January 29, 2025 • 58 mins
This week, Steve "Lucky" Luciano shares his riveting journey from a childhood marked by fear and abuse to becoming an inspiring figure of resilience and transformation. Growing up terrified of his father, Lucky navigated through the harrowing experiences of physical abuse and a fractured family, ultimately finding himself entangled in a life of crime and addiction. After multiple stints in prison and losing everything, including time with his children, he found his way to recovery and rebuilt his life. Today, Lucky stands as an entrepreneur, storyteller, and cultural voice, dedicated to leading by example.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the time I can remember, I was terrified of
my father. Through recovery, I think the biggest thing that
happened to me was the narrative changed. I got to
find out that there is a power bigger than me,
and when I plug into that, I get to define
who and what my life looks like. I remember bawling
up my fizz and without this guy even thinking I
(00:20):
was going to do it, I hate him squaring the
nose and this dude hit the floor screaming bloody Marry.
Welcome back to the Sino Show. Ah. Today, we're sitting
down with someone whose life story is all about resilience, reinvention,
and unapologetic authenticity. Steve Lucky Luciano's lived a life filled
(00:46):
with challenges, transformations, and incredible insights from navigating life's toughest
moments emerging as a storyteller. He's an entrepreneur and a
cultural voice. His journey it's raw, it's fucking inspiring. Brother.
It's my honor to walk in the show, Lucky. Welcome man,
Thank you. It's an honor would be asked to be
here today. Man. So you right, what a nice little
(01:08):
We have so much to talk about, right, Yeah, let's
let's let folks know a little bit about you. You
grew up in Santa Monica, So what was she? Yeah,
I'm fifty seven years old. I grew up on the
West Side. My parents we grew up in like the
Pico Robertson West La area. And yeah, my parents a
lot of crazy stuff going on in my house. I
(01:31):
always want to mention as I talk about this is
is I'm a firm believer now that my parents loved me,
and they did they wanted only the best for me,
and they're working with tools that they had. Okay, right. Nonetheless,
it was a crazy experience. And what made it crazy,
you know, the dichotomy of my family. I have an
(01:53):
older sister that's three and a half years older than me.
My father was a really really he was a violent
and angry and sick man, and he had a lot
of reasons to be. I didn't know at the time,
but he was a scary, scary, scary man. And there
was physical abuse that went on in the home. You know,
(02:18):
later on, there was some other stuff. We'll get into that,
but there was definitely some physical abuse along with other
stuff going on in our house. And it was just
a scary place to live. It was a scary place
to be from the time I can remember, I was
terrified of my father. Terrified of my father. And when
I say terrified, I'm talking about urinating when he walked
(02:40):
by my parents, and sometimes I defecate my parents, getting
getting smacked, you know. So yeah, it was uh And
And I think that that the level of fear, that
level that I was experiencing. I think that with some
people it might take them and have them want to
(03:03):
go to a place like school and take it out
on other kids, and didn't have that effect on me.
That the stuff I was experiencing made me even more scared.
I knew what it felt like to get hit. I
knew what it felt like. I didn't want to a part
of that. And me going into environment at school, I
was a sissy. I was a chubby kid. I was poor,
I didn't have the right shit, and I was the
(03:24):
one that was the target. And there was a stretch
in my life, you know, through grade school that a
lot of things that transpired, but that I was I
didn't want the beating. I was trying to duct the
beating at home, trying to deduct the beating at school,
and I was a coward, you know, and I was
just afraid of everything and trying to walk around on
(03:45):
eggshells and hide out. And I do that all through
grade school. Man, when I was around nine, I was
at school and day and I was still Me and
my sister were in the same she was three and
a half years older, but in grade school. We still
end up in the same school for one year and
somebody came to the door and they were like, we
need to see Stephen down in the office. Going down
(04:08):
there with one of the counselors. I don't know what's
going on. When I get down there, I see my
sister in the principal's office and she's there with a
couple of counselors, and there's a police officer and there's
these other people. We get in there and I come
to find out pretty quickly that these are Top Protective
Service protective CPS and along with the LAPD, and they're
there and they're investigating some stuff about some abuse, physical
(04:32):
abuse and things that are going on and through my
sister and we get pulled in there and we ended
up going to the police station and being questioned by
social workers and all these different things. They promised that
I'd stay with my sister, that they wouldn't separate us.
That's all she was begging is don't separate from a brother.
And we did a bunch of interviewing, and I remember
(04:53):
in the evening time they came over and they were like,
your sister's older than you. She's going to McLaren holl
and you're going to a foster home and for a
few nights. That's what they said. And you know, I was.
You know, when when you're kind of pulled out of
your environment and you're nine years old and you don't
know what's happening, you don't know where your parents are.
(05:14):
Regardless of how crazy it might have been in my house,
those are my parents, man, Yes, I love them right.
I don't care how bad it is. That's all I
know is my parents. And all I had was my sister,
and I didn't really understand what was going on. They
ended up separating us. They pulled me up to a
lovely woman named Kate Jackson. I remember her name because
of Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angel right, And it was
(05:38):
in south central Los Angeles and she was just this jovial,
beautiful lovely, big black woman that was there when I
got there. And you know, she could tell right when
I rolled up that I was a little bit just
kind of tripping on everything. And she talked to the
officers that had brought me there, and and she kind
of pulled me in and she's like, it's all right, baby,
(06:00):
and she's just talking me in and got inside, and
you know, I was there, and I was there for
a while, and uh, the kids in there. There was
a couple younger than me, a couple older than me,
and I was in the middle, and everybody was black.
Everybody was black there. And it was a cool house.
They had roosters in the back, and it was you know,
(06:21):
it was it was dope, man, it was cool. But
at nine years old, not knowing where your family was,
I'm saying it was dope. When I look back on
it now, I'm like, she's making stuffed peppers and and
she brings me and you want someone to drink a
big blast of kool aid and and and I'm still
kind of tripping. And I remember that first evening after
I ate she she said she had put my stuff upstairs.
(06:45):
She'd come up here. There's a room for you, and
there was a room with two beds, and nobody was
in the other bed. It was my bed, and she's like,
and this is where you're gonna sleep at and it's
like all right, And immediately, man, I think I started
cheering up, and she was like, you want to come
watch TV with me downstairs for a while, and so
(07:09):
I sat with her, you know, and finally I had
to go to bed, and she took me up there,
and I remember they had gone by the house and
grabbed clothes of ours and different shit, you know, so
I changed them, like my pajamas or whatever. I got
into this She tuck me to this bed and the
bed smelled different than my bed and felt different, and
(07:32):
I don't know, man, I just fucking went to bed
and told her everything was fine. But god damn, I
was crying. And I was trying to like sneak into
this other room to pick up a phone. But I
didn't know my aunt's number. I only knew my own number,
and I could hear her coming upstairs, and it was
(07:52):
like I couldn't I couldn't figure it out, man. And
I ended up and the crying myself to sleep, and
you know, woke up the next day, and it was
such a new environment that I wasn't used to colors
and places and smells and things that, you know. I
kind of would get lost in that for a few hours,
and then I'd be back at like the front window,
(08:13):
keeping an eye for the car that dropped me off,
Like I knew that car. Every car i'd see coming down,
I thought it was that car, you know. And because
they said they would come back, you know, and eventually,
you know, eventually you stopped looking for the car, right right, man.
So I have to say again that that woman, she
(08:36):
had a profound effect on like her generosity, her sweetness
for concern or care. I probably couldn't have landed in
a more safer environment, that makes sense, Miss Jackson would
have been your first angel in your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
pretty much exactly right. Where was the next stop after there?
How long were you there? There? A while? I think
it was there me like like four or five weeks,
(09:02):
which seems like a fucking year when you're little, at
least when you're fucking nine years old. Yeah, man, Yeah,
And anyways, I came back to uh one day, the
car does show up, but I'm fucking busy fucking chasing
a pig around the backyard and I get in and
I'm I'm thrilled. I mean, you know, they're telling me, Hey,
(09:24):
we're gonna we're gonna go. There's a court and you
have to be there at the court and then you're
gonna get to go with your mom after the court.
And I'm like, okay, and the universe is starting to
like fucking come a little bit together again, like I'm
having some hope. And so we ended up going to
court and I remember my my sister being like to
the side of me, and I'm there and I saw
(09:44):
my mom just wringing her hands the court room. She
was a mess, and my dad, who looked a mess too,
and they said some things. And next thing you know,
we're home at our place with my mom, and my
dad's no longer in the picture. He's completely out of
the picture. And I'm from the gate like, wow, this
(10:06):
dude's gone. And I was my whole life, wow, this terror.
And my mom is a single mom. She was a
receptionist at an advertising agency. Miss how long ago this
is bro. My mom was making I think a thousand
dollars a month salary. She had to raise two kids. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. It was like that. And
(10:26):
let me say this that prior to this experience in
my life, my record at school, there was nothing crazy
about my record at school. I showed up, participated, I
was a good kid, didn't get in trouble. But when
I came back at the fourth grade, from that experience,
as I looked back and started doing work on that,
I was burning craons on the back heare. I was
(10:50):
breaking windows on the way home with friends. I started shoplifting,
we started setting fires. You get what I'm saying. So
it's that it's on right and my mom, there's no way,
I mean, you know that growing up in our time,
came home for the lights, you're on. You make sure
you're home before the lights came on the street. But
(11:10):
your latch key kid like you, there's nobody there, nobody
there from fucking three till six thirty and I was
out with this new found like almost freedom, and I
knew my mom couldn't control me. She was a softy.
She was softy. Of my dad was my mom was
soft and just you know, trouble just kind of started
(11:31):
and getting started. I got suspended countless times. And this
is really when I was like getting picked on and
all that stuff, and I just always always getting into trouble,
and so yeah, that all kind of went down that path.
And I remember by the time I was in junior high,
it was when I was thirteen, the road was already
kind of defined, and I was going the other way. Man,
(11:53):
I'm getting into more trouble, and I'm starting to experiment
with alcohol. First, I'm experiencing that at thirteen, I'm starting to, like,
you start dipping in, dipping in, that's right, got it
an alcohol. And then eventually by fourteen thirteen forty, somebody
has found their sister's weed, and you know how the
story goes. But I wrote something earlier today that I
(12:18):
wanted to mention on here, and that was that my disease,
which is alcoholism, the alcoholism that Steve Lucky Suckers, from
my experience, has been, my disease is craving a narrative
to push and fulfill, to drive and fulfill a narrative.
(12:38):
It needs that. My addiction needs a fucking narrative, bro.
And the narrative that I had was all this shit
that was going wrong in my life, and I didn't.
I believed in God, but I didn't trust God. I
always believe there was a God, but I felt like
God wasn't looking out for me, you know. And if
there was a God, how did he give me this
(12:58):
everything fucked up and all that. I didn't know that
at the times, you know, But now when I look
at it, there had to be a narrative, and I
began to understand if I really wanted to drink and use,
there better be a good narrative to while I'm fucking
up my life. Right on, I get that, And as
my life's unfolding, not only is it do I already
(13:21):
have some like traumas and experiences, I'm now recreating more
shame and trauma through the actions and the disease. So
it's almost like I'm compiling more and more. And you know,
that neighborhood we're all playing as friends and when we're kids,
and as I got older, what I didn't really know
(13:45):
is like the hub of this neighborhood where I come from,
was right there. Started there. So your friends are now
all becoming members of this thing, and you're seeing older
dudes that are coming out of y in prison and
the level of respect and the look that they've got,
and I start to look at that, and I was
(14:06):
a kid that was primed to look at that, and like,
I thought that was like a man. You got to remember, man.
Like when I was going through all this sissy shit,
I didn't have anybody at tied and have a dad
there to tell I just didn't have I was trying
to figure it out. And so as I started getting
around and introduced to this this idea of getting into
(14:29):
a neighborhood, there were people that I was looking at
were older that you know, I wasn't looking at my dad.
Didn't give a fuck who my dad was. I was
looking at these dudes. And that's what I thought was respect,
and well that's what I thought I wanted to be.
I wanted what these guys had. You're going to live
a certain way and you have to do certain things
if you want to be one of these guys. So
the drugs are getting heavier and heavier, and so is
(14:51):
the involvement in the street and things we're doing. And
you're no longer a punchy kid anymore. Oh no, no, no.
I had been bullied since the fifth sixth with eighth
grade and from grammar, and it follows you to junior high.
Kids are relentless, man, and uh my dad was now gone.
And and this dude was gonna beat my ass at
(15:12):
school after school. And he told me on the on
that Friday, when you got at the bus stop, I'm
gonna beat your ass. And I remember being in the
last class of the day and the bell was gonna ring,
and I was trying to figure out another route or
how I could beat everybody to the bus stop and
get on the first bus and get out and make
(15:33):
it home. And the class lets out, and just as
I'm like making my decision, this dude comes around the corner.
Do this cycle. It's a little bit kind of like
a movie, but listen, he comes around the corner and
there's like a rowd of people, oh man, that want
to see this fight. And he doesn't even wait till
we get to the bus, to the bus stop. It's
(15:54):
right outside the school gate, and you know, he starts
with like this pushing thing, and everybody there, people are
pushing him into me to kick the fight off. And
I just remember at that point in time one of
the most important times of my life. You know, I
figured I'm gonna get an ass wolf. I'm gonna go
home with an ask woman, but I'm gonna give this
dude something to go home with, one way or another.
(16:16):
And I remember bawling up my fist and without this
guy even thinking I was going to do it, I
just laid one on him, man, and lucky enough, I
hit him squaring the nose. And this dude hit the
floor screaming bloody marr wow and running off, and I
ended up getting suspended for that. He got suspended too.
(16:37):
I was out of there. I left. But when I
got to school on Monday with my mom because they
called her and staid of being suspended and I had
to come with her. I remember when I was for one,
that experience of me doing that, I felt right away
a sense of power. I was like, I've taken back.
It was like a liberating feeling. When I got to
(16:57):
school with my mom, the way that people were looking
at me was a little bit different, right, And so
I took that bro and with the anger, and you know,
part of being scared when I was little, you know
that overwhelming feeling, it was also being powerless, like I
didn't have the I wasn't big enough to change the things. Well,
(17:18):
this situation had given me this idea that I can physically,
I have the power in me to physically change my situation.
And I write, that's when all the different things really
started to transpire. And I basically said, and I think
it's kind of human nature. At some point in time,
I go, I'm not gonna be the pursued. I'm gonna
(17:41):
be the pursuer. Yeah, that's gets turn the table, right.
And when you have that, like that influence of the
neighborhood and these dudes, that makes sense, like, fuck it,
I'm gonna take shit. I take your shit. You ain't
taken my shit because I'm already gonna take your shit,
you know. And the crimes and the drugs escalate this thing.
(18:03):
This thing gets worse as it goes. And I also
say this. You know, you've heard me say that I
was addicted to the lifestyle as much as I was
addicted to the drugs. Man. Yeah, break that down for people, buddy,
what that means. It's important we talk about this. You know,
there's this there's some type of a high or a
get over something I get from stealing, from physically doing
(18:27):
some shit, from discharging a gun. You know, like there's
different things and flexing that power and having that power,
you get addicted to it or you just it's it's
it's hard to live with it and you have to
do a little more because the lesson is getting you off.
And it's kind of the same as the drugs. And
I was caught up in that lifestyle, like I wanted
(18:49):
to do things the wrong way. You know, man, if
I'm telling you I'm fifty seven, you were to look
at when scarface and moves like that came out. Yeah,
it was in the most impressionable time in my life.
So there's gangster shit and I'm seeing gangster shit and
I'm believing that I can do gangster shit right, and
you are and we are and we're getting away with
(19:09):
some of it. Yeah, that's right. And also I think
it's important, buddy, you tell me. But those guys that
you looked up to, now they're your family and they're
giving you love and they're like, you're lucky you come
with us and you're there. Get right, Absolutely, you got
your tribe. Now you don't want to impress your parents
or your you want to impress them, right, Their validation
(19:30):
is what I've been looking for. Right, the fact that
you you think I'm worthy and good and you consider
me your road that like that. I needed that, you know,
and so you went deep in that. Yeah, man, I did.
And you know, listen, man, there's and I say this,
and I've said this before on a before. You know,
(19:51):
I've never portrayed to be some fucking killer. I have
homeboys of mine that aren't here and that aren't here.
Are those guys. I wasn't one of those guys. Okay.
I did a bunch of dirt. I did a bunch
of prison time and shoe programs. But there were dudes
that were really, really stone cold. And I've never portrayed
(20:13):
or tried to be that. You know what I'm saying.
But I my hands are dirty. My hands are dirty.
I was involved in you name it. So uh yeah,
I the you know, one thing is you know what
I want to say too, is that in looking at
these guys that were older than me, a lot of
them had needles in their arm. Most of them had
a needle in all right. And so when I saw
(20:35):
one of them, my Homi's getting high. He said to me,
do you want to shot? It's a speedball. I didn't
know what the fuck that did? But I had already
smoked crack by this point in time. I was game,
and I said, yeah, and you hooked up a shot.
And when when he gave me a shot over, I
was seventeen. I think at that point in time, with
that drug produced in me, I'd been looking for that
(20:57):
type of a checkout for a while. That was I
could breathe like you hear people. The first time I drank,
I felt hurt, harps, you know, like for shooting dope.
That was what it was like for me, you know.
And I began to chase that, and I'm pulling off
crimes and different things that are moving up in level,
and you know, I end up, I end up with
(21:19):
all this bro I end up meeting a great woman
named Jessica, you know, and she's in love with me,
and I I'm committing crimes. I'm trying to also build
a brand legitimately and sell some weed on the side,
and she loves me and dropping off the weed it
was actually a legal Yeah, try with the gun in
(21:40):
my car. She knows that we got the kid in
the car. You know, she was my rider. She was young.
We're kids, you know, And but you know, I'm trying
to fund another brand. So there's this lick that we're
gonna do with one of my homeboys, rust in Peace
PAULI and trying to trying to shortcut man, trying to
live lives, trying to think I can ride this fence
(22:02):
and have one life in legitimacy and one life in crime.
And I ended up, you know, catching a big case
for kidnaped robbery out of Santa Monica, and you know,
I was facing a chunk of time and a second strike,
and you know, I ended up taking a great deal.
I caught a little extra time because there was somebody
that they wanted that was involved in it that we
(22:23):
wouldn't talk about, right, So I ended up catching, you know,
having to take a deal, but I still got a
great deal. I was gone, and you know I missed,
you know, four years of my kid, my son's life.
You know, I had to leave him when he was
just turning one, so and in prison. You know, man,
I early on I didn't want I don't know that.
(22:44):
I can't say that I wanted to travel that path.
I wasn't trying to be one of those guys, but
I was definitely showing up at my capacity as a Southerner,
and you know, and so yeah, I got and still
kind of believing the doctrine and and got involved this
(23:05):
shit in there, man, you know, and you know, real
quickly kind of ended up on level four yards and
doing some shoe programs and living with lifers, people that
weren't getting out, and which in many ways I would say,
I'd much rather do my time on those yards, because
you know, the dudes are doing your time with the solid.
You know, you don't have a bunch of like questionable weird.
(23:27):
You know everybody's on there's round and you're fucking solid.
So I did my time places like that, and I
got in trouble in there and cut more time in there,
and I didn't I didn't. I didn't chase down drugs
in there. I was smart enough to know early on
that when you don't have money for something, you don't
get it in prison or you're gonna get yourself fucking
stabbed killed. And so that was that was like a
(23:50):
clear probably was I had homies in there that had
the bag man, So I had a habit at times
there and then you just have to kick, you know,
but shot open gang. I was shot open, fucking you know,
huh Lancaster Corkoran, you know, and uh got out and
(24:10):
you know, back to running my life, man, the way
I felt necessary, and picking up where I left off,
and getting that woman pregnant with a second child of
mine and looking at my son and telling I'm never
going to leave you again, and and he's you know,
now he's four going on yeah, he's like four years
old going on five. And now we have this bond.
(24:33):
And I love my kids to death. Bro. My son
was like my little man. He was a smike who
wanted to be with me. He was just the best.
But I couldn't. I had to go. I had shit
I needed to do, and I wanted to go out
and and fraternize or whatever it might be. I wanted
to I wanted to go out there and do what
(24:54):
I wanted to do. And I couldn't stay married. And
I was running this woman through the fucking her and
she had my daughter. And you know, six months into
her having my daughter and me being out of prison
for a little bit, I sat down with a therapist
and with a couple of service and she, the woman
looked at us and said, do you want to make
this work to my wife and she goes, of course,
(25:16):
that's why I'm here. And she looked at me and
she's like, do you want to make this work? And
I felt right at that present, at that moment, I
felt like, man, dude, get out of the way, because
this woman still has a life. Wow, and and let
her maybe have a chance of finding or just get
(25:36):
out of her fucking life and spare this fucking woman
and be honest. And I just say, no, I don't
want to work on it. No, I'm done. You know,
I always got to send You've always had a sense
of right and wrong though, right, yeah, right, absolutely, man, yeah,
deep inside, I mean the world compass and the woman
fucking loved me, man, and she did everything right and
(25:58):
I just wasn't ready. And so I say that because
I ended up moving out and fucking having to explain
to my fucking son, I'm just gonna be here and there.
And bro, I wasn't away from her for two weeks
before I caught another fucking case, man, a new beef
and on top of violation, and now I was fighting
a third strike case, you know, And how did I
(26:21):
get there again? You know? Yeah? Gun and a couple
ounces of dope. You know what I'm saying. So we
ended up you know, we ended up getting getting a
deal man. We took a deal for six years opposed
to them them offering us eighteen to avoid the strike. Wow.
So the first the first couple proceedings, they were like,
sign for eighteen right now, and you don't have that
(26:44):
l on you take the eighteen, and we didn't. We stayed,
and my attorney advised both of them, these laws are changing,
we're going to keep on postponing. And he was right.
And so I remember Judge Edo was the judge. He
calls counsel and they're talking and you can't hear what
they're saying, but you can see their body movement and
(27:04):
you can see the prosecutor he's getting burned out. He's
getting and my attorneys site, yeah, come back. He's looking
at us and he just looks down and he walks
in and Judge Edo is like, hey, guys, I am
not gonna send these guys away on a third strike.
They're both drug addicts. First off, Oh he said that, huh. Yeah.
(27:25):
He goes wash these guys up for life because of
drugs of this case, and he goes they'll be back
here on appeal in a couple of years. And he goes,
So with that, I'm going to give you the mandate
of the mid term. And he goes, because you have
two strikes ready, I'm doubling your sentence at eighty percent.
And so that all worked out and we ended up
(27:46):
walking out of there. I was doing I was doing
somersaults out of that place always because I thought it
was getting really stretched. Okay, So but again, you know,
back into the system. Now, my daughter's growing with my
son's growing up, and and I'm getting into trouble in there.
You know, Yeah, I'm getting into trouble in there. And
(28:07):
my wife's you know, my ex wife at the time,
she she just didn't play all that shit, bro, And
she just was like, one thing she told me goes,
I'm never going to play games with the kids, never
going to use these kids or talk badly or use
them to not I want you in their life. And
so she would drive after I left her, and she
(28:29):
would drive up five six hours with my kids, wait
in line for two hours, get searched down to bring
my kids for an hour visit. Wow, you know what
I'm saying. And so my kids, remember vending machines and
visiting you know, when I get out and all that
shit we do, man, And so eventually I do parole.
(28:51):
Let's talk about the first time you got sober, boy,
the first time you like really took sobriety seriously. Well,
it was me getting out the second time. Quickly met
a stripper and I was using some go fast. I
didn't use go fast, used to other shit. One morning
I was I had just gotten a job right out
of prison to manage your pizza place. And I was
(29:12):
out all night and I could not get up. And
she told me I just do this little line. Yeah,
And I told her, now, this that's gonna happen, And
I poured a bunch out and I go, I'm ready
to do it. Let me just and I go, this
stuff doesn't do anything for me. Well she goes, it's
not go don't do it like that. And I do
this big rail and I'm saying, see, it doesn't do anything.
But somehow, five minutes later, I'm in the shower getting showered,
(29:34):
and I got to tell you, Sean, this is important
because we're coming up to the recovery. In that time,
I ended up going to work She ended up picking
me up that night with work, told her to bring
some more. Stayed up that night. We got real freaky
that night. And now I'm up for like multiple days
and on this shit and some experience. That experience that
(29:56):
I had over that like three days tweaking out with
her and doing it. It set something off of me
and I started chasing all of it, dude, the insanity
of Crystal mass And for a year, and I was deteriorating.
And I walk around at two ten and I was
(30:17):
one seventy five and I caught a reflection on myself
in a storefront and I didn't recognize myself. Wow, right,
And I sat down on the curve and I wasn't crying.
I was. I sit on the curb and I was like, dude,
I'm turning into the guy he never wanted to be.
My kids, my ex ol lady told me, and her
(30:39):
parents were like, we're not gonna not you can come
see your kids. You can remember have your weekend with
your kids at our house. You're not taking the kids anymore.
This happened a week before I saw the reflection myself.
I now couldn't be trusted with my kids, and it
was all starting to and it hit me at that moment.
I was like, I was scared because I didn't not stop.
(31:00):
And I felt like in my heart I was either
going to kill myself, kill somebody else, or I was
going to be in prison for the rest. I really,
at that moment, felt like those were the only three
options left. And I, you know, I used my cell
phone and I called a couple guys that had come
(31:21):
from similar backgrounds of mine that weren't doing that today,
and they were in a twelve step fellowship but I
had never wanted to go. And I called them and
I was like, this is where I'm at, and they're like,
all right, hold type man. There's a parole house in
downtown called Walden House. They have dedicated beds, so you
have to be on parole to get a bed in there.
(31:41):
And I was on parole and they're talking about treatment
center recover. I don't know, and so they're like, yeah,
I know Wayne Garcia and I'm hearing that name and
I'm like, why we're going to call and a stella.
My best friend picks me up and he's like, don't
trip me. We're gonna get you into you know, And
my friends were kind of around, but they were kind
of waiting me out. And we call and get Wayne
(32:02):
on the phone through my friend and Wayne's like, what's happened?
I got a stell on my party with me is
on speakerphone. It's happening. Man. I can't get you in
the day tonight, but I can get you in here
tomorrow morning. Can you get here tomorrow morning? And I
look at each other and he's like tell him yeah.
I'm like yeah, of course. He goes, all right, don't
fucking kill yourself between now and the tomorrow morning. All right.
(32:24):
So I go in there and I walk into this place, man,
and with a couple of bags in my hand, and
they're telling me Wayne's gonna be in at eleven. Wayne's
gonna be in eleven. I'm hearing all about Wayne Garcia.
Finally I'm waiting in the hallway. They did like an intake.
Wayne comes in, you know, and just his energy. Man,
this is another dude. His nickname was a Rocky and
(32:47):
he had done way more prison time than I had
ever had. He had done thirty two treatment centers before
he got sober. Wow. He had been through Foster, he'd
been through all of it gold fiend. And he walks in, man,
and he's like pressed down, sleeve down, and he's like
coming to my office and we sit down, and just
the way he handled himself, I was like the conviction
(33:10):
and what he stood on and stood for. I was
just listening to him, you know. And and this dude,
these guys, Yeah that I I was. Now these guys
in my life, these guys were like giving me a
dope sack, coming up with licks. How we're gonna be like,
That's what I wasn't used to, these types of guys
(33:31):
offering me something new. After three or four days there, man,
I wanted to leave. I wanted to leave, bro, I
just couldn't with sufficient force remember how bad it was
through Refrid talks about that in their literature. Man, the
disease of amnesia. We forget in amnesia, right right, we forget.
Can't forget that. Ever, I caught my reflection in the
(33:54):
window three days earlier and didn't know and reached out
for help. Couldn't couldn't recall that, couldn't call that you
left your kids that you love so much. Now you're
becoming your dad and uh, Mike Brenner sees me in
the hallway and he goes, come to my office. And
this dude could read me. He knows game, he knows gangs. Game. Brother,
(34:16):
sit me down, man, like, what's up? He goes, what's
going on? And I go, I'm out of here, dude,
I'm believing. He goes, I kind of figured something like that.
He goes, all right, you know, man, you're uncomfortable. And
that's duly right. He tells me, you know, because a
guy like you made you used to fucking shooting dope
out of a toilet and gang module, fucking breaking your
(34:38):
kid's hearts, not showing up as a father. Partners can't
trust you for shit, you know. And he starts going
through the list, and he goes, and right now, you're safe.
You're not hurting anybody, not hurting yourself. Probably doing the
best thing that you can do for your kids is
shoot being right here. And he tells me this whole shit.
And while he's talking, it sounds like Charlie Brown. I'm
(34:58):
just like, you know, yeah, And he says, get up, man,
and he opens up the door and he he looks
pokes out the door and he points all away because
you see that down there at the end all and
I look and I see this exit sign and I'm like, yeah,
I see it, and he goes, I'm not talking about
the exit sign. I'm talking about the broom and that mop.
(35:19):
Better hang on. I'm like yeah, he goes, I want
you to grab that room that mom. I want you
to fucking ice this floor out. And when you're done
doing that, I want you to go into the kitchen.
I want you to see today fucking dishes in this
place that you can do, see what you can do
for this house, because right now all you're thinking about
is yourself and we're all on to slap this guy. Yeah, oh,
(35:40):
I have slapped this dude. And I remember him. He goes,
excuse me, and he's like, I can close my door now,
excuse me, and he put me in the hallway and
I remember walking down and I remember walking down the
hallway and it was the exit sign or the broom
and the mop, the exit sign, the broom, the mop.
And by the time I got to that end of
that hallway, I was able to recollect that I had
(36:03):
said to myself when I came in, I need help.
My decisions do not work. I've got to take some
direction from somebody else. You had some humility, absolutely right.
And I grabbed that room off roomed and I went
into the kitchen and fok and yeah, there was plenty
of dishes to do. And as I'm on my way
out from doing the dishes, there's a brother that's sitting
(36:25):
at one of the dining tables and he's trying to
fill out this job application. Dude can barely write, you're
barely talking. And he's like, lucky, lucky because that's what
they called me, right, And he's like, hey, man, okay, man,
let me ask him. And he's trying to ask me
something to help him out with his application. And I'm like,
all right, and so here running down some stuff to
(36:45):
him and that, and he's like, well, I'm like give
me that thing, man. So I take his application in
the pen and I started asking you a question. Okay,
all right, all right, we can say you worked here
from this time. They're not going to call put a
fake now, they're not gonna call no. Give it to him.
I don't think nothing of it. And I go upstairs
(37:06):
to go to sleep that night, and I had a
friend from Florence. Man. I meant that I'd done time
with he was there, and he leaned in my room
and he goes, hey, bro't take off, man, don't take
off man, just at least for tonight. But when I
got in my bed and I laid down, I didn't
feel like the piece of of shit that I've felt like.
(37:30):
I didn't feel like that. For some reason, me mopping
that floor and washing dishes and helping this guy with
his paper, for some reason, that's resonated in my head.
And I was like, no, I might be ninety nine
percent fucking all me, but I gave up a percent tonight.
I did something for somebody else that I can't gain
anything from. And I went to sleep to night and
(37:53):
through the next day. I just got up, didn't think
much about it. And I see dude come through at
like ten in the morning through the hallway the guy helped,
and he's like, lucky, lucky, well, I got the job.
Guy tries to hug mym Hey, he's cool. Out of here.
He does bo I got the job, you know, And
he was so excited, so happy. He's like, man, cause
you did you wrote this shit, man, you So I
(38:15):
felt good about that, and that kind of that triggered off,
like at least for me at that time, was like,
all right, man, service, you can start being of service, dude,
you'll feel better. I assume it for selfish reasons, like things.
If I'm helping I feel better, things get better. And
so service was the first thing of recovery that resonated
(38:37):
with me, and I just jumped full board into like
projects in that house, how can welcome together? Wayne Garcia?
I remember him walking every every night Monday through Friday.
He would come in and he would speak to the
whole house, and I remember him coming in and going, man,
we bring he said it. Click, he goes, we bring
(38:58):
families back together with this program. You know he said that, Man,
he goes, That's why I do my job and we
show up. It's okay to be a good man. It's
okay to show up. He's a good father. Completely. Yeah,
it's beautiful. That's what he did. And to this day,
this guy's my mentor, bro. And so you know, my
(39:21):
life and Sino. I think that some of us get
so lost on drugs and alcohol like I did. That
if you just remove that alone with no recovery or
knowing your life's gonna get better, you progress in your sobriety.
You start making bread, you start getting ships, You're just
(39:42):
looking tight, a lot of pretty ladies in your life.
And then you forgot and you got amnesia. Absolutely I
got high and then I hold you, you know yeah,
and you fucking burned it down again. I burned it down, man,
and burned it down. And the signs At four and
a half years of sobriety, I don't believe anybody just relapses. No,
(40:02):
of course not, but yes, build up big life. And
at four and a half years, I start feeling like
these accolades are weights, and I'm starting to feel the
weight somehow, and things are not going the way I
want in a relationship and I have everything, and why
isn't that working? I and I start focusing on what's
not working. I slowly I am getting uncomfortable. I'm not
(40:25):
calling back sponsors or sponsors, I'm not showing up at
my commitment, and I slowly start moving away. I thought
money is going to fix everything, right, I subscribe to that,
and now I have your start. That was my I power,
and it wasn't even with it, I couldn't control the
outcomes of what I wanted, and I got butt hurt
I took it personal, and at that point in time,
(40:48):
I felt like I felt like I couldn't talk to anybody.
I felt like I was already on this pedestal, this
guy that made so good and how could I want
to use? And I didn't tell anybody? Man, And you violated.
He kept secrets, kept secrets, and I had secrets on
the way in. Yeah, of course, a handful of stuff.
Nobody's getting here. Yeah, and burned it down, man, and
(41:08):
fucking found it necessary to use. And I was going
to go out for one weekend out of town. And
it turned into thirteen years right of eight hours, you know,
you know, nine ten months of sobriety, building up a company,
getting the prizes, burning it down. And this was a pattern. Yeah,
I know it was, buddy. Then let's talk about this.
(41:30):
Let's talk about the last relapse. Let's talk about when
you tapped out and finally said I'm fucking all in.
You know, my father had passed away, and my mom
and dad were together, they had come back together and
remarried them together. I had already made amends with my
father and people, and I was but I had relapsed,
(41:51):
still got loaded again, and my dad had just passed,
and it was right as I had relapsed. I had
relapsed again and my relationship was falling apart and I
was losing my place. But it dressed it up to
look like I'm moving in with my mom because my
father passed and now I'm gonna take her. But I'm
completely out of my mind loaded, So I am showing up.
(42:14):
But I'm loaded, And you know, I'm with my mom
for almost a year, and the antics and the shit
that I'm doing. The property managers come to her and
they're like the police had already come over. They're like,
we're gonna have to vict you. So either your you
guys go or your son asked to go. And I
remember my mom crying and wringing her hands after I
(42:35):
was there year, and she was like, I can't be homeless.
Like she was crying, she's asking me to leave, and
she didn't want to ask me. And I had to
run everything to the ground, so, you know, there was
no more friends or people that like couch. I'm with
my mom with two bags exactly, and I was faced
with really the streets man that was the only and
(42:59):
me myself. I was unwilling to do that, you know,
and that got me willing, but I had nowhere to go.
There was no nobody was going to give me with
my handtics. And I called my mentor, Wayne Garcia, and
now he's the vice president of Health Right through Sixties.
Now he runs a massive treatment center out of out
(43:20):
of Run, California. And I called and this guy's not
the easiest guy to get out. But my phone call
gets answered. What's up, bro? And I run down to
him where I'm at. He goes, listen, man, do you
need me to send you a bus a greyhound ticket?
I go, I think I can manage that. He goes, sorry,
are you a methadonic? Go? Yeah, He goes, all right,
you get your farm. I'm going to get the transfers made.
(43:41):
He goes, get up here. You got two days to
get up here. Get up here, and he goes and
pack your bags, man, because you're not You're not coming
up here for ninety days and going back to Los Angeles.
You're gonna be here for a while. And my mom
was in tears, and I kissed her, but part of
her was like she knew I had to go get
so where she did, and uh, I ended up going
up there and yeah, I was on methadone for my
(44:02):
first like six months, but you know, you're fully engaged
in the program. And I remember I got there, man,
it was like a lot of Parolis trans home. It's
like it's one of those types of treatment centers. Bro.
When I finally got I was so grateful that I
like that I was in a safe place and the
paint was peeling and the buds beds were busting, but
(44:23):
I had a blanket and a pillow and they were
serving a hot meal and there was nobody fucking after me.
And I was so grateful, man. And I I just remember,
like I struggled with being away from every There was
no more fucking hot chicks. There was no more fucking
air one. There was no more there was no yet,
(44:43):
no Bro, I always had some hot chick to rub
my back or pick me up. You know what I'm saying.
There was always something. There was nothing right nothing. I
was in this fucking treatment center and that was it.
And was it all perfect through it? Yeah? I mean
(45:04):
I guess it was all perfect. But did I wrestle
with it? Yes? I wrestle with it. But the gratitude
and the action and me starting to maybe allow myself
to have a new experience, but bring some of the
things that worked as well. And I knew that I
have to get the service I've got and that's what
I did there, Bro. I got service back in that
(45:25):
fucking house. I became the head of corps in that house,
you know. And and I do good when you put regimen,
when you know what I'm saying, structure, structure, routines, routines. Bro,
That's where I thrive, you know. And I spent six
months in that in that treatment sat it. Then my
time came to uh get ready for job search and
go to sober Belief. Their Sober Livings was on Treasure Island,
(45:47):
which is right outside of San Francists a little island,
and they have four or five apartments. So I'm there.
I'm like, I don't have a license. All my shit's gone.
I've wrecked my life. So that happens. I'm like, I
guess I'm gonna stay in San Francisco for a little while,
and I'm using public transportation and now I've got to
look for a job. I'm about to interview with Levi's
for sales, and I'm like, I'm about to like make
(46:09):
a little life, and I have to do what I
have to do. And and d Wayne calls me and
he's like, hey, I need you to come over to
corporate office. And I'm like all right, And he has
the time. He's like, come in and see me. And
I walk in his office and tells me he's been
watching me this whole time. He knows exactly what's going on.
He goes, hey, I got an opportunity for you to
be a coordinator of our silver Living facility. If you're down,
(46:31):
I'll give you the job. You'll go to Silverer Living,
but you'll have your own apartment and you'll be managing
the island for buildings for us, collecting rent, testing people
and this is what it pays. And I'm going to
need you to get a couple of shirts at San
Francisco City called and I jumped all over it. That
I did, and I became a coordinator and I worked
up there for another year and a half. You know
(46:52):
how you say like you had that thing of you know,
an honest heart, you know good right from wrong right.
I knew inside that I was holding secrets. I had
been exposed to enough program and recovery to know, hey, dude,
there's some shit that not only am I holding on too,
but now I'm starting to contemplate, are these things that
(47:16):
are keeping me sick? Is because I'm not being honest
with these five things? Is that may be the reason
I keep on ending up here? And I didn't know
if that was the reason, and I think it might
be multiple. But they gave me a therapist to work
with twice a week in this treatment center, and any
(47:36):
experience I've read with therapists, we're talking about the whether
we're talking about everything. I'm just going to talk with
you for an hour, and you know we're not going
to accomplish shit. And that kind of started happening, man,
in the first couple sessions. And I remember the end
of our session that therapist said to me, he goes, hey, man,
you know, think about our next session and if you
want to get honest or you want to trust me
(47:59):
to talk about some thing, think about that planning to
see And I thought, over the weekend, am I gonna
say this ship that's going on that's happened in my life,
you know? Or am I not? And I remember I
got into that room, dude, that following Tuesday, and I
sat with this gentleman man and I told him, man,
you know about some abuse, some sexual abuse from some things,
(48:33):
some things that that my hands were in that I
couldn't reverse, you know. And and I as I'm as
I'm slowly saying this stuff, it was like an outer
body like I those words hadn't come out of my mouth.
So for me to say that and it come out
(48:53):
of my mouth, I was almost looking at myself like
the fuck you know it was? And I was like, dude,
this guy, fuck, this is a fucking walk to his
phone and pick up the phone or or if he's
going to get up and physically, you know, subdue me. Guy.
(49:14):
And he got up, man, and he's like, man, stand
up man. And he fucking gave me a hug. Man.
He's like that how that hug feel? Because I'm feeling
saying to me, there's nothing wrong with you, bro, You're
a fucking human being. You didn't You're just human. That's
how he's telling me, is hugging me. Could you hear it?
Did you? Did you believe him? Yeah? Dude, now I
(49:36):
believed him. I wanted to hear that when it came
out of his mouth. I needed to hear that. Does
that make sense? Yeah, that's beautiful. Another angel. Well, let
me tell you, I don't think I just really believe this.
I don't think the guys that you looked up to
in recovery, they laid it all down. Hell yeah, you
have to lay it all that. That's just our opinion, right.
I don't think guys like us can get free for
(49:57):
keeping even one percent on. Okay, but you're sober six
and a half years now, let's lock the lessons relapse,
getting your kid back. Let's talk about some of the lessons,
you know, the relapse. I was continuously up until the sobriety.
I was only willing to do certain things that were suggested. Yeah,
I might make some coffee, that's easy, pick up some
(50:18):
guys taking loovery, but I'm not going to get on
my knees. I mean, it's take three days, nothing's happening.
I'm not doing it anymore. And I would pick and
choose what I wanted to do around here. Right when
I threw it all away and was having trouble getting sober,
somebody came up to me after a meeting at the
log cabin, and I couldn't get sober and it looked
at me and said to me, you know what, man,
(50:41):
you may have to lose everything, and if you're lucky,
you'll live, but you may have to lose anything until
you start doing what we do around here to stay here.
I said that to me, yeah, and it ended up
being the truth. So that's you know, And now I
do what suggested now because I don't know if it's
the meditation. I don't know if it's a sponsoring. I
(51:02):
don't know if it's showing up having commit I don't
know what's keeping me. So I'm doing all this. It's work,
though it's working, and I'm doing all of it. Man,
and sobriety. Your son's struggling now, I'm early in sobriety.
My son's been struggling in and out of treatment centers
and the odean. And I get a call man, and
I'm a couple of years sober. Just move back down
to LA and and somebody that I know that fucks
(51:25):
around is like, hey, man, your son is over here
with another friend getting high. Your son's odied a few times.
I've been keeping them up mouth and mouth of testation.
But it's like, you dude, you got you know, I'm like,
where are you? Is he alive? And it's like, yeah,
I go where are you? Tells where he's out? And
I fucking bolt over there and my son is he's
a mess man. I get him and he's just in
(51:47):
terrors and like shaking up and I just grabbed me
twenty four at the time, It's all right, I got
my fun get in the car and you know, get
him some eat. I tell him just he's in tears,
and I get him over to his grandfather's house and
soundn't like and get him set up and make sure
he has who just relaxed. Just we'll get through it.
(52:08):
And his mom came after I had to leave. She
came and watched him, and his mom told him at
that point in time, even before he was so word,
she goes, you got forty eight hours here and then
you're out of here because you're not going to do
this with your grandfather, right, So you got forty eight
hours and you're gonna have to figure out and and
sure enough, you know, with not forty hours, my son's like,
(52:29):
I got I got a copay place to go detox.
He's calling Max wife, and Max wife like she has
the money and she's like, you better find a place
that's like, no, Copey, No, I'm not doing this again.
We've done it. My wife is strong like that. Oh
she loves that boy to death. Yeah, And she said that,
and he calls me and I don't have the money.
(52:50):
I can't help him. If I want to do right,
I go. I don't know what to tell you. Bu'
he starts calling it. And that was the beginning of
his journey having to find a detox. Then he called
the treatment centers and he got into bed Schuven and
so that unfolds and stuck, and it stuck, and he said,
I'm going to get my kid actor and he says,
all right, I'm going to work as a tech. Now
(53:11):
they're giving me a position. I'm going to night school
and I'm going to get a degree. I'm going to
become a therapist and have my own practice. And sure enough,
he's one of the head counselors that bet Schuven today.
He just got his bachelor's in his master's program. He
married a therapist. I have a beautiful grandson, and I
talked to them every other day. I see them a
(53:32):
couple times a week because my kids want to see
me not because they're putting up with the dad. They
want to see me, and that's like the biggest guy.
It's really the biggest thing I got, man, is my
relationship with the type of father I am. You got
your family back, man, I got my family back. Man.
I didn't, and I willing to trade it anymore. I
(53:53):
don't want to play with it anymore. Man. You know,
I've had home groups, I've had men groups, stags meetings
that I've been to. I came to this room and
this room for some reason when I first sat in
it with you and sat in this meeting. The topics
and the shares and what the men were talking about
in the room, maybe I should say, the addiction in
(54:15):
many many forms, right, And you know I like the gamble,
I like sex, like all these different things. And what
was being talked about was you know how to make
it through a day, and how to show up and
how to show up for your kids and show up
in your relationship and how you navigate that and being honest.
(54:36):
And I was hearing things in shell that I just
wasn't hearing in other rooms. And I quickly gained a
trust and I started shaking hands and I was welcomed
into this room, and the energy is always the same.
It's like acceptance, love. It's a family here of men
that are willing to put their shit out in the
(54:57):
middle of the floor. Man, Yah, it's beautiful. What do
you want to say to the folks who are struggling?
What do you want to say to the people out
there right now that are you know day two? You know,
fucked up, scared? You know, hopefully you're done. Hopefully you're
doing this for you. I've found that until until I
(55:20):
was sick and tired and sick of tired of being
sick tired, I wanted to do this for me, my
kids and my family and the people around me get
the byproducts of me being sober. I will say this
to the newcomer, like sometimes it sometimes it gets it
gets hard before it gets better, you know, and and
(55:43):
not everybody just you know, And so remember that I
tried to prove the thing wrong. I said, you know what,
I'm going to do everything and see what happens. And
my life exploded. And trust this process. Trust the process,
don't trip and don't take any thing personal. Where can
people find you and talk about your company? And I
(56:04):
have a brand called super Max. Yeah, you know, super
Max Harbor dot com. I am the brand manager for
a company called Cookies out of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
How many people do you put to work? Brother, A
good amount, A good amount, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yah, yeah, yeah,
that's what we do here. Yeah, people to work. Yeah,
Cookies and Vibes, So yeah, those are those are brands.
(56:27):
Also helping out my buddy with Joker Bran, my partner
of Steve On. So I'm staying in apparel working on
some media stuff, but I'm right here on the West
Side and you'll see me running either Cookies or Supermax,
or or out there or in this community, given a
hand at places. But yeah, man, don't forget that you
woke up today that this is a gift. It's life,
(56:49):
and it's meant to be lived, and it's not to
be meant to be lived on a on a street
corner infested with abscesses or locked in the fucking motel room.
Not for me. That wasn't what I was meant to
be here. So you know, I'll rap with saying this,
you know, and that's that a lot of things happen
in my life and I use those things as a
(57:11):
badge to do what the fuck I wanted to do
in life. And through recovery, I think the biggest thing
that happened to me was the narrative changed. And through
this recovery process, I got to find out that I
there is a power bigger than me, and when I
plug into that, I get to define who and what
my life looks like. I took responsibility back for my situation.
(57:33):
May not be responsible for what happened when I was
a child, but I'm responsible for what happens now and
moving forward. And I want to be a father that leads,
and I want to be a man that leads. And
that's my responsibility and my obligation here and I gladly
take on that. The Sales Show is a production of
iHeart Podcasts, hosted by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod
(57:58):
People in twenty eighth. Our lead producer is Keith Carnlick.
Our executive proucer is Lindsay Hoffman. Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver.
Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
From the time I can remember, I was terrified of
my father. Through recovery, I think the biggest thing that
happened to me was the narrative changed. I got to
find out that there is a power bigger than me,
and when I plug into that, I get to define
who and what my life looks like. I remember bawling
up my fizz and without this guy even thinking I
(00:20):
was going to do it, I hate him squaring the
nose and this dude hit the floor screaming bloody Marry.
Welcome back to the Sino Show. Ah. Today, we're sitting
down with someone whose life story is all about resilience, reinvention,
and unapologetic authenticity. Steve Lucky Luciano's lived a life filled
(00:46):
with challenges, transformations, and incredible insights from navigating life's toughest
moments emerging as a storyteller. He's an entrepreneur and a
cultural voice. His journey it's raw, it's fucking inspiring. Brother.
It's my honor to walk in the show, Lucky. Welcome man,
Thank you. It's an honor would be asked to be
here today. Man. So you right, what a nice little
(01:08):
We have so much to talk about, right, Yeah, let's
let's let folks know a little bit about you. You
grew up in Santa Monica, So what was she? Yeah,
I'm fifty seven years old. I grew up on the
West Side. My parents we grew up in like the
Pico Robertson West La area. And yeah, my parents a
lot of crazy stuff going on in my house. I
(01:31):
always want to mention as I talk about this is
is I'm a firm believer now that my parents loved me,
and they did they wanted only the best for me,
and they're working with tools that they had. Okay, right. Nonetheless,
it was a crazy experience. And what made it crazy,
you know, the dichotomy of my family. I have an
(01:53):
older sister that's three and a half years older than me.
My father was a really really he was a violent
and angry and sick man, and he had a lot
of reasons to be. I didn't know at the time,
but he was a scary, scary, scary man. And there
was physical abuse that went on in the home. You know,
(02:18):
later on, there was some other stuff. We'll get into that,
but there was definitely some physical abuse along with other
stuff going on in our house. And it was just
a scary place to live. It was a scary place
to be from the time I can remember, I was
terrified of my father. Terrified of my father. And when
I say terrified, I'm talking about urinating when he walked
(02:40):
by my parents, and sometimes I defecate my parents, getting
getting smacked, you know. So yeah, it was uh And
And I think that that the level of fear, that
level that I was experiencing. I think that with some
people it might take them and have them want to
(03:03):
go to a place like school and take it out
on other kids, and didn't have that effect on me.
That the stuff I was experiencing made me even more scared.
I knew what it felt like to get hit. I
knew what it felt like. I didn't want to a part
of that. And me going into environment at school, I
was a sissy. I was a chubby kid. I was poor,
I didn't have the right shit, and I was the
(03:24):
one that was the target. And there was a stretch
in my life, you know, through grade school that a
lot of things that transpired, but that I was I
didn't want the beating. I was trying to duct the
beating at home, trying to deduct the beating at school,
and I was a coward, you know, and I was
just afraid of everything and trying to walk around on
(03:45):
eggshells and hide out. And I do that all through
grade school. Man, when I was around nine, I was
at school and day and I was still Me and
my sister were in the same she was three and
a half years older, but in grade school. We still
end up in the same school for one year and
somebody came to the door and they were like, we
need to see Stephen down in the office. Going down
(04:08):
there with one of the counselors. I don't know what's
going on. When I get down there, I see my
sister in the principal's office and she's there with a
couple of counselors, and there's a police officer and there's
these other people. We get in there and I come
to find out pretty quickly that these are Top Protective
Service protective CPS and along with the LAPD, and they're
there and they're investigating some stuff about some abuse, physical
(04:32):
abuse and things that are going on and through my
sister and we get pulled in there and we ended
up going to the police station and being questioned by
social workers and all these different things. They promised that
I'd stay with my sister, that they wouldn't separate us.
That's all she was begging is don't separate from a brother.
And we did a bunch of interviewing, and I remember
(04:53):
in the evening time they came over and they were like,
your sister's older than you. She's going to McLaren holl
and you're going to a foster home and for a
few nights. That's what they said. And you know, I was.
You know, when when you're kind of pulled out of
your environment and you're nine years old and you don't
know what's happening, you don't know where your parents are.
(05:14):
Regardless of how crazy it might have been in my house,
those are my parents, man, Yes, I love them right.
I don't care how bad it is. That's all I
know is my parents. And all I had was my sister,
and I didn't really understand what was going on. They
ended up separating us. They pulled me up to a
lovely woman named Kate Jackson. I remember her name because
of Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angel right, And it was
(05:38):
in south central Los Angeles and she was just this jovial,
beautiful lovely, big black woman that was there when I
got there. And you know, she could tell right when
I rolled up that I was a little bit just
kind of tripping on everything. And she talked to the
officers that had brought me there, and and she kind
of pulled me in and she's like, it's all right, baby,
(06:00):
and she's just talking me in and got inside, and
you know, I was there, and I was there for
a while, and uh, the kids in there. There was
a couple younger than me, a couple older than me,
and I was in the middle, and everybody was black.
Everybody was black there. And it was a cool house.
They had roosters in the back, and it was you know,
(06:21):
it was it was dope, man, it was cool. But
at nine years old, not knowing where your family was,
I'm saying it was dope. When I look back on
it now, I'm like, she's making stuffed peppers and and
she brings me and you want someone to drink a
big blast of kool aid and and and I'm still
kind of tripping. And I remember that first evening after
I ate she she said she had put my stuff upstairs.
(06:45):
She'd come up here. There's a room for you, and
there was a room with two beds, and nobody was
in the other bed. It was my bed, and she's like,
and this is where you're gonna sleep at and it's
like all right, And immediately, man, I think I started
cheering up, and she was like, you want to come
watch TV with me downstairs for a while, and so
(07:09):
I sat with her, you know, and finally I had
to go to bed, and she took me up there,
and I remember they had gone by the house and
grabbed clothes of ours and different shit, you know, so
I changed them, like my pajamas or whatever. I got
into this She tuck me to this bed and the
bed smelled different than my bed and felt different, and
(07:32):
I don't know, man, I just fucking went to bed
and told her everything was fine. But god damn, I
was crying. And I was trying to like sneak into
this other room to pick up a phone. But I
didn't know my aunt's number. I only knew my own number,
and I could hear her coming upstairs, and it was
(07:52):
like I couldn't I couldn't figure it out, man. And
I ended up and the crying myself to sleep, and
you know, woke up the next day, and it was
such a new environment that I wasn't used to colors
and places and smells and things that, you know. I
kind of would get lost in that for a few hours,
and then I'd be back at like the front window,
(08:13):
keeping an eye for the car that dropped me off,
Like I knew that car. Every car i'd see coming down,
I thought it was that car, you know. And because
they said they would come back, you know, and eventually,
you know, eventually you stopped looking for the car, right right, man.
So I have to say again that that woman, she
(08:36):
had a profound effect on like her generosity, her sweetness
for concern or care. I probably couldn't have landed in
a more safer environment, that makes sense, Miss Jackson would
have been your first angel in your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
pretty much exactly right. Where was the next stop after there?
How long were you there? There? A while? I think
it was there me like like four or five weeks,
(09:02):
which seems like a fucking year when you're little, at
least when you're fucking nine years old. Yeah, man, Yeah,
And anyways, I came back to uh one day, the
car does show up, but I'm fucking busy fucking chasing
a pig around the backyard and I get in and
I'm I'm thrilled. I mean, you know, they're telling me, Hey,
(09:24):
we're gonna we're gonna go. There's a court and you
have to be there at the court and then you're
gonna get to go with your mom after the court.
And I'm like, okay, and the universe is starting to
like fucking come a little bit together again, like I'm
having some hope. And so we ended up going to
court and I remember my my sister being like to
the side of me, and I'm there and I saw
(09:44):
my mom just wringing her hands the court room. She
was a mess, and my dad, who looked a mess too,
and they said some things. And next thing you know,
we're home at our place with my mom, and my
dad's no longer in the picture. He's completely out of
the picture. And I'm from the gate like, wow, this
(10:06):
dude's gone. And I was my whole life, wow, this terror.
And my mom is a single mom. She was a
receptionist at an advertising agency. Miss how long ago this
is bro. My mom was making I think a thousand
dollars a month salary. She had to raise two kids. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. It was like that. And
(10:26):
let me say this that prior to this experience in
my life, my record at school, there was nothing crazy
about my record at school. I showed up, participated, I
was a good kid, didn't get in trouble. But when
I came back at the fourth grade, from that experience,
as I looked back and started doing work on that,
I was burning craons on the back heare. I was
(10:50):
breaking windows on the way home with friends. I started shoplifting,
we started setting fires. You get what I'm saying. So
it's that it's on right and my mom, there's no way,
I mean, you know that growing up in our time,
came home for the lights, you're on. You make sure
you're home before the lights came on the street. But
(11:10):
your latch key kid like you, there's nobody there, nobody
there from fucking three till six thirty and I was
out with this new found like almost freedom, and I
knew my mom couldn't control me. She was a softy.
She was softy. Of my dad was my mom was
soft and just you know, trouble just kind of started
(11:31):
and getting started. I got suspended countless times. And this
is really when I was like getting picked on and
all that stuff, and I just always always getting into trouble,
and so yeah, that all kind of went down that path.
And I remember by the time I was in junior high,
it was when I was thirteen, the road was already
kind of defined, and I was going the other way. Man,
(11:53):
I'm getting into more trouble, and I'm starting to experiment
with alcohol. First, I'm experiencing that at thirteen, I'm starting to, like,
you start dipping in, dipping in, that's right, got it
an alcohol. And then eventually by fourteen thirteen forty, somebody
has found their sister's weed, and you know how the
story goes. But I wrote something earlier today that I
(12:18):
wanted to mention on here, and that was that my disease,
which is alcoholism, the alcoholism that Steve Lucky Suckers, from
my experience, has been, my disease is craving a narrative
to push and fulfill, to drive and fulfill a narrative.
(12:38):
It needs that. My addiction needs a fucking narrative, bro.
And the narrative that I had was all this shit
that was going wrong in my life, and I didn't.
I believed in God, but I didn't trust God. I
always believe there was a God, but I felt like
God wasn't looking out for me, you know. And if
there was a God, how did he give me this
(12:58):
everything fucked up and all that. I didn't know that
at the times, you know, But now when I look
at it, there had to be a narrative, and I
began to understand if I really wanted to drink and use,
there better be a good narrative to while I'm fucking
up my life. Right on, I get that, And as
my life's unfolding, not only is it do I already
(13:21):
have some like traumas and experiences, I'm now recreating more
shame and trauma through the actions and the disease. So
it's almost like I'm compiling more and more. And you know,
that neighborhood we're all playing as friends and when we're kids,
and as I got older, what I didn't really know
(13:45):
is like the hub of this neighborhood where I come from,
was right there. Started there. So your friends are now
all becoming members of this thing, and you're seeing older
dudes that are coming out of y in prison and
the level of respect and the look that they've got,
and I start to look at that, and I was
(14:06):
a kid that was primed to look at that, and like,
I thought that was like a man. You got to remember, man.
Like when I was going through all this sissy shit,
I didn't have anybody at tied and have a dad
there to tell I just didn't have I was trying
to figure it out. And so as I started getting
around and introduced to this this idea of getting into
(14:29):
a neighborhood, there were people that I was looking at
were older that you know, I wasn't looking at my dad.
Didn't give a fuck who my dad was. I was
looking at these dudes. And that's what I thought was respect,
and well that's what I thought I wanted to be.
I wanted what these guys had. You're going to live
a certain way and you have to do certain things
if you want to be one of these guys. So
the drugs are getting heavier and heavier, and so is
(14:51):
the involvement in the street and things we're doing. And
you're no longer a punchy kid anymore. Oh no, no, no.
I had been bullied since the fifth sixth with eighth
grade and from grammar, and it follows you to junior high.
Kids are relentless, man, and uh my dad was now gone.
And and this dude was gonna beat my ass at
(15:12):
school after school. And he told me on the on
that Friday, when you got at the bus stop, I'm
gonna beat your ass. And I remember being in the
last class of the day and the bell was gonna ring,
and I was trying to figure out another route or
how I could beat everybody to the bus stop and
get on the first bus and get out and make
(15:33):
it home. And the class lets out, and just as
I'm like making my decision, this dude comes around the corner.
Do this cycle. It's a little bit kind of like
a movie, but listen, he comes around the corner and
there's like a rowd of people, oh man, that want
to see this fight. And he doesn't even wait till
we get to the bus, to the bus stop. It's
(15:54):
right outside the school gate, and you know, he starts
with like this pushing thing, and everybody there, people are
pushing him into me to kick the fight off. And
I just remember at that point in time one of
the most important times of my life. You know, I
figured I'm gonna get an ass wolf. I'm gonna go
home with an ask woman, but I'm gonna give this
dude something to go home with, one way or another.
(16:16):
And I remember bawling up my fist and without this
guy even thinking I was going to do it, I
just laid one on him, man, and lucky enough, I
hit him squaring the nose. And this dude hit the
floor screaming bloody marr wow and running off, and I
ended up getting suspended for that. He got suspended too.
(16:37):
I was out of there. I left. But when I
got to school on Monday with my mom because they
called her and staid of being suspended and I had
to come with her. I remember when I was for one,
that experience of me doing that, I felt right away
a sense of power. I was like, I've taken back.
It was like a liberating feeling. When I got to
(16:57):
school with my mom, the way that people were looking
at me was a little bit different, right, And so
I took that bro and with the anger, and you know,
part of being scared when I was little, you know
that overwhelming feeling, it was also being powerless, like I
didn't have the I wasn't big enough to change the things. Well,
(17:18):
this situation had given me this idea that I can physically,
I have the power in me to physically change my situation.
And I write, that's when all the different things really
started to transpire. And I basically said, and I think
it's kind of human nature. At some point in time,
I go, I'm not gonna be the pursued. I'm gonna
(17:41):
be the pursuer. Yeah, that's gets turn the table, right.
And when you have that, like that influence of the
neighborhood and these dudes, that makes sense, like, fuck it,
I'm gonna take shit. I take your shit. You ain't
taken my shit because I'm already gonna take your shit,
you know. And the crimes and the drugs escalate this thing.
(18:03):
This thing gets worse as it goes. And I also
say this. You know, you've heard me say that I
was addicted to the lifestyle as much as I was
addicted to the drugs. Man. Yeah, break that down for people, buddy,
what that means. It's important we talk about this. You know,
there's this there's some type of a high or a
get over something I get from stealing, from physically doing
(18:27):
some shit, from discharging a gun. You know, like there's
different things and flexing that power and having that power,
you get addicted to it or you just it's it's
it's hard to live with it and you have to
do a little more because the lesson is getting you off.
And it's kind of the same as the drugs. And
I was caught up in that lifestyle, like I wanted
(18:49):
to do things the wrong way. You know, man, if
I'm telling you I'm fifty seven, you were to look
at when scarface and moves like that came out. Yeah,
it was in the most impressionable time in my life.
So there's gangster shit and I'm seeing gangster shit and
I'm believing that I can do gangster shit right, and
you are and we are and we're getting away with
(19:09):
some of it. Yeah, that's right. And also I think
it's important, buddy, you tell me. But those guys that
you looked up to, now they're your family and they're
giving you love and they're like, you're lucky you come
with us and you're there. Get right, Absolutely, you got
your tribe. Now you don't want to impress your parents
or your you want to impress them, right, Their validation
(19:30):
is what I've been looking for. Right, the fact that
you you think I'm worthy and good and you consider
me your road that like that. I needed that, you know,
and so you went deep in that. Yeah, man, I did.
And you know, listen, man, there's and I say this,
and I've said this before on a before. You know,
(19:51):
I've never portrayed to be some fucking killer. I have
homeboys of mine that aren't here and that aren't here.
Are those guys. I wasn't one of those guys. Okay.
I did a bunch of dirt. I did a bunch
of prison time and shoe programs. But there were dudes
that were really, really stone cold. And I've never portrayed
(20:13):
or tried to be that. You know what I'm saying.
But I my hands are dirty. My hands are dirty.
I was involved in you name it. So uh yeah,
I the you know, one thing is you know what
I want to say too, is that in looking at
these guys that were older than me, a lot of
them had needles in their arm. Most of them had
a needle in all right. And so when I saw
(20:35):
one of them, my Homi's getting high. He said to me,
do you want to shot? It's a speedball. I didn't
know what the fuck that did? But I had already
smoked crack by this point in time. I was game,
and I said, yeah, and you hooked up a shot.
And when when he gave me a shot over, I
was seventeen. I think at that point in time, with
that drug produced in me, I'd been looking for that
(20:57):
type of a checkout for a while. That was I
could breathe like you hear people. The first time I drank,
I felt hurt, harps, you know, like for shooting dope.
That was what it was like for me, you know.
And I began to chase that, and I'm pulling off
crimes and different things that are moving up in level,
and you know, I end up, I end up with
(21:19):
all this bro I end up meeting a great woman
named Jessica, you know, and she's in love with me,
and I I'm committing crimes. I'm trying to also build
a brand legitimately and sell some weed on the side,
and she loves me and dropping off the weed it
was actually a legal Yeah, try with the gun in
(21:40):
my car. She knows that we got the kid in
the car. You know, she was my rider. She was young.
We're kids, you know, And but you know, I'm trying
to fund another brand. So there's this lick that we're
gonna do with one of my homeboys, rust in Peace
PAULI and trying to trying to shortcut man, trying to
live lives, trying to think I can ride this fence
(22:02):
and have one life in legitimacy and one life in crime.
And I ended up, you know, catching a big case
for kidnaped robbery out of Santa Monica, and you know,
I was facing a chunk of time and a second strike,
and you know, I ended up taking a great deal.
I caught a little extra time because there was somebody
that they wanted that was involved in it that we
(22:23):
wouldn't talk about, right, So I ended up catching, you know,
having to take a deal, but I still got a
great deal. I was gone, and you know I missed,
you know, four years of my kid, my son's life.
You know, I had to leave him when he was
just turning one, so and in prison. You know, man,
I early on I didn't want I don't know that.
(22:44):
I can't say that I wanted to travel that path.
I wasn't trying to be one of those guys, but
I was definitely showing up at my capacity as a Southerner,
and you know, and so yeah, I got and still
kind of believing the doctrine and and got involved this
(23:05):
shit in there, man, you know, and you know, real
quickly kind of ended up on level four yards and
doing some shoe programs and living with lifers, people that
weren't getting out, and which in many ways I would say,
I'd much rather do my time on those yards, because
you know, the dudes are doing your time with the solid.
You know, you don't have a bunch of like questionable weird.
(23:27):
You know everybody's on there's round and you're fucking solid.
So I did my time places like that, and I
got in trouble in there and cut more time in there,
and I didn't I didn't. I didn't chase down drugs
in there. I was smart enough to know early on
that when you don't have money for something, you don't
get it in prison or you're gonna get yourself fucking
stabbed killed. And so that was that was like a
(23:50):
clear probably was I had homies in there that had
the bag man, So I had a habit at times
there and then you just have to kick, you know,
but shot open gang. I was shot open, fucking you know,
huh Lancaster Corkoran, you know, and uh got out and
(24:10):
you know, back to running my life, man, the way
I felt necessary, and picking up where I left off,
and getting that woman pregnant with a second child of
mine and looking at my son and telling I'm never
going to leave you again, and and he's you know,
now he's four going on yeah, he's like four years
old going on five. And now we have this bond.
(24:33):
And I love my kids to death. Bro. My son
was like my little man. He was a smike who
wanted to be with me. He was just the best.
But I couldn't. I had to go. I had shit
I needed to do, and I wanted to go out
and and fraternize or whatever it might be. I wanted
to I wanted to go out there and do what
(24:54):
I wanted to do. And I couldn't stay married. And
I was running this woman through the fucking her and
she had my daughter. And you know, six months into
her having my daughter and me being out of prison
for a little bit, I sat down with a therapist
and with a couple of service and she, the woman
looked at us and said, do you want to make
this work to my wife and she goes, of course,
(25:16):
that's why I'm here. And she looked at me and
she's like, do you want to make this work? And
I felt right at that present, at that moment, I
felt like, man, dude, get out of the way, because
this woman still has a life. Wow, and and let
her maybe have a chance of finding or just get
(25:36):
out of her fucking life and spare this fucking woman
and be honest. And I just say, no, I don't
want to work on it. No, I'm done. You know,
I always got to send You've always had a sense
of right and wrong though, right, yeah, right, absolutely, man, yeah,
deep inside, I mean the world compass and the woman
fucking loved me, man, and she did everything right and
(25:58):
I just wasn't ready. And so I say that because
I ended up moving out and fucking having to explain
to my fucking son, I'm just gonna be here and there.
And bro, I wasn't away from her for two weeks
before I caught another fucking case, man, a new beef
and on top of violation, and now I was fighting
a third strike case, you know, And how did I
(26:21):
get there again? You know? Yeah? Gun and a couple
ounces of dope. You know what I'm saying. So we
ended up you know, we ended up getting getting a
deal man. We took a deal for six years opposed
to them them offering us eighteen to avoid the strike. Wow.
So the first the first couple proceedings, they were like,
sign for eighteen right now, and you don't have that
(26:44):
l on you take the eighteen, and we didn't. We stayed,
and my attorney advised both of them, these laws are changing,
we're going to keep on postponing. And he was right.
And so I remember Judge Edo was the judge. He
calls counsel and they're talking and you can't hear what
they're saying, but you can see their body movement and
(27:04):
you can see the prosecutor he's getting burned out. He's
getting and my attorneys site, yeah, come back. He's looking
at us and he just looks down and he walks
in and Judge Edo is like, hey, guys, I am
not gonna send these guys away on a third strike.
They're both drug addicts. First off, Oh he said that, huh. Yeah.
(27:25):
He goes wash these guys up for life because of
drugs of this case, and he goes they'll be back
here on appeal in a couple of years. And he goes,
So with that, I'm going to give you the mandate
of the mid term. And he goes, because you have
two strikes ready, I'm doubling your sentence at eighty percent.
And so that all worked out and we ended up
(27:46):
walking out of there. I was doing I was doing
somersaults out of that place always because I thought it
was getting really stretched. Okay, So but again, you know,
back into the system. Now, my daughter's growing with my
son's growing up, and and I'm getting into trouble in there.
You know, Yeah, I'm getting into trouble in there. And
(28:07):
my wife's you know, my ex wife at the time,
she she just didn't play all that shit, bro, And
she just was like, one thing she told me goes,
I'm never going to play games with the kids, never
going to use these kids or talk badly or use
them to not I want you in their life. And
so she would drive after I left her, and she
(28:29):
would drive up five six hours with my kids, wait
in line for two hours, get searched down to bring
my kids for an hour visit. Wow, you know what
I'm saying. And so my kids, remember vending machines and
visiting you know, when I get out and all that
shit we do, man, And so eventually I do parole.
(28:51):
Let's talk about the first time you got sober, boy,
the first time you like really took sobriety seriously. Well,
it was me getting out the second time. Quickly met
a stripper and I was using some go fast. I
didn't use go fast, used to other shit. One morning
I was I had just gotten a job right out
of prison to manage your pizza place. And I was
(29:12):
out all night and I could not get up. And
she told me I just do this little line. Yeah,
And I told her, now, this that's gonna happen, And
I poured a bunch out and I go, I'm ready
to do it. Let me just and I go, this
stuff doesn't do anything for me. Well she goes, it's
not go don't do it like that. And I do
this big rail and I'm saying, see, it doesn't do anything.
But somehow, five minutes later, I'm in the shower getting showered,
(29:34):
and I got to tell you, Sean, this is important
because we're coming up to the recovery. In that time,
I ended up going to work She ended up picking
me up that night with work, told her to bring
some more. Stayed up that night. We got real freaky
that night. And now I'm up for like multiple days
and on this shit and some experience. That experience that
(29:56):
I had over that like three days tweaking out with
her and doing it. It set something off of me
and I started chasing all of it, dude, the insanity
of Crystal mass And for a year, and I was deteriorating.
And I walk around at two ten and I was
(30:17):
one seventy five and I caught a reflection on myself
in a storefront and I didn't recognize myself. Wow, right,
And I sat down on the curve and I wasn't crying.
I was. I sit on the curb and I was like, dude,
I'm turning into the guy he never wanted to be.
My kids, my ex ol lady told me, and her
(30:39):
parents were like, we're not gonna not you can come
see your kids. You can remember have your weekend with
your kids at our house. You're not taking the kids anymore.
This happened a week before I saw the reflection myself.
I now couldn't be trusted with my kids, and it
was all starting to and it hit me at that moment.
I was like, I was scared because I didn't not stop.
(31:00):
And I felt like in my heart I was either
going to kill myself, kill somebody else, or I was
going to be in prison for the rest. I really,
at that moment, felt like those were the only three
options left. And I, you know, I used my cell
phone and I called a couple guys that had come
(31:21):
from similar backgrounds of mine that weren't doing that today,
and they were in a twelve step fellowship but I
had never wanted to go. And I called them and
I was like, this is where I'm at, and they're like,
all right, hold type man. There's a parole house in
downtown called Walden House. They have dedicated beds, so you
have to be on parole to get a bed in there.
(31:41):
And I was on parole and they're talking about treatment
center recover. I don't know, and so they're like, yeah,
I know Wayne Garcia and I'm hearing that name and
I'm like, why we're going to call and a stella.
My best friend picks me up and he's like, don't
trip me. We're gonna get you into you know, And
my friends were kind of around, but they were kind
of waiting me out. And we call and get Wayne
(32:02):
on the phone through my friend and Wayne's like, what's happened?
I got a stell on my party with me is
on speakerphone. It's happening. Man. I can't get you in
the day tonight, but I can get you in here
tomorrow morning. Can you get here tomorrow morning? And I
look at each other and he's like tell him yeah.
I'm like yeah, of course. He goes, all right, don't
fucking kill yourself between now and the tomorrow morning. All right.
(32:24):
So I go in there and I walk into this place, man,
and with a couple of bags in my hand, and
they're telling me Wayne's gonna be in at eleven. Wayne's
gonna be in eleven. I'm hearing all about Wayne Garcia.
Finally I'm waiting in the hallway. They did like an intake.
Wayne comes in, you know, and just his energy. Man,
this is another dude. His nickname was a Rocky and
(32:47):
he had done way more prison time than I had
ever had. He had done thirty two treatment centers before
he got sober. Wow. He had been through Foster, he'd
been through all of it gold fiend. And he walks in, man,
and he's like pressed down, sleeve down, and he's like
coming to my office and we sit down, and just
the way he handled himself, I was like the conviction
(33:10):
and what he stood on and stood for. I was
just listening to him, you know. And and this dude,
these guys, Yeah that I I was. Now these guys
in my life, these guys were like giving me a
dope sack, coming up with licks. How we're gonna be like,
That's what I wasn't used to, these types of guys
(33:31):
offering me something new. After three or four days there, man,
I wanted to leave. I wanted to leave, bro, I
just couldn't with sufficient force remember how bad it was
through Refrid talks about that in their literature. Man, the
disease of amnesia. We forget in amnesia, right right, we forget.
Can't forget that. Ever, I caught my reflection in the
(33:54):
window three days earlier and didn't know and reached out
for help. Couldn't couldn't recall that, couldn't call that you
left your kids that you love so much. Now you're
becoming your dad and uh, Mike Brenner sees me in
the hallway and he goes, come to my office. And
this dude could read me. He knows game, he knows gangs. Game. Brother,
(34:16):
sit me down, man, like, what's up? He goes, what's
going on? And I go, I'm out of here, dude,
I'm believing. He goes, I kind of figured something like that.
He goes, all right, you know, man, you're uncomfortable. And
that's duly right. He tells me, you know, because a
guy like you made you used to fucking shooting dope
out of a toilet and gang module, fucking breaking your
(34:38):
kid's hearts, not showing up as a father. Partners can't
trust you for shit, you know. And he starts going
through the list, and he goes, and right now, you're safe.
You're not hurting anybody, not hurting yourself. Probably doing the
best thing that you can do for your kids is
shoot being right here. And he tells me this whole shit.
And while he's talking, it sounds like Charlie Brown. I'm
(34:58):
just like, you know, yeah, And he says, get up, man,
and he opens up the door and he he looks
pokes out the door and he points all away because
you see that down there at the end all and
I look and I see this exit sign and I'm like, yeah,
I see it, and he goes, I'm not talking about
the exit sign. I'm talking about the broom and that mop.
(35:19):
Better hang on. I'm like yeah, he goes, I want
you to grab that room that mom. I want you
to fucking ice this floor out. And when you're done
doing that, I want you to go into the kitchen.
I want you to see today fucking dishes in this
place that you can do, see what you can do
for this house, because right now all you're thinking about
is yourself and we're all on to slap this guy. Yeah, oh,
(35:40):
I have slapped this dude. And I remember him. He goes,
excuse me, and he's like, I can close my door now,
excuse me, and he put me in the hallway and
I remember walking down and I remember walking down the
hallway and it was the exit sign or the broom
and the mop, the exit sign, the broom, the mop.
And by the time I got to that end of
that hallway, I was able to recollect that I had
(36:03):
said to myself when I came in, I need help.
My decisions do not work. I've got to take some
direction from somebody else. You had some humility, absolutely right.
And I grabbed that room off roomed and I went
into the kitchen and fok and yeah, there was plenty
of dishes to do. And as I'm on my way
out from doing the dishes, there's a brother that's sitting
(36:25):
at one of the dining tables and he's trying to
fill out this job application. Dude can barely write, you're
barely talking. And he's like, lucky, lucky because that's what
they called me, right, And he's like, hey, man, okay, man,
let me ask him. And he's trying to ask me
something to help him out with his application. And I'm like,
all right, and so here running down some stuff to
(36:45):
him and that, and he's like, well, I'm like give
me that thing, man. So I take his application in
the pen and I started asking you a question. Okay,
all right, all right, we can say you worked here
from this time. They're not going to call put a
fake now, they're not gonna call no. Give it to him.
I don't think nothing of it. And I go upstairs
(37:06):
to go to sleep that night, and I had a
friend from Florence. Man. I meant that I'd done time
with he was there, and he leaned in my room
and he goes, hey, bro't take off, man, don't take
off man, just at least for tonight. But when I
got in my bed and I laid down, I didn't
feel like the piece of of shit that I've felt like.
(37:30):
I didn't feel like that. For some reason, me mopping
that floor and washing dishes and helping this guy with
his paper, for some reason, that's resonated in my head.
And I was like, no, I might be ninety nine
percent fucking all me, but I gave up a percent tonight.
I did something for somebody else that I can't gain
anything from. And I went to sleep to night and
(37:53):
through the next day. I just got up, didn't think
much about it. And I see dude come through at
like ten in the morning through the hallway the guy helped,
and he's like, lucky, lucky, well, I got the job.
Guy tries to hug mym Hey, he's cool. Out of here.
He does bo I got the job, you know, And
he was so excited, so happy. He's like, man, cause
you did you wrote this shit, man, you So I
(38:15):
felt good about that, and that kind of that triggered off,
like at least for me at that time, was like,
all right, man, service, you can start being of service, dude,
you'll feel better. I assume it for selfish reasons, like things.
If I'm helping I feel better, things get better. And
so service was the first thing of recovery that resonated
(38:37):
with me, and I just jumped full board into like
projects in that house, how can welcome together? Wayne Garcia?
I remember him walking every every night Monday through Friday.
He would come in and he would speak to the
whole house, and I remember him coming in and going, man,
we bring he said it. Click, he goes, we bring
(38:58):
families back together with this program. You know he said that, Man,
he goes, That's why I do my job and we
show up. It's okay to be a good man. It's
okay to show up. He's a good father. Completely. Yeah,
it's beautiful. That's what he did. And to this day,
this guy's my mentor, bro. And so you know, my
(39:21):
life and Sino. I think that some of us get
so lost on drugs and alcohol like I did. That
if you just remove that alone with no recovery or
knowing your life's gonna get better, you progress in your sobriety.
You start making bread, you start getting ships, You're just
(39:42):
looking tight, a lot of pretty ladies in your life.
And then you forgot and you got amnesia. Absolutely I
got high and then I hold you, you know yeah,
and you fucking burned it down again. I burned it down, man,
and burned it down. And the signs At four and
a half years of sobriety, I don't believe anybody just relapses. No,
(40:02):
of course not, but yes, build up big life. And
at four and a half years, I start feeling like
these accolades are weights, and I'm starting to feel the
weight somehow, and things are not going the way I
want in a relationship and I have everything, and why
isn't that working? I and I start focusing on what's
not working. I slowly I am getting uncomfortable. I'm not
(40:25):
calling back sponsors or sponsors, I'm not showing up at
my commitment, and I slowly start moving away. I thought
money is going to fix everything, right, I subscribe to that,
and now I have your start. That was my I power,
and it wasn't even with it, I couldn't control the
outcomes of what I wanted, and I got butt hurt
I took it personal, and at that point in time,
(40:48):
I felt like I felt like I couldn't talk to anybody.
I felt like I was already on this pedestal, this
guy that made so good and how could I want
to use? And I didn't tell anybody? Man, And you violated.
He kept secrets, kept secrets, and I had secrets on
the way in. Yeah, of course, a handful of stuff.
Nobody's getting here. Yeah, and burned it down, man, and
(41:08):
fucking found it necessary to use. And I was going
to go out for one weekend out of town. And
it turned into thirteen years right of eight hours, you know,
you know, nine ten months of sobriety, building up a company,
getting the prizes, burning it down. And this was a pattern. Yeah,
I know it was, buddy. Then let's talk about this.
(41:30):
Let's talk about the last relapse. Let's talk about when
you tapped out and finally said I'm fucking all in.
You know, my father had passed away, and my mom
and dad were together, they had come back together and
remarried them together. I had already made amends with my
father and people, and I was but I had relapsed,
(41:51):
still got loaded again, and my dad had just passed,
and it was right as I had relapsed. I had
relapsed again and my relationship was falling apart and I
was losing my place. But it dressed it up to
look like I'm moving in with my mom because my
father passed and now I'm gonna take her. But I'm
completely out of my mind loaded, So I am showing up.
(42:14):
But I'm loaded, And you know, I'm with my mom
for almost a year, and the antics and the shit
that I'm doing. The property managers come to her and
they're like the police had already come over. They're like,
we're gonna have to vict you. So either your you
guys go or your son asked to go. And I
remember my mom crying and wringing her hands after I
(42:35):
was there year, and she was like, I can't be homeless.
Like she was crying, she's asking me to leave, and
she didn't want to ask me. And I had to
run everything to the ground, so, you know, there was
no more friends or people that like couch. I'm with
my mom with two bags exactly, and I was faced
with really the streets man that was the only and
(42:59):
me myself. I was unwilling to do that, you know,
and that got me willing, but I had nowhere to go.
There was no nobody was going to give me with
my handtics. And I called my mentor, Wayne Garcia, and
now he's the vice president of Health Right through Sixties.
Now he runs a massive treatment center out of out
(43:20):
of Run, California. And I called and this guy's not
the easiest guy to get out. But my phone call
gets answered. What's up, bro? And I run down to
him where I'm at. He goes, listen, man, do you
need me to send you a bus a greyhound ticket?
I go, I think I can manage that. He goes, sorry,
are you a methadonic? Go? Yeah, He goes, all right,
you get your farm. I'm going to get the transfers made.
(43:41):
He goes, get up here. You got two days to
get up here. Get up here, and he goes and
pack your bags, man, because you're not You're not coming
up here for ninety days and going back to Los Angeles.
You're gonna be here for a while. And my mom
was in tears, and I kissed her, but part of
her was like she knew I had to go get
so where she did, and uh, I ended up going
up there and yeah, I was on methadone for my
(44:02):
first like six months, but you know, you're fully engaged
in the program. And I remember I got there, man,
it was like a lot of Parolis trans home. It's
like it's one of those types of treatment centers. Bro.
When I finally got I was so grateful that I
like that I was in a safe place and the
paint was peeling and the buds beds were busting, but
(44:23):
I had a blanket and a pillow and they were
serving a hot meal and there was nobody fucking after me.
And I was so grateful, man. And I I just remember,
like I struggled with being away from every There was
no more fucking hot chicks. There was no more fucking
air one. There was no more there was no yet,
(44:43):
no Bro, I always had some hot chick to rub
my back or pick me up. You know what I'm saying.
There was always something. There was nothing right nothing. I
was in this fucking treatment center and that was it.
And was it all perfect through it? Yeah? I mean
(45:04):
I guess it was all perfect. But did I wrestle
with it? Yes? I wrestle with it. But the gratitude
and the action and me starting to maybe allow myself
to have a new experience, but bring some of the
things that worked as well. And I knew that I
have to get the service I've got and that's what
I did there, Bro. I got service back in that
(45:25):
fucking house. I became the head of corps in that house,
you know. And and I do good when you put regimen,
when you know what I'm saying, structure, structure, routines, routines. Bro,
That's where I thrive, you know. And I spent six
months in that in that treatment sat it. Then my
time came to uh get ready for job search and
go to sober Belief. Their Sober Livings was on Treasure Island,
(45:47):
which is right outside of San Francists a little island,
and they have four or five apartments. So I'm there.
I'm like, I don't have a license. All my shit's gone.
I've wrecked my life. So that happens. I'm like, I
guess I'm gonna stay in San Francisco for a little while,
and I'm using public transportation and now I've got to
look for a job. I'm about to interview with Levi's
for sales, and I'm like, I'm about to like make
(46:09):
a little life, and I have to do what I
have to do. And and d Wayne calls me and
he's like, hey, I need you to come over to
corporate office. And I'm like all right, And he has
the time. He's like, come in and see me. And
I walk in his office and tells me he's been
watching me this whole time. He knows exactly what's going on.
He goes, hey, I got an opportunity for you to
be a coordinator of our silver Living facility. If you're down,
(46:31):
I'll give you the job. You'll go to Silverer Living,
but you'll have your own apartment and you'll be managing
the island for buildings for us, collecting rent, testing people
and this is what it pays. And I'm going to
need you to get a couple of shirts at San
Francisco City called and I jumped all over it. That
I did, and I became a coordinator and I worked
up there for another year and a half. You know
(46:52):
how you say like you had that thing of you know,
an honest heart, you know good right from wrong right.
I knew inside that I was holding secrets. I had
been exposed to enough program and recovery to know, hey, dude,
there's some shit that not only am I holding on too,
but now I'm starting to contemplate, are these things that
(47:16):
are keeping me sick? Is because I'm not being honest
with these five things? Is that may be the reason
I keep on ending up here? And I didn't know
if that was the reason, and I think it might
be multiple. But they gave me a therapist to work
with twice a week in this treatment center, and any
(47:36):
experience I've read with therapists, we're talking about the whether
we're talking about everything. I'm just going to talk with
you for an hour, and you know we're not going
to accomplish shit. And that kind of started happening, man,
in the first couple sessions. And I remember the end
of our session that therapist said to me, he goes, hey, man,
you know, think about our next session and if you
want to get honest or you want to trust me
(47:59):
to talk about some thing, think about that planning to
see And I thought, over the weekend, am I gonna
say this ship that's going on that's happened in my life,
you know? Or am I not? And I remember I
got into that room, dude, that following Tuesday, and I
sat with this gentleman man and I told him, man,
you know about some abuse, some sexual abuse from some things,
(48:33):
some things that that my hands were in that I
couldn't reverse, you know. And and I as I'm as
I'm slowly saying this stuff, it was like an outer
body like I those words hadn't come out of my mouth.
So for me to say that and it come out
(48:53):
of my mouth, I was almost looking at myself like
the fuck you know it was? And I was like, dude,
this guy, fuck, this is a fucking walk to his
phone and pick up the phone or or if he's
going to get up and physically, you know, subdue me. Guy.
(49:14):
And he got up, man, and he's like, man, stand
up man. And he fucking gave me a hug. Man.
He's like that how that hug feel? Because I'm feeling
saying to me, there's nothing wrong with you, bro, You're
a fucking human being. You didn't You're just human. That's
how he's telling me, is hugging me. Could you hear it?
Did you? Did you believe him? Yeah? Dude, now I
(49:36):
believed him. I wanted to hear that when it came
out of his mouth. I needed to hear that. Does
that make sense? Yeah, that's beautiful. Another angel. Well, let
me tell you, I don't think I just really believe this.
I don't think the guys that you looked up to
in recovery, they laid it all down. Hell yeah, you
have to lay it all that. That's just our opinion, right.
I don't think guys like us can get free for
(49:57):
keeping even one percent on. Okay, but you're sober six
and a half years now, let's lock the lessons relapse,
getting your kid back. Let's talk about some of the lessons,
you know, the relapse. I was continuously up until the sobriety.
I was only willing to do certain things that were suggested. Yeah,
I might make some coffee, that's easy, pick up some
(50:18):
guys taking loovery, but I'm not going to get on
my knees. I mean, it's take three days, nothing's happening.
I'm not doing it anymore. And I would pick and
choose what I wanted to do around here. Right when
I threw it all away and was having trouble getting sober,
somebody came up to me after a meeting at the
log cabin, and I couldn't get sober and it looked
at me and said to me, you know what, man,
(50:41):
you may have to lose everything, and if you're lucky,
you'll live, but you may have to lose anything until
you start doing what we do around here to stay here.
I said that to me, yeah, and it ended up
being the truth. So that's you know, And now I
do what suggested now because I don't know if it's
the meditation. I don't know if it's a sponsoring. I
(51:02):
don't know if it's showing up having commit I don't
know what's keeping me. So I'm doing all this. It's work,
though it's working, and I'm doing all of it. Man,
and sobriety. Your son's struggling now, I'm early in sobriety.
My son's been struggling in and out of treatment centers
and the odean. And I get a call man, and
I'm a couple of years sober. Just move back down
to LA and and somebody that I know that fucks
(51:25):
around is like, hey, man, your son is over here
with another friend getting high. Your son's odied a few times.
I've been keeping them up mouth and mouth of testation.
But it's like, you dude, you got you know, I'm like,
where are you? Is he alive? And it's like, yeah,
I go where are you? Tells where he's out? And
I fucking bolt over there and my son is he's
a mess man. I get him and he's just in
(51:47):
terrors and like shaking up and I just grabbed me
twenty four at the time, It's all right, I got
my fun get in the car and you know, get
him some eat. I tell him just he's in tears,
and I get him over to his grandfather's house and
soundn't like and get him set up and make sure
he has who just relaxed. Just we'll get through it.
(52:08):
And his mom came after I had to leave. She
came and watched him, and his mom told him at
that point in time, even before he was so word,
she goes, you got forty eight hours here and then
you're out of here because you're not going to do
this with your grandfather, right, So you got forty eight
hours and you're gonna have to figure out and and
sure enough, you know, with not forty hours, my son's like,
(52:29):
I got I got a copay place to go detox.
He's calling Max wife, and Max wife like she has
the money and she's like, you better find a place
that's like, no, Copey, No, I'm not doing this again.
We've done it. My wife is strong like that. Oh
she loves that boy to death. Yeah, And she said that,
and he calls me and I don't have the money.
(52:50):
I can't help him. If I want to do right,
I go. I don't know what to tell you. Bu'
he starts calling it. And that was the beginning of
his journey having to find a detox. Then he called
the treatment centers and he got into bed Schuven and
so that unfolds and stuck, and it stuck, and he said,
I'm going to get my kid actor and he says,
all right, I'm going to work as a tech. Now
(53:11):
they're giving me a position. I'm going to night school
and I'm going to get a degree. I'm going to
become a therapist and have my own practice. And sure enough,
he's one of the head counselors that bet Schuven today.
He just got his bachelor's in his master's program. He
married a therapist. I have a beautiful grandson, and I
talked to them every other day. I see them a
(53:32):
couple times a week because my kids want to see
me not because they're putting up with the dad. They
want to see me, and that's like the biggest guy.
It's really the biggest thing I got, man, is my
relationship with the type of father I am. You got
your family back, man, I got my family back. Man.
I didn't, and I willing to trade it anymore. I
(53:53):
don't want to play with it anymore. Man. You know,
I've had home groups, I've had men groups, stags meetings
that I've been to. I came to this room and
this room for some reason when I first sat in
it with you and sat in this meeting. The topics
and the shares and what the men were talking about
in the room, maybe I should say, the addiction in
(54:15):
many many forms, right, And you know I like the gamble,
I like sex, like all these different things. And what
was being talked about was you know how to make
it through a day, and how to show up and
how to show up for your kids and show up
in your relationship and how you navigate that and being honest.
(54:36):
And I was hearing things in shell that I just
wasn't hearing in other rooms. And I quickly gained a
trust and I started shaking hands and I was welcomed
into this room, and the energy is always the same.
It's like acceptance, love. It's a family here of men
that are willing to put their shit out in the
(54:57):
middle of the floor. Man, Yah, it's beautiful. What do
you want to say to the folks who are struggling?
What do you want to say to the people out
there right now that are you know day two? You know,
fucked up, scared? You know, hopefully you're done. Hopefully you're
doing this for you. I've found that until until I
(55:20):
was sick and tired and sick of tired of being
sick tired, I wanted to do this for me, my
kids and my family and the people around me get
the byproducts of me being sober. I will say this
to the newcomer, like sometimes it sometimes it gets it
gets hard before it gets better, you know, and and
(55:43):
not everybody just you know, And so remember that I
tried to prove the thing wrong. I said, you know what,
I'm going to do everything and see what happens. And
my life exploded. And trust this process. Trust the process,
don't trip and don't take any thing personal. Where can
people find you and talk about your company? And I
(56:04):
have a brand called super Max. Yeah, you know, super
Max Harbor dot com. I am the brand manager for
a company called Cookies out of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
How many people do you put to work? Brother, A
good amount, A good amount, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yah, yeah, yeah,
that's what we do here. Yeah, people to work. Yeah,
Cookies and Vibes, So yeah, those are those are brands.
(56:27):
Also helping out my buddy with Joker Bran, my partner
of Steve On. So I'm staying in apparel working on
some media stuff, but I'm right here on the West
Side and you'll see me running either Cookies or Supermax,
or or out there or in this community, given a
hand at places. But yeah, man, don't forget that you
woke up today that this is a gift. It's life,
(56:49):
and it's meant to be lived, and it's not to
be meant to be lived on a on a street
corner infested with abscesses or locked in the fucking motel room.
Not for me. That wasn't what I was meant to
be here. So you know, I'll rap with saying this,
you know, and that's that a lot of things happen
in my life and I use those things as a
(57:11):
badge to do what the fuck I wanted to do
in life. And through recovery, I think the biggest thing
that happened to me was the narrative changed. And through
this recovery process, I got to find out that I
there is a power bigger than me, and when I
plug into that, I get to define who and what
my life looks like. I took responsibility back for my situation.
(57:33):
May not be responsible for what happened when I was
a child, but I'm responsible for what happens now and
moving forward. And I want to be a father that leads,
and I want to be a man that leads. And
that's my responsibility and my obligation here and I gladly
take on that. The Sales Show is a production of
iHeart Podcasts, hosted by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod
(57:58):
People in twenty eighth. Our lead producer is Keith Carnlick.
Our executive proucer is Lindsay Hoffman. Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver.
Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
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