heavy into my addiction and, you know, selling, selling drugs and weight and all that, I always kept a strong relationship with God.

Like I never ever veered away.

And I remember.

that I would pray to him like, hey, please help me like find a new way or get out of this because I knew that I was meant for greatness.

I just didn't know how to get it.

I just didn't know where to go or what to do.

Or like,

I feel like I always was very held back.

And that's why I have a tattoo on my arm of,

it's an I with

jailbars.

Like, so it's, I feel like my vision was very clouded and I felt kind of locked behind that clouded vision.

And I just didn't know where to go and who to turn to and

everything to make it happen.

Yeah.

And you talk about like finding your purpose.

Did you f manage to find yours in prison or was it after?

It was after.

It was after.

In prison, I still, I was still young, 23.

I was still like,

you know, I had thoughts of like, hey, I want to change.

Obviously, who's not?

You're in prison.

You're locked behind bars.

You can't, you don't really have options to do anything else, right?

Yeah.

But in there, I learned a lot of good lessons.

And one of those was, you know, who to surround myself with and who not to.

Like I could see in there pretty easily why people were in prison yeah like like you go in there and like pretty quickly you're like okay this guy needs to be here you know what i mean and then you look at yourself and you're like why am i here right i'm nothing like these people yeah right and you start to question yourself and you're like man this is not i wouldn't want someone coming in here and looking at me like why am i around this guy i'm not meant to be like this right so when you put yourself self in the outside perspective like that yeah and you start to question like like, would I look up to me?

Then I was starting to be like, you know, because I felt like I was looked up to when I was out there using and selling drugs.

But really, I was just looked up to because I had drugs.

That's really it.

Right.

And I felt like a lot of the relationships that I had with people and friends and girls and it was all, it was all, it was all fake

because it was just all, you know,

reliant on, they just wanted to hang out with me because I had drugs.

That's right.

Period.

Right.

So it's like,

but I started to realize a lot of things in prison that led me to inevitably, you know, two years later after

up some more

to really, really changing everything.

There was a couple different events that happened.

Nice.

Yeah.

That's kind of how I felt with high school.

I felt like girls were kind of using me just to smoke for free.

Right.

A lot of girls do that.

Oh, yeah.

100%.

And it's crazy, you know.

The,

you know, just the different things that people will,

you know, make up to be around you or different things like that.

Yeah.

So you mentioned there was a moment earlier.

What was that specific moment you were talking about?

So the moment when I when I changed everything.

Yeah.

So

basically,

it was probably the height of everything.

My addiction, I had overdosed about three or four times.

I was in the back of

one overdose, actually.

I was in the back of an ambulance.

My roommate had called the ambulance because I just

fell down, smacked my head on the ground, started bleeding.

I don't know if I was conscious or not, but he called the ambulance

and woke up in the back of an ambulance.

Before I woke up, I just seen this rope like flying in front of my face.

And I was trying to move my arms out.

And I was trying to move my arms and I couldn't grab it.

It was this rope.

It was just, it was going super fast in front of my face.

And I couldn't grab the rope.

I couldn't get my arms to grab the rope.

And I was trying so hard and so hard.

And then finally, I got, I got enough strength to grab the rope, and that's when I woke up.

And what I still think to this day is that I was dying, you know, I was literally like going down.

Like, I was, I was, you know, dying.

And then they revived me.

And that's when I was able to grab the rope.

Yeah.

People with near-death experiences have similar stories of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was wild.

But so then, you know, know,

overdoses and being locked up, and I was just tired of it.

And at the time and the height of everything, and I kept knowing that I was meant for greatness.

I just didn't know what I was doing.

Like my family at this point, I had lost their trust so many times.

I kept telling them I'd change when I went to rehab.

And I knew that I was just there to, you know, for them.

I wasn't there for me.

So a lot of people asked me, is it rehab or is it prison that changed you?

And it's not.

Like none of those things were what what changed me what changed me was when i was ready to be done and and basically you know there's a saying uh

when you're tired of being sick and tired is when you'll when you'll give it up and um

i was just to that point and i was living with just a quick story i was living with two guys right

I won't name names, but I was living with two guys.

We were all doing the same thing, you know, using very heavy.

You know, we we had girls around.

Like, we had, you know,

a lot of things going on, like making a lot of money, just, you know, different things.

And I was so paranoid that I was carrying like a police scanner with me all the time, everywhere I went.

What is that?

A police scanner.

It's like a portable scanner that you can get that you can tap into the cops' frequency.

Oh, wow.

Basically, I did that because I was so scared that we were going to get raided like at any time.

Oh, okay.

So one of my boys,

had a really bad thing with girls.

Like he would just let girls use him like crazy.

And what happened is, is he ended up driving somewhere.

I think he had like a,

I think he just had like an ounce of math on him or something like that.

But he ended up driving somewhere.

He's with this girl.

They ended up getting pulled over.

Find out later that she was a confidential informant.

So she had, she had tipped off the cops, like, hey, I'm going to be with him.

I'm going to be riding with him.

Yeah.

Pull us over.

They pulled him over for a x like a something about his license plate something that a normal person would just not get pulled over for

they pulled him over for that um he ended up going to prison um he was my best friend he ended up going to prison for seven years um and i think he it was seven years he served four um and uh no he actually served i think six um

And

then it was just me and my other buddy, right?

My other roommate, really, really, really good friend.

And we're just super paranoid because of that.

Yeah.

That

instead of being smart and being like, hey, we need to change, we're just like, let's just use more drugs more heavily because like we just have to block this out, that this just happened.

So

he overdoses,

dies right in front of me.

Holy.

And

at this point in time, my family had lost all their trust in me

and basically said that they wanted nothing to do with me anymore.

And to hear that, especially from people that matter so much to you, it really hits them, right?

It's like where you really start questioning.

I don't care how many drugs you're doing or what you're doing in life and trying to mask this or mas that.

You'll feel that.

It'll be in your heart.

You'll feel it.

And

what happened was, is

he ended up dying.

My family wasn't talking to me.

And at this time, they were moving to Arizona.

And

so I grew up in Minnesota.

And

they were moving to Arizona basically to get away from me.

They just

couldn't be around me, even though I didn't live at home.

I had two different places, but

they just couldn't be around me because I would always go and check in and acting like things were normal.

And I'm just, you know, not looking good,

not looking good at all.

Right.

And I was just killing them slowly, right?

Just stress.

Yeah.

And they were moving to Arizona during this time.

My best friend just went to prison.

You know,

my other, my other roommate overdosed right in front of me.

And at this time, I was just like, I have to do something different.

So I literally hopped.

uh on the day that they were moving i just left all my stuff there hopped in the u-haul with them, and drove down to Arizona.

Left everything that I had, everyone that I knew, and I knew that I had to do something drastic like that, or I was going to end up in one of those two places, right?

Prison or

overdosing.

So I slept the whole way from Minnesota to Arizona.

I think I slept for 28 hours.

Yeah.

In one straight city.

Yeah.

And you know what's wild is I actually was riding with my dad and you know our relationship had just been so

right.

Yeah.

Like horrible because I was resenting him.

He was looking at me like, what the hell is this my son like turn into?

Yeah.

And we had such a good time to actually talk and amend our relationship.

But I was just so strung out that I just like slept the whole way for 28 hours.

We get down there

and I didn't know what the, you know, what I was going to do.

All I knew was, is I had to

do everything different than I've ever done before.

Yeah.

And I'm a very

extreme person.

Like when I want something or when I,

you know,

am

going towards something, I go to the extreme to get it.

Right.

So I knew that I had to do that except just in the other direction.

Yeah.

Instead of running full speed backwards, I had to actually, you know, gain my traction and run full speed forwards.

Right.

So

basically I, I went full speed and I got down there and

just started like meeting the right people instead of meeting the wrong people.

Right.

You know, I was

very humbled because at 20, what was I, 25,

I just had turned 26.

At 26,

I was living with my parents, you know, after being out of the house since 16.

So I was just just very like humbled.

And I was just like, you know, all that I cared about was my family not seeing me like that anymore and me not ending up in one of those two places.

So I didn't know what I was going to do every day, but I just took it one hour at a time, one hour at a time, you know, and that's what, you know, I feel like has been a very motivating, motivating factor for me in life is if you don't know where to go, just

just accomplish today or accomplish this hour.

Get through this hour and just keep moving one foot instead of the other.

And then pretty soon,

you know, 30 days will go by, you know, four months will go by, eight months, a year.

Before you know it, it's three years, four or five, you know.

And during this time that I was changing,

I had accomplished so many things that I started to feel like I was recreating myself.

I was able to rewrite my story.

Yeah.

And

I would have, you know, I'm like, I want people to look up to me.

I want to be able to inspire people.

I don't want them to look at me and they're like, yep, that's what we thought.

That's kind of where we thought Zach would end up.

I want them to look up to me and be like, I'm in this spot too.

And if he can do it, I can do it.

And

make changes because of that.

I love that.

And I want to talk about your IG agency before we wrap up because now you're making a ton of money.

You're doing it ethically.

What's that process been like?

Yeah, no, so it's good.

So I've I've been in the sales, I've been in the sales industry.

So when I got clean, I started network marketing, did pretty well at that.

The company went under.

And then I started door-to-door.

I was actually in pest control door-to-door for

four years.

I was the number one rep in the industry for two years in that.

So not just in the company, but in the industry.

I broke all the records and then I re-broke them all my fourth year.

So I broke my own records twice.

I was the first one to ever do a million in revenue and pest control in a summertime.

And then I just didn't see that I was growing there enough.

So I ended up getting out of that, starting my Instagram agency.

I moved to Miami and in Miami, entrepreneurs all over.

You know, you got guys, you know, that are 22 years old making 10 million a year, you know, a million a month.

Like it's, it's, it's a normal thing down there.

So I just got in, you know, got around the right people and started making some really good connections.

And

all the while the last you know four years i was kind of growing my personal brand um and and kind of helping people on the side do it too and then i was like i'm just gonna make this into a business um and i and i i would have come people come to me all the time that got you know their instagram disabled or hacked or deleted or you know banned for just reasons that is crazy that that a lot of times are not even true, right?

It's just people are attacking them.

You know, a lot of businesses will get copyright and counterfeited, you know, banned for no reason.

It's just their competitions trying to take them out.

Right.

So I would have a lot of people coming to me and they're like, hey, can you, you know, can you help me get my Instagram back?

So I started, obviously, you know, I made some good connections and

started recovering Instagrams a lot.

I started making really good money and just turned that and the whole, you know, building brands and personal pages into a business.

Nice.

And then all the while

I had, you know, guys that I was used to being door-to-door with

in pest control, they're shooting me checks over what they're making in solar.

And I'm like, all right, you know, I'm making a lot of money.

I'm living a good life in Miami, but like these checks are wild.

They're making 60, 80K a week.

Not a month, like a week.

Solar's not smarter.

They're literally making, you know, I've seen 60, 80, 90.

I've seen 120K a week.

Like they're wild.

So I was like, okay.

And everyone was telling me they're like, with how good you were in door-to-door, you would be an idiot not to, not to do this.

So I ended up getting into that and then built a pretty big team.

And

currently I'm launching a winter program in Arizona that's going to be starting in October, December off and going through April.

So,

you know, door to door for a long time has always been a summer program.

So I'm going to launch the first ever winter program.

And

I'll link link the winner program Instagram in the bio.

Yeah, I'll put it in the description.

But yeah, so

got a lot going on.

Super inspired hearing your story, man.

Anything you want to close off with?

No, man.

I just want to say thanks for inviting me on here.

And I'm honored.

And I'm excited to kind of let people know

that

everything online, a lot of times.

looks very good and things like that.

And there's a lot behind the scenes, right?

There's a lot that I had to go through to get here, you know, and and

And, you know, I feel like the goal in life is, you know, to find your gift and the purpose in life is to give it away, right?

So, I mean, your gift is, you know, connecting with people and you're super smart.

And, you know, a lot of people look to you, you know, for advice.

And I feel like my gift is I have such a wild story that I'm able to use that.

and possibly help save lives right and inspire and influence a lot of people And obviously, make a lot of money and all that, too.

But the biggest thing is like being able to impact and

change lives, like that will leave the mark I'm looking for.

Love it.

Thanks for coming on, man.

It's been great.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.