Okay

...

Chris- Southern Christian Baptist home.

My grandfather was a deacon.

Like I said, my great-grandmother played the organ and the piano and the bells.

My grandmother did.

I was in church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then Wednesday night for the church choir.

... of the podcast, which is I would so appreciate if you'd share, you know, one story or two stories, however many you feel, about something where you f- feel like you either witnessed or experienced something magical, miraculous, or mysterious.

... of the podcast, which is I would so appreciate if you'd share, you know, one story or two stories, however many you feel, about something where you f- feel like you either witnessed or experienced something magical, miraculous or mysterious.

Easy.

Easy.

So easy.

927 days ago, two years, six months and 20 days today, I woke up and was brushing my teeth just like every morning routine, and my drug and alcohol addiction had gotten in to such a dark, deeper place than it had ever gotten to.

And when I looked in the mirror, the reflection back was, to say disappointing and, and, um, unflattering would be an understatement.

It was truly looking at a perception of hell and loss and misery and hurt and sadness and delusional.

Would you agree with that?

Yep.

That would have never changed.

It would have never given me an opportunity.

Those thoughts... would have never given me an opportunity to look in the mirror today while I'm brushing my teeth and go, man, you're awesome.

Call that cocky if you want.

That is confidence that I know for a fact that anybody is capable of changing one thought per day.

1% difference today, right now.

Yep.

And I was like, wait, what?

That truck.

Those moments that I'd had previously for a couple months of like, man, I need to do something.

That jolted, if you will, that desire.

And it wasn't about, oh, I could have a Lamborghini if I got sober, because those thoughts weren't even there.

It was just planting that seed of, oh, you can do better things.

if you clean yourself up and what that entailed and what was going to happen, those weren't the thoughts.

Can you explain to our audience what that entails, what gave you that acronym, you know, the symbol of the CRAB, all the things?

But I'd like to know why did you decide to get sober?

It wasn't so much that I decided to.

I've tried to get sober for so many reasons in the past, you know, for my family, for my mother, jobs, probation, institutions, rehabs, sober living homes, but never because I wanted to.

936 days ago today, which is a little over two and a half years, I was brushing my teeth, looking in the mirror one morning and every bit of my spirit and every voice and every bit of the chaos just got so quiet that it was deafening.

Like it was something was freaking me out in a sense.

Like this is why is everything so quiet? No voices, no talking.

I mean, dead silent.

bucket.

Give me the next increment

...

there was...

Okay.

There was a girl I met in my apartment complex when I was working for my aunt and uncle in North Dallas, and we became besties.

She had a boyfriend, I had a girlfriend at the time.

Um, we always stayed in contact.

... from a very young age is the substance.

Yeah.

But all those outside factors, you know, start creating anxiety or depression or, you know, just nervousness and, and all those type feelings, and then you kind of just spiral out.

So yeah, man, I had to learn how to just control my mind, and controlling that and, and has led me to take away things out of my life instead of adding to them.

So what I've learned for myself is that when I...

I, I, I think, you know, by adding things, we, we feel like we're doing something, right? We, we, we get a new car, some clothes, a, a raise, whatever it may be, and we think, "Okay, I'm making progress." But you still have those unsettling, nervous, anxiety type feelings.

What I had to learn to do and what I realized was taking away things out of my life, people, places or, or things that were making me have those.

I'm not really an anxious person, but just having those unsettling type feelings and, and just the constant chaos in my brain.

Yeah.

What was that dream and when did you realize that life was not unfolding the way you hoped it

would? I started playing music at a really young age and I started watching MTV like right when it first came out and Just found the whole California rock and roll lifestyle extremely appealing to me from a really young age.

And so I just always had this dream of becoming a rock star, basically, and moving to California and living that lifestyle, basically.

And so I think I practiced a lot living in Texas for most of my life, preparing myself for one day moving to California.

I ended up getting a degree in audio and video production in Dallas and then was in a really toxic relationship at the time and The drugs and the alcohol and the volatile lifestyle that I was living with her just got out of control.

And so I knew one person that lived in LA and I jumped on a plane, came out here and hung out for a weekend and flew back to Texas and got a pen and a paper and I just started writing every single thing that I could.

a list that was front and back of all the things that I had to do before I could leave Texas to move to California I think I was 42 at the time and so I just spent a year my girlfriend ended up going to jail for a while so I just started working on this list And in doing so, about a year later, I found myself packing my little car with everything I thought I would need and drove to California.

So the question I have for you is, after making a decision, did you have cases where you relaxed? And whenever those kind of things happened, How were you able to get back on your feet and say, it has happened, let me continue in this part of recovery?