January 6, 2026 • 65 mins
This week on Pretty Private with Eboné, host Eboné sits down with Pretty Brandao for a raw and necessary conversation about survival, addiction, and redemption. Pretty Brandao opens up about his battle with fentanyl addiction, the moments that nearly cost him his life, and the turning points that forced him to confront his reality.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebine, a space where no
question is off limits and storylines become lifelines. The views
shared by our guests are meant to inform, entertain and empower.
From the laughs to the lessons. Just remember, tough times
don't last, but Professional Homegirls do enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Happy New Year, Professional Homegirls is Shagary Ebine here and
I hope all is cute. Now, welcome back to the
very first episode of the year. And it is a
good one, okay, and it's from our men series. This week,
I'm Pretty Private with Ebine. I'm sitting down with Pretty Brendeo.
He opens up about his journey from the lowest moments
(00:48):
of a feedinol addiction to reclaim in his life. We
talk about what addiction really looks like, the moments that
almost broke him, and what it's said to finally choose
himself in his future. Now listen, this was one of
those raw, honest conversations that we love that will remind
you just how powerful redemption and second chances truly are.
(01:10):
So get ready because I was addicted to feedinl stars. Now,
So to my guests, thank you so much for coming
on the show. How you doing, how you feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I'm doing good? Thank you for having me. Bonnie. Then
my name e Bannie. No, sorry, at I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Gonna be that in so people can hear you butcher
in my name.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I wasn't trying to butcher you. So what you gotta
remember I'm a n immigrant.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So don't use that one.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Come on, That's all I got Right now.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You've been in the States long enough I have Where
are you from?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm from a small country in the west coast of
Africa called Cape Verge. Most people it's never heard of it.
It's time island population about half a million. There is
more of us immigrated outside of Cape Verde than there
is living.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
For you know, for the culture.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
One person that people would probably know Amba Roses have
Cape Verdian.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah, okay. And then but I also
feel like you used to live in Boston.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Too, right, That's so that's where we immigrate to. Okay,
like we have we we.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Have our nightclubs there, we have our restaurants. We we
even have politicians. Uh there's a city in Brockton, which
is in Massachusetts close to Boston, just elected as first
Cape Verdian mayor. We have a lot of great Cape
Verdian policemen in the Boston Police Force. Yeah, we have
(02:48):
a whole community there. We have our supermarkets. It's just
like how you would see. I don't know Trinidaddy is
in New York.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
In New York, you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
They would go to Boston. I didn't know that. So
that's something new.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Yeah, that's where they immigrated. And it goes back to
the whaling industry. So late eighteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh what lit, Yes, history fact every time you're on
the show. So look at that.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You learned something new every day, every show.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Every show. Well, I'm happy to having you on. I
discover your story. I think I found you on Instagram
and then I just went down a rabbit hole and
then he was lokey curving.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Me, y'all.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I have to like follow up and be professional.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I'm just fucking but yeah, I if I could defend myself,
I will, So let me know when I can defend myself.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I's sorry the thing yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
So I was not curving you.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I know you wasn't.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I'm just like, I get tons of people reaching out
for me to you know, get interviewed and this and
this and that and the third, and sometimes I miss it,
and sometimes I like I just did one like some
popular guy or famous guy or some rapper. I want
the message to be out there. So the last I
(04:10):
think sit down I had was probably a few months back.
So I wanted to sit down. I wanted that interview
to sit down for a little bit, yeah, until I come.
But then when I when I saw yours, I saw
it was more mental health based.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I said, okay, we could go somewhere with that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, he didn't carve y'all. And I'm also very persistent,
so I figured he was busy. And it also it's
the holiday season, so I didn't think we was going
to be able to do this conversation this soon. But
here we are. So thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So much, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course, so when you look at what's happening right
now with the OPIOI crisis, what stands out the most
to you?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
What stands out to me the most is Purdue Pharma.
M So, when I don't know how many how much
people is educated with Purdue Pharma, but they introduce and
the rap culture. This is what you would hear perks,
oxy blues. It's all the same thing. Perdue Pharma came
(05:08):
through to uneducated people with fraudulent like labs saying that
it's non addictive, and they just kept pushing it and
pushing and pushing it. And it does do what it
says that it do. It cures pain, right, but there
was a part that they left out that it's very addictive.
(05:31):
And everything that you see that's going on in America
right now with the opioid crisis, Perdue Pharma is to blame.
I know there's going to be some other people that says, well,
I need my pain medication, and it's because of the
junkies that it's so controlled now now it's harder for
me to get my pain medication. No greed is why
(05:53):
you can't get your pain medication because the Feds. Once
the Feds saw what was happening, they came down and
cracked down. And that's what you have today. The black
market was created and that's where you see the fentannel,
the fake perks and all that because the FED was like, WHOA,
what is happening. So the mess that we have today
(06:17):
Perdue pharma, that's the first thing that comes to mind,
and there's actually for anyone that wants to be a
little bit more educated with it. There's a lot of
documentary on it. You could just do some research and
you could have a better understanding on why that's the
first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Did you ever watch that show on Hulu? I think
it was Michael Keaton was in it. He was a
doctor and at first he wanted to prescribe people with
the medication because he was like, I don't know, I
just don't feel right, and then he ended up getting
hooked on it, and then they went down and Rabbit Hope.
You know what I'm saying about.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, that show
explains it perfect. And you can see how the sales
rep for Purdue Pharma was so persistent.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Crazy.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You know, whenever finances is involved, greed comes in and
people neglect.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Health and they just want to pay attention to their
bank account.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
And then look at what Art country is going through
right going through right now.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah. And then there was another documentary on Netflix where
they had like pill farms and stuff, and they with
some like counterfeit pills and stuff, and I'm like, Wow, Like,
this is crazy.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
That's how I got introduced to fentanyl. I know, I
just went so far so quick, but I got introduced
to fentanyl through a counterfit perk.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So why do you think we're gonna talk about it later?
Because I want to jump too far ahead. But why
do you think so many people don't realize they being
exposed to phenenol until it's too late.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Well, the thing is, the FEDS cracked down on oxy
codon perks. There's so much name for it, right, and
then what happens is a black market was created, and
then they are selling counterfeits. It's like you trying to
go to this the Giants game and you're trying to
(08:03):
get tickets, and you buy your ticket and then you
get to the door you just find out you bought
fake tickets and all of a sudden, like, oh shoot,
I'm in trouble. It's the same concept people got blinded.
I want to say, this is a hypothesis. Eighty percent
(08:23):
of people that sound fentanyl didn't get on it by
trying fentanyl intentionally.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
It was all by mistake.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I think, yeah, I agree with that, because what is
so appealing about someone in the middle of the street
like this. But then there's nothing appealing about that, right,
there's absolutely nothing appealing about it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
You also have a conspiracy theory that you feel like
the naws coming from China. China is responsible for it.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
China is definitely responsible for it, but I feel that
China is using fentanyl as a weapon of war. It's again,
it's a conspiracy theory. I don't have much to back
it up. It's just a hypothesis of minds. But you
go back in history and you see what America did
to China back in the days. China was actually hooked
(09:21):
on heron because of America, and I believe China does
not forget. So they played the long game. And then
if you pay attention to the two type of people
that hate American American laws is.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
China and the cartels.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So China is providing the cartel with the stuff to
make the fentanyl because they couldn't get it continue getting
it straight directly into America, so they got it through
Mexico and then you know, so that's how it's getting here.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I would say my conspiracy theory about this is I
don't think it would have been a big deal if
it didn't hit other races. I think that if this
would have stayed with certain races, I think that they
probably wouldn't have been I don't think that they would have.
I don't think that they would have gained so much
support like they're given now because I think of opio
like the crack epondemic. Crack only affected certain people, right
(10:21):
but now we have this new drug and it's affecting everybody,
and now it's a big deal. But drugs should be
a big deal, period, no.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Correct, And the whole race thing, it's very sensitive. It's
something that you know, I've heard a lot of people
saying saying these things, like when it was the black
community strung out on crack, y'all.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Was throwing them in jail.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Right now that it's affecting beyond the African American community,
this seems to be more like people's paying more attention.
Crack was not killing people fentanyl is I think Boozy
(11:06):
said it. He was like crackhead was not dying.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean a lot of people that I do know.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
He was like Crackhead was fixing your cars. There was
getting you stuff for cheap. He was like fetanol addicts,
they're dropping like fly, So for me would I would
go more towards that it's life and death, where crack
was probably just creating more crimes. True, fentanyl is you
(11:36):
know how many future soldiers, future doctors, future sports people,
future teachers that are no longer here with us. Yeah,
when you have people dying at the level that fentanyl
is killing people, people is going to pay attention. And
I like to believe that race has nothing to do
with it because how many people was dropping like flies
(11:58):
in Harlem in the nineteen seventies in the crack epidemic.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean, people were dying, but they wasn't dying as
rapidly as people on phenoen That's.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
My argument to why I think it's not solely focused
on race.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, okay, pretty you want that one. Okay, So take
me back to where you grew up, Like, tell me
about your environment, your your household, your siblings, Like what
was that?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Like, I mean, so I was born in Campana, Cape Verge.
You probably don't know. No one's going to know what
that is. So I want you to imagine a village
in the mountains of Cape Verge, no running water, no electricity,
live off the land. So many uncles, aunts, in the house,
(12:52):
just not knowing what poverty is because you're not going
your stomach is not going without you have nothing to
compare it to. So it was just so peaceful and
so much love. Like the crop season, the whole village
comes together and they plant their whatever they got a
plant weather it's corn, beans, peanuts, mango, everything, and you
(13:16):
just live off the land. And then the dream and
like the fairy tale was immigrate to America, right, and
then you would have the elders that already had immigrated
to Americas and they would send drums on the boats.
So that's what America was to us. You would see
a piece of new clothing, new sneakers that you've never seen.
(13:38):
I mean at the time, Cape Verd was a Third
World country. So in a village, probably one house had
television and then you would have thirty people go sit
and watch the news or something like that very closely.
So yeah, I have memories dating back to maybe when
(14:00):
I was three years old. I had a pet, a goat,
a baby goat as a pet. And when people would
uh that has immigrated out of the country. When they
would come back to visit the village, people would feast
for them, and I remember I could not find my
baby goat pet and then they ate it.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
They ate my.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Baby goat pet to where I will never eat. I'm
traumatized anything that falls under that category, I would. The
smell of it just traumatized me.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, heartbreaking. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So my grandfather immigrated very early on, and he you know,
took care of his kids back home and his grandkids.
In my village. We were one of the first house
to have I have a bathroom with like toilet, bathtub
(15:04):
and everything everything else that we did.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We would shower on the roof of the house out
of a bucket.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And then when you need to use the restroom. I
remember being a kid, you go into the field and
you know there was no toilet paper. You know, you
would use a leaf or a rock. I have the
memory leaf or a rock.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yeah, you use a rock to rip you I did,
and you got all the shit out? Yes, Wow, yeah
I have. That's why I appreciate Ammerica so much, because.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
To be able to come from that and have memory
of that, yeah, and then to be able to place
where I can say, Alexa, play little Wayne, and it just.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Proof it goes on.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
How could you not appreciate hard work, right, how could
you not appreciate growth?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I would to use a leaf like a rock is
like different, you know, so yeah, I mean it definitely
makes you appreciate where you come from. But then also
it makes you kind of miss those beginners because everything
was just so simple, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, everything was so simple back then.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Wow. So there was also a situation where he was
growing up there something traumatic happened to one of your siblings.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yes, so that.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You fast forward, that's after I immigrated to America.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And but how was that?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Were you nervous coming to America or you?
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Because so you got to remember I was about seven
years old, and in the mind of a seven year
old America it was like paradise in my head. Yeah, right,
it was paradise because even when the people would go
(16:52):
back to visit, their skin tone change. Yah, there wear
these new clothes and everyone in the villages like showing
so much life. So being a kid, it was like
you go into paradise.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And then I remember from my island, to go from
Fogo to Praya, I mean, the plane must have been
like a fifteen passenger plane to where you go to
the US Embassy because my grandfather petitioned for all of
us to come. So you would have to go through
like doctors do all the tests to make sure, you know,
(17:29):
you don't have anything that would prevent you from entering
a country like America. So and then after all that
it was done, and then South Africa Airline boying in
a seven year old and it's like wow, right, oh
(17:52):
my god. It was two floors and the flight attendant
automatically knew my first time that I'm immigrating.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And then to take a.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Kid that I played with scraps from whatever those was
my toys, right, and then to take me to the
cockpit of a plane like that.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So it was like wow. It was just wow. Was like.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
The whole thing, the whole experience, everything about America was wow.
And this is American the nineties, right, This is not
America of today.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You know, America of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
One paycheck, you go so far, you know, you can
do a lot with right. So my family created I
don't want to say the word wealth, but they created
a good financial financial stability or foundation. You know, most
(18:58):
eighty or ninety percent of my uncles and aunts that
immigrated our homeowners and they've built their homes back back
in our country to where now we live in the cities,
and we have vacation houses and all these things.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You know, when you went to America was like the
entire family, or where's your mom and them already over there.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
So what happened is my grandfather came first, and then
he petitioned for my grandmother, and the first in line
who was able to come with the grandmother was my
uncle and aunts that were under twenty one.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
So who stayed back in Cape verd was my.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Mom, my two uncles, and one of my other aunts.
Because there was already of age. So when you're already
of age, that petition takes longer. It could take five
to ten years.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh damn, that's long.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah. So so when I immigrated, it was me, my mother,
my uncle, two of my uncles, and one of my
aunts and one of my cousin, Vanilda, and we came
to reunite with the younger siblings that was already here.
They might have been here, I don't know, maybe five years.
(20:15):
And then so I want you to imagine this, right
three Decca in Boston and my uncle Antonio, he had
purchased a home because he knew he was all coming
on each floor. You have an aunt or an uncle
and just so much love like that nineties that we
(20:39):
will never get. And you know the doorbell ringing and
you're not knowing who it is, but it's probably someone
coming over to.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Visit, just so much.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, you could just feel the love so immigrating to
America from Cape Verde, it's it's it's it's a dream
come true.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What's up, y'all? It's Chagara m and A here, and
be sure to follow me on Instagram and TikTok at
pretty private podcasts, and don't forget to subscribe to my
YouTube channel at the Professional Homegirl. Now let's get back
to the show. But did you have a hard time
on Justin once you got to Boston?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Well, you got I was seven years old, so I'm
so young. The brain a child's brain adapted dimester. It's
still developing. That's why when people when I tell people
that English is not my first language, and like what
because I don't they don't. I don't have an accent
of like a person that immigrated from you know, Cape Verd, Africa,
(21:45):
I don't, you know, So it was not that challenging
where I have aunts that immigrated in nineteen ninety five
with me that can't carry a conversation in English. There
was already probably like thirty years old, and they went
straight into factory work.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But they're homeowners and so you know the American dream.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, okay, So talk about your because I know your
brother passed away when you were sixteen, right.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yes, So that's when I had moved from New York.
I used to live in New York with my uncle.
He's a bishop, Bishop Angelo Barbosa. His church is the
Temple of Restoration. It's all around Brooklyn, Queens. I think
every borough is. Dree's a temple. He has cathedrals and stuff.
And I had moved from New York back to Boston
(22:39):
and my brother Damien was like one years old, and
my mom had just moved into that apartment, and so
the furniture hadn't gotten there yet. So we had placed
the television on top of a my gravestand and then
we got comforters and put it on the floor and
we were just watching TV. And you got to remember
(22:59):
back this is probably like two thousand and three, maybe
two thousand and four, So you're dealing with cable so
cable wire was all around the house. And then my
brother Damien was playing with it, and then he was
just learning to walk, and then he was like trying
to press the button on the TV and the TV
fell down and hit his chest and the cable box
(23:21):
hit his head. So again I could talk about it
so opening now. And yeah, because I processed in therapy.
You know, I believe therapy is the best medicine.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Anyone I know agree therapy changed my life. Yeah, I
always advocate for therapy mm hm.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Where before it was so hard for me to talk
about this.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Up until five years ago, I couldn't talk about watching
my one year old brother die right in.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Front of me.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
And then when you show up to Sears to go
pick up the pictures that you took for his one
year birthday, you're using it for funeral.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It was tough for me to talk about those things.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And I can only imagined during that time you probably
was You probably lost your faith.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
That's when my beef with God started. Yeah, because I
was brought up in a bishop home. He didn't have
any kids at the time, so I was the first
kid of the church. You know how the black churches,
everything is like under microscope when you're the bishop's family.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
My dream was to be a pastor like my uncle.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
And when I moved back to Boston, even because he
didn't die right away, they took him to the hospital,
there was running a lot of surgeries and I would
go down in the chapel. I was fasting and I'm like,
you know, this is just God testing my faith and
all these things. And when this thing happened, you like
looking at Homie upstairs.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like like how could you let this happen?
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Like how could you that this happened? You're blaming God,
not understanding. You know, God works in mysterious ways, and
who am I to question God?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
But try tell him that.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
To a sixteen year old, that was like, now God
is testing my faith, right, We're going to get through this.
I'm gonna you know, he's going to see that I'm praying,
I'm fasting, and we're going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And that'd be the hard part when you go through
some shit like you be thinking like I gotta do this,
like I do that, and then when you don't get the
results so that I'll call it. He's supposed to get
Oh man gets you.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Hard and what Oh it scars you. Yeah, it scars
you facts.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Facts. So is that when you started to do, like
get into the drug gang because I know one of
your interviews you were saying how you had like an
infectuation where like drug does or just the lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So Lil Wayne was my god.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
M hmm, what's your favorite little Wyne song?
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Ah? What? It was all the like the song from
the mixtapes. It's been so long, but like the drought,
what was those bigstape name?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Look at that. It sound like I'm a bad fan,
like a bad fan now.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
A card three, card two.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
It was the drought, the whole mixtape era when him
and Joel Santana and all that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
The more mhmm you listen to him, the more.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
No, I've not that. I don't listen to him anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
The music not hidden.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Stuff's change.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, you know, uh, I mean every now and then
I'll throw a little Wayne song on and then ollivant.
Notice the way I'm driving starts to change, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
The energy coming right?
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Yeah, It's like if I listen to NBA Young Boy,
I catch myself shooting a gun that I don't own.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Right, you see, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's a fact.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Music has so much influence on us that I'm not
here blaming Wayne at all to how my life went.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
You know, he he did his music and it's up
to the person to digest it. He was telling his story.
He was not sitting here telling me, pretty, go do this,
so go do that. But you know, Wayne had a
big inspiration into the way I started to party, and
(27:26):
you know, like I got into it. So I always
tell people I'm far from a gangster, but I'm a
real street nigga.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Excuse my French, you know, because I say nigga too,
so we can say nigga.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, I don't know your audience and all that, so,
you know, respectful as possible. You know, I was never
the dude that's gonna go pick up a gun and
ride out on anyone. But I'm gonna, like I'm gonna
run up a bag. And if i feel like I'm
(28:02):
paying too much in Boston for weed, this is when
we're going back like Purple Hayes days, you know, the
weed where it was like six k a pound.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Right, So you figure out if you could go to Miami,
because Miami was like.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
The hub for the for the Purple Hayes era, and
you could.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Link up with a plug over there and you could
get it for whatever thirty two and then down ninety
five ninety five and double up. So I got heavy
into that, you know, I started moving weed heavily, and
then I got into the you know, people might say
(28:47):
I'm a hypocrite, but I started pushing the perk thirties
as well.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
In Miami. That's where the pill mill was at.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
You know, you get a doctor to write your aus
script and you start to figure these things out. So
I just got money fast, and I was moving one
hundred miles an hour in the nightclub. This is when
true religion was like the only gene I could touch
my body? What true religion genes? In the Polo t
(29:18):
right yep and the Gucci bel You couldn't tell me anything.
And I'm in the club blowing blowing hell of money,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It was good times. It was definitely good times.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
You know, mid two thousand was was was definitely good times.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So when did you start using parts? Like how were
you introduced to it?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
I got into a motorcycle accident in two thousand and six,
and again I believe that America did not have the
knowledge then that they have today on the dangers of
the oxycodone. And the doctors I couldn't walk for six months.
(30:07):
They prescribed me oxy cotton, they prescribed me vicoins, they
prescribed me so much things, and then your body just
becomes immune to it to where if you don't.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Have it, sure.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You will sell your soul for the next pill. Right,
because what oxy cotton is? What again, You're gonna hear
me calling it different things, just because different people call
it perks, oxy blues, perky, perky. It's all the same thing.
It's heroine in a pill form. And that's what Purdue
(30:48):
Pharma did not tell.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
People, Right, So when did you what would you say?
When did you say when you start to become addicted
to it?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I started to become addicted to perks, I want to say,
seven eight months after the accident, you know, but at
this point I'm deep into the street game. I'm moving
hell of perks.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
You know. A thousand used to call it a boat.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
So I was moving four five six vowt a week,
So you're not paying attention that you got an addiction,
because first of all, you don't consider it a drug.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It's a pill. I'm looking at it like it's.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Just a better tiler, know, or a better advil. So
you just you know, Little Wayne's coming through the speaker.
I'm a pill popping pill and pill popping the animal.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
And you're just going with nothing. Right, Yeah, you couldn't
tell me anything.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I'm a young twenty two, twenty three whatever at that time,
and I'm running up a bag.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What's the most money you made?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
You know how people will exaggerate when you ask them
that question.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh d right, Nigga, I laid like nigga stopped.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, for a young man like myself, I was definitely
playing with close to one hundred thousand around. You know
what I'm saying, you could be up about thirty forty
fifty thousand, and but you know then you can. I'm
looking at it if you can make twenty five to
(32:31):
thirty thousand dollars a month back Inspire two thousand and eight,
twenty ten, you know that's the type of money I
was touching. I was not no like Kinkpin running up
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
No, that's not a lot of money though for back
in the day.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, yeah, for my age, I was definitely touching paper.
I was.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
I could go to a nightclub and drop four five
thousand dollars and it didn't affect me.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Right, So when you was out there pushing parks, did
you ever hear it? But about this time or no.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I didn't even know what that was. I didn't know
what that was.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So how were you introduced to it? I know you
say you've introduced to a counterfeit pill, but what was
going on with the prescriptions at the other places that
you wasn't able to get it?
Speaker 4 (33:17):
So the fence cracked down on it. They saw that
America is strung out and they see where the problem came,
so they cracked down on scripts like for now, for
you to get again. I feel so bad for those
people that needed the pills, and you know, they need
pill management.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I am not to blame.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
They are the real victim here because they really need that.
And because of Purdue Pharma not letting the doctors knows
that this thing is so addictive and doctor, you go
to the er with a back pain, you can walk
out with with percocets.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
How can you see pain?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You can't see pain, right, And I had a lot
of pain.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Wait, the rule was the guy you purchased the pills wrong,
Like did.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You start once?
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Once the pill mail in Miami shut down, you start
dealing with connects, right, and they get in it. They
get in it whether whatever, however they're doing it. One
day I just got a badge and the stuff looked similar.
You're not thinking. But when I took it, I got
super high. And then my body rejected it instantly, But
(34:35):
I got super high. I really enjoyed that high that
I didn't want that high to go away. And then
you know, you just continue going going. And then the
next time I bought more like probably I don't know
another two thousand, because I was still shaking, and I
did it. It didn't take my pain away. I did
(34:55):
two three four. I remember one day I was coming
from Stoat and driving back into Brockton. Within the spam
of twenty minutes, I popped like thirteen pills perk thirty.
These are thirty milligrams. These are so strong it did
not touch me. And then I remember I had gave
someone the other batch and I told him if he
(35:16):
had it. He said yes, and I said, I'm gonna
go switch these and that's when I find out I
was given counterfeit perks that was pressed with something. I
didn't even know it was fentanyl at that time.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Oh wow, And how does you feel? Like, what were
you thinking?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I was thinking like Jesus Christ that my uncle was
preaching to me that was coming back. I was feeling
like every time I took it, he touched me. I
felt like Jesus came.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That is crazy, mm hmm. So what did your peak
what did peak audition look like for you? Like, like,
do you remember being so far gone that you were
just like, I don't know if I'm be here much longer.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
So in the beginning I told you that I'm not
some gangster. I was just a street nigga, So you know,
I frequent nightclubs and I was not some disrespectful ass dude.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
I was brought up by my grandparents, so I have
great upbringing. I was very respectful, very well known individual
in the community. You know, Cavert cave Verty is such
a tight knit community. Everyone knows everyone. I gained popularity
just because of you know, you're blowing money fast, you're
living fast. But I was not like some egotistic dude.
And once fentanyl came into the picture, I became a
(36:41):
slave to fentanyl. And I always say when my master called,
I answer at any cost. So fentanyl stripped me, stripped
me from myself, it stripped me from society. If I
had fentanyl in a pack of new Ports, I didn't
(37:01):
need anyone and I didn't need anything. It was like
a warm blanket in New York winter time.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And what was your family thinking, Like were they aware
of the drug use or were they like, what's going
on with him?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Like my family was like, I don't think that was
not knowledgeable in the extent of the drug use.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
They ain't.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
They knew something was off, and they couldn't pinpoint it
because it's not like I had cousins that was doing it.
It was just me, And I was kind of the
black sheep of the family already, like, oh, pretty, that's
just you know, he sells drugs, he does this, he's
a rock star.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Blah blah blah blah. They couldn't pinpoint it. But I mean,
I mean I was married lost that.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Yeah, I try to run a legitimate life. I opened
a commercial cleaning company. I lost that. I got evicted
from luxury apartments. I used to have an apartment at
the Avalon.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Lost that. You just keep.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Downgrading and downgrading and just giving and given and given.
If you notice, I didn't say that fentanyl robbed me.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I gave it. Yeah, I gave all these things up.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
I gave into my master because I became a slave
to it and peak addiction.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
My name is pretty.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
For God's sake, I could go ten days without taking
a shower, and if I have some acts.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Bout myself, another five days. But you know, so I
became someone that I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, and I can only imagine the lies that you
would tell yourself to make yourself believe that it's not
as bad as it is.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, you would negotiate with yourself like it's not that bad.
It's not that bad. It was bad. It was hell
on earth no one wanted. First of all, I didn't
even go out like that because isolated, now my mental
health is it's done for Right now you're contemplating suicide
(39:24):
and now fear of judgment. You don't know how to
ask for help because people are gonna look at you
like what right, So you deny, deny, deny, deny M
And then Fetnahl brought me to my knees where I
had no more hustle.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah. So I didn't even know how to how I
was gonna get my next fixed. M. It's not like
I was one.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Of those people that could go into a store and
steal something and go sell it because everybody know me.
So you know, my ego was so big, I can't.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
You know, show it.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Pride won't let me show it. So I'm not going
to no stores. Still nothing I did. I'm going to
die on this couch, right, you know. But you start
to try to do this, reach out to this, hey,
let me get forty dollars for whatever you make up.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Lies and this and that, you just run out of options.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Man. To be able to suffer in silence and to
not know that there's a solution, this is the worst
pain any human can go through. Yeah, and me being
a black man, I personally came out with my story
(40:48):
because I know there's so much men and women in
our community that is suffering that does not know that
there's a way out of that situation. Yeah, because I
didn't need to go out and talk about this.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
I didn't. Yeah, but I kept thinking.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
After I got saved from the shackles of addiction, I
started to think back of how lonely I was and
how I wish someone told me, like, hey, there's rehab,
you know, there's professional help, there's resources out there.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But no one told me.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
But I think that's the beauty of when people say
your life is not your own. So it's like, when
you go through all these things, you're not going through
it for you, You're going through it for the next
person to give them hope that they can't too come
out on the other side.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I strongly believe that.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
God did not allow me to go through all those
I mean, I've gone through a lot, right, you know.
Obviously maybe from this interview, people could go see my
other interviews I've done and they could get more in depth.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
To overdose two like three times.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Hell yeah, I've overdosed.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
I've been narcan three times, and none of those times
was the last time. That's the sad thing. Yeah, that's
the insanity that comes with it.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
And you follow Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Was listening to one of them, one of the interviews,
and you were saying how you overdose in your mom's
arm and then when you came back, you saw that
you had socks on, and you was like, oh shit,
So you were back in the bathroom and did another
line or something.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
I'm like, did another line effect on?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah? And I was like wow, Like drugs would really
just have you like.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You gone?
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I mean, listen, Addiction is a disease. Yeah, that is
a fact. No, no one chooses to wake up. And again,
people that hasn't personally gone through it, or lack of
education on this cause, on this situation, won't understand it.
(43:14):
But it's been proven. It's been studied that addiction is
a disease of the mind. The same way a woman
that has breast cancer is not by her choice. Is
the same way me that represents as an addict is
not by my choice. It's a disease of the mind.
The only difference is there's a solution, right, There's a
(43:37):
solution for me today, right, And I live in it
daily And.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
I always tell people.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
That the substance is not the problem, because when you relapse,
you make a sober decision to go back to the substance.
So something that's not in your body cannot be the problem.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah, are you following?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, for sure. No, it's a lack of discipline.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's once you get to that place, it becomes a
daily thing. People tell me like, yo, pretty well, you're
never going to drink again. Because I don't represent this
as an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict, right, but I
haven't touched alcohol for as long as I haven't touched fentanyl.
(44:35):
The last time I did fentanyl was July twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Right, and damn that was doing a pandemic.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, I got I got sober during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
M Yeah, wow, I thought I thought this was earlier.
I didn't five years ago, damn mar Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Yeah, yeah, I just celebrated five years. Like for me,
it's a miracle to not touch fentanel for five years.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I can go three hours. Damn and you're talking five years.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
How do you? How does your family feel? Like do
y'all have conversations about that? Like especially with you and
your mom and you overdose in her arms? Like what
are those conversations?
Speaker 4 (45:28):
Like they reminisced every time I'm around family member. It's somehow,
some way my story ends up coming up. It's like
the topic of the conversation, right, or the conversation of
topic or whatever, and for me to see the pain
that I put him through, but then for me to
(45:50):
see how proud they are the man I am today, right,
because I do a lot. Now, There's so much that
I do that sometimes I'm like, like, a, am.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I really doing this? Do I really?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Like? Because I do so much that my best explanation
is God. Yeah, because I don't. I don't have a
college degree.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
You understand what I'm saying, right, But I'm a business
owner and it's like what right? Like I was stealing
five and a half years ago to get high on
for fentanel mm hmm. And today I employ people like that.
(46:47):
There's no better explanation than God.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah. But let's always say God is always with you, man, Yeah, yeah,
God is always. It could always be a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I remember one of the things I could remember my
uncle preaching was the Bible says, if you have faith
as small as a mustard seed, you can move a
mountain mountain.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
That's a fact.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
And not even.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
Understand it then. But when I began my sobriety journey,
my faith was as small as this must seed. Yeah,
and my accomplishment today is as if I've moved a mountain.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So how did you get into recovery?
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Like?
Speaker 2 (47:35):
What was that?
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Did I introduce you to it?
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Or yeah? Yeah yeah. So I have a childhood best friend, June.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
He lived in Los Angeles, and my family sent me
to Phoenix, Arizona, to a Christian based program. It was
just not a good fit for me. I'm not going
to sit here in bad mouth the place. It was
just not a good fit and I ended up escaping
five days in.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Y'ah. Nigga was like fuck this shit.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, So I escaped five days in and then I
came to Los Angeles. I had never been to Los Angeles.
My childhood best friend June Freedom, who happens to be
a phenomenal singer. He's my favorite artist. By the way,
this is not a shotou or nothing. He's like an
established artist. He's like with Empire and has like a
million monthly listeners. But he was I'm saying all that
(48:30):
to say this. He was like, You're not an addict
like those people. I'm like, no, I'm not. He was
in the middle of like releasing a single or a
music or whatever.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
He was doing.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Took him twenty four hours to find out that I'm
a full blown junkie and I am worse than those
people he thought I was not.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Wait, how did he find it? Was you like stealing
or was you ODM?
Speaker 4 (48:53):
I was not stealing. He had a dog named Ninja.
I'm walking the dog for two hours on some crackhead ship,
on some crackhead ship, because I've never had to score drugs,
regardless of you know, I was always well connected. I
knew somebody and but to walk the street of California
(49:15):
try to find fetanol. Yeah, me and my boy Ninja
down Tarzana, poor Ninja, porn Ninja.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I didn't know what was going on, just going for a.
Speaker 4 (49:26):
Walk, man, I ended up. That's how you know that
when like the devil had.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
My soul.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
The environment, I'll allow myself to be in to score drugs.
You wouldn't pay me enough to go there with a
gun today.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Oh wow? You know it was all bad, just all bad.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
So you he was doing in music. He finally came
to the conclusion that okay, we have a p So
was he the one to introduce you to rehab or no?
Speaker 4 (50:03):
He remembered he had met someone six months prior, and
he remember from conversating with this guy, his name is Gil,
that the guy.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Had been sober for thirty three years.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
And then he called this guy and told them everything
I just told you. The guy said, bring him here
when I got there. I want you to imagine yourself, right,
that you've been living in China for ten years and
(50:36):
no one spoke English, and you do not understand Chinese.
In those ten years, you just in existence in China, right,
and then someone comes and taps your shoulder, Hey, my sister,
how are you after ten years?
Speaker 3 (50:57):
You're like, what? Right?
Speaker 4 (51:00):
What? This guy Gil started to speak to me in
a language that I finally understood. It is a person
that had gone through what I was currently going through.
And then from that day on I took direction from
him thoroughly. I didn't dilute it. If you go to Ikea,
(51:23):
if you notice to have these stages that they have
these nice things, and it's the way that they decorate
the bed and everything that attracts you to it. And
then you go downstairs and you get this box.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
It's like, wait, where's the bed? Like it's in the box.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Got to put it together now.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
It is up to you to follow those directions, and
if you follow those directions thoroughly, you're going to get
the result of the bed that you saw on the
show floor. And I wanted what Gilly had and I've
been taking direction from him since July twenty twenty. Wow,
(52:13):
I went to a rehab called Hubbad Treatment Center. Listen,
there's so much happening in the world today with and
I don't get into politics, I don't get into religion.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Saying, but it's a lot going on.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Though there's a lot going on.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
My opinion of the Jewish community, it is completely different
than what the media is portraying them to be because
they saved my life, they took me into their rehab
and the way they made me felt part of them.
(52:59):
I had been long lost and I look like a
terrorist if you look at me thoroughly. And for these
Jewish people at Habbad to just take me in at
my lowest and.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Just make me feel part of them.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
And Man, I go to so much Shabbat dinners, I
go to so much bar Mitzvah.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
But there are great people.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Man, And it breaks my heart that a lot of
people that have opinion of the Jewish community is solely
based upon the propaganda on social media you follow.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Yeah, And I'm not going to get too deep into it.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
Like I said, I'm just going to say that I
believe if the world are able to get an experience
with the Jewish community, that they will have a different
opinion about them.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think social media and everything that's going
on in the world really plays a role in how
we treat each other. I think that we remove all
of that and get back to what's important, which is love. Yes,
I think the world will be a better place. So
I totally agree with you on that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:24):
So it just breaks my heart that all this hatred
is going on again. I'm not here to discredit what's
happening on the other side. I'm not here to do
none of that. What I'm saying is my experience with
the Jewish community is the complete opposite of what the
media is portraying today. Yeah, and the Habbad community are
(54:49):
amazing people. They are my second. I don't have family
in Los Angeles. Thanksgiving dinner, I go to their house.
Yeah know, it's Hanukah. I'm going to be going there,
you know. I mean, they're my community, and they took
me in when I felt this small my mentor believed
(55:15):
in me when I couldn't believe in myself. Hmm.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
He thought for me when I couldn't think for myself.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
M hmm.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
And he didn't know me. I'm not of his kind.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Yesterday we was having a conversation and we was talking about,
you know, different things. He said, ma'am pretty, I saw
something in you that you was not able to see
in yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
And that's all it takes is somebody to see.
Speaker 3 (55:53):
You, you know what I mean? And Gil is, so.
Speaker 4 (56:02):
How can I put this? Because the way what he
did for me, and the way he would go visit
me at the rehab when I was there, bring me cigarette.
I was a complete stranger to him at that time
and he had only met my boy June one other time.
And he's a very busy individual, right and then, like
(56:27):
I would ask him, how can I ever repay you back?
You know what this guy would.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Say, stay sober, stay sober.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
And just do it for someone else. I'm like, they
gotta be a catch. Yeah, you understand. And guess what today,
I've done it for a lot of someone else's.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, because you owned recovery homes. Now right.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
I own, Yes, I own sober living homes a lot
of people people who don't know this. But I also
own a medical facility.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
I own a.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Detox Oh nice, nice. I remember I called mom about
five months ago. I said, Mom, I said, maybe you
had a dream of me going to college and being
a doctor or a nurse. And I said, unfortunately it
(57:26):
didn't go as planned. I said, but today your son's
in a position that I employed nurses and doctors. And
I didn't say that from my egotistic place. I just
said that so my mom could get an idea of
her son's achievement.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Yeah, you follow.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah, that's so dope.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
It's amazing. I mean five and a half years ago,
give or take, I was stealing to get high.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Today.
Speaker 4 (57:56):
You know, I'm also the brand ambassador of many for
Another detoxes, but I also own one of mine's as well.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
And for you, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yeah, that's dope.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:12):
You know. And to be able to personally see someone
come broken, Yeah, and for me to be that person like, hey,
I know what you're feeling. I've been there. Yeah, if
you do this, it's going to be all right. Because
(58:33):
I'm a living testimony of sobriety.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, and also a living.
Speaker 4 (58:37):
Testimony of a person that's gone through what you're about
to start going through.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
But you are also a physical manifestation of hope, like
people can actually see it.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not no hoax, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (58:53):
No. I always tell people I'm not some guy that
went to Harvard and studied addiction on brain from a
guinea pig. No, I'm the guy that stole to get high.
I'm the guy that did not take showers for ten days,
and if I had acts, I'm going to another five.
Speaker 3 (59:15):
You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
So if I can do it, I believe anyone can
and not anyone, not everyone has to.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
What do I define a success in sobriety?
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Not materialistic stuff, not a business owner, not employing people?
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Inner piece, Yeah, inner piece is priceless.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah. So we're almost finished. But looking back of your
entire life and all the things that you accomplished and
all the things that you're not proud of, what did
forgiveness look like for yourself?
Speaker 3 (59:52):
Forgiveness for myself look like? Wow, that's a deep question.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Have you forgiven yourself?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
I have, okay, but I.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Want to know what it looks like, though, I want
to know how can I articulate the words for you?
It looks like not being so hard on myself anymore,
and it looks like when things get difficult, I'm like,
(01:00:26):
I have the blueprint of like, it's okay, it's temporarily
you're going to get through this. If that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Yeah, And last, but not least, what would you say
to someone who feels trapped in addiction right now?
Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
Mmm, you are not alone. That feeling that you get
from those drugs is its face. There is those Louis
Vautalon bags from Canal Street.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
It is not real.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Facts. I don't care how good it looks.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I don't care how good it looks. Facts, it is
not real.
Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Life is pretty on the opposite side of addiction, and
if you want help, there's resources everywhere and personally on
coming on the twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Six, I have a.
Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
I just got out of a meeting yesterday to where
people are going to be able to go to. Life
is pretty dot com and you're going to be able
to be able to reach out and see how you
could be part of what I have going on?
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
How can I be of service to them?
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Right, because a lot of people, once you search rehab
dot com, you call and like, yeah, fifty thousand dollars,
seventy thousand dollars, like, oh my god, no, I'd rather
continue doing dr Yeah no, but there's resources everywhere out there.
Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
I tell people all the time, addiction is expensive, sobriety
is free.
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Facts, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
So it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
I'm excited for what I got going on and to
share to the world. Coming up in twenty twenty six, sties,
it's going to be a platform that anyone that's out
there struggling and would just go there and they will
have a representative reach out to them and see how
we could be able to help them start their journey
(01:02:39):
of sobriety. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Well, however, I can support it. Definitely keep me posted.
I'm so happy that we were able to make this.
And I always tell people like stories like yours is
the epitome of why I create this platform, because I
always tell people your storyline is someone else's lifeline. So
I appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
I appreciate you for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
Sorry, I took a little bit longer to get to you,
but I believe God moves in mysterious ways. And it
was not on our time, it was in his time.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Absolutely, is there everyone where we can follow you at,
we can support you at when the website's going to
be up.
Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
Yeah, you can follow me at Yo, pretty F. That's
how you know. It was a big little Wayne fan.
Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
When I found you, I was like, Yo, this name.
Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
So hy oh and then p r e t t
y F And that's my Instagram and that's my Twitter,
that's my what's the other? U TikTok? Everything is yo,
pretty F. Or you could just google me pretty Brandy.
(01:03:47):
I'm sure you'll put my name in the description and yeah,
or ask Tragic p T about who Pretty brand Dale
is and they'll just give it to you all over there.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
All right, Well, thank you so much, Pretty bringdeo and
he called you for having me, what some crazy shit.
Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Forgive me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
You've been in this country long enough, stop it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Forgive me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
But if y'all have any questions, comments of concerns, please
make sure to email me at hello at the phgpodcast
dot com. And until next time, everyone, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Love is love. You gonna say bye, y'alla, and thank
you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Pretty Private is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget
to subscribe and rate the show, and you can connect
with me on social media at pretty Private podcast
Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebine, a space where no
question is off limits and storylines become lifelines. The views
shared by our guests are meant to inform, entertain and empower.
From the laughs to the lessons. Just remember, tough times
don't last, but Professional Homegirls do enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Happy New Year, Professional Homegirls is Shagary Ebine here and
I hope all is cute. Now, welcome back to the
very first episode of the year. And it is a
good one, okay, and it's from our men series. This week,
I'm Pretty Private with Ebine. I'm sitting down with Pretty Brendeo.
He opens up about his journey from the lowest moments
(00:48):
of a feedinol addiction to reclaim in his life. We
talk about what addiction really looks like, the moments that
almost broke him, and what it's said to finally choose
himself in his future. Now listen, this was one of
those raw, honest conversations that we love that will remind
you just how powerful redemption and second chances truly are.
(01:10):
So get ready because I was addicted to feedinl stars. Now,
So to my guests, thank you so much for coming
on the show. How you doing, how you feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I'm doing good? Thank you for having me. Bonnie. Then
my name e Bannie. No, sorry, at I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Gonna be that in so people can hear you butcher
in my name.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I wasn't trying to butcher you. So what you gotta
remember I'm a n immigrant.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So don't use that one.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Come on, That's all I got Right now.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You've been in the States long enough I have Where
are you from?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm from a small country in the west coast of
Africa called Cape Verge. Most people it's never heard of it.
It's time island population about half a million. There is
more of us immigrated outside of Cape Verde than there
is living.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
For you know, for the culture.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
One person that people would probably know Amba Roses have
Cape Verdian.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah, okay. And then but I also
feel like you used to live in Boston.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Too, right, That's so that's where we immigrate to. Okay,
like we have we we.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Have our nightclubs there, we have our restaurants. We we
even have politicians. Uh there's a city in Brockton, which
is in Massachusetts close to Boston, just elected as first
Cape Verdian mayor. We have a lot of great Cape
Verdian policemen in the Boston Police Force. Yeah, we have
(02:48):
a whole community there. We have our supermarkets. It's just
like how you would see. I don't know Trinidaddy is
in New York.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
In New York, you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
They would go to Boston. I didn't know that. So
that's something new.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Yeah, that's where they immigrated. And it goes back to
the whaling industry. So late eighteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh what lit, Yes, history fact every time you're on
the show. So look at that.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You learned something new every day, every show.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Every show. Well, I'm happy to having you on. I
discover your story. I think I found you on Instagram
and then I just went down a rabbit hole and
then he was lokey curving.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Me, y'all.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I have to like follow up and be professional.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I'm just fucking but yeah, I if I could defend myself,
I will, So let me know when I can defend myself.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I's sorry the thing yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
So I was not curving you.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I know you wasn't.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I'm just like, I get tons of people reaching out
for me to you know, get interviewed and this and
this and that and the third, and sometimes I miss it,
and sometimes I like I just did one like some
popular guy or famous guy or some rapper. I want
the message to be out there. So the last I
(04:10):
think sit down I had was probably a few months back.
So I wanted to sit down. I wanted that interview
to sit down for a little bit, yeah, until I come.
But then when I when I saw yours, I saw
it was more mental health based.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I said, okay, we could go somewhere with that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, he didn't carve y'all. And I'm also very persistent,
so I figured he was busy. And it also it's
the holiday season, so I didn't think we was going
to be able to do this conversation this soon. But
here we are. So thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So much, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course, so when you look at what's happening right
now with the OPIOI crisis, what stands out the most
to you?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
What stands out to me the most is Purdue Pharma.
M So, when I don't know how many how much
people is educated with Purdue Pharma, but they introduce and
the rap culture. This is what you would hear perks,
oxy blues. It's all the same thing. Perdue Pharma came
(05:08):
through to uneducated people with fraudulent like labs saying that
it's non addictive, and they just kept pushing it and
pushing and pushing it. And it does do what it
says that it do. It cures pain, right, but there
was a part that they left out that it's very addictive.
(05:31):
And everything that you see that's going on in America
right now with the opioid crisis, Perdue Pharma is to blame.
I know there's going to be some other people that says, well,
I need my pain medication, and it's because of the
junkies that it's so controlled now now it's harder for
me to get my pain medication. No greed is why
(05:53):
you can't get your pain medication because the Feds. Once
the Feds saw what was happening, they came down and
cracked down. And that's what you have today. The black
market was created and that's where you see the fentannel,
the fake perks and all that because the FED was like, WHOA,
what is happening. So the mess that we have today
(06:17):
Perdue pharma, that's the first thing that comes to mind,
and there's actually for anyone that wants to be a
little bit more educated with it. There's a lot of
documentary on it. You could just do some research and
you could have a better understanding on why that's the
first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Did you ever watch that show on Hulu? I think
it was Michael Keaton was in it. He was a
doctor and at first he wanted to prescribe people with
the medication because he was like, I don't know, I
just don't feel right, and then he ended up getting
hooked on it, and then they went down and Rabbit Hope.
You know what I'm saying about.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, that show
explains it perfect. And you can see how the sales
rep for Purdue Pharma was so persistent.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Crazy.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You know, whenever finances is involved, greed comes in and
people neglect.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Health and they just want to pay attention to their
bank account.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
And then look at what Art country is going through
right going through right now.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah. And then there was another documentary on Netflix where
they had like pill farms and stuff, and they with
some like counterfeit pills and stuff, and I'm like, Wow, Like,
this is crazy.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
That's how I got introduced to fentanyl. I know, I
just went so far so quick, but I got introduced
to fentanyl through a counterfit perk.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So why do you think we're gonna talk about it later?
Because I want to jump too far ahead. But why
do you think so many people don't realize they being
exposed to phenenol until it's too late.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Well, the thing is, the FEDS cracked down on oxy
codon perks. There's so much name for it, right, and
then what happens is a black market was created, and
then they are selling counterfeits. It's like you trying to
go to this the Giants game and you're trying to
(08:03):
get tickets, and you buy your ticket and then you
get to the door you just find out you bought
fake tickets and all of a sudden, like, oh shoot,
I'm in trouble. It's the same concept people got blinded.
I want to say, this is a hypothesis. Eighty percent
(08:23):
of people that sound fentanyl didn't get on it by
trying fentanyl intentionally.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
It was all by mistake.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I think, yeah, I agree with that, because what is
so appealing about someone in the middle of the street
like this. But then there's nothing appealing about that, right,
there's absolutely nothing appealing about it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
You also have a conspiracy theory that you feel like
the naws coming from China. China is responsible for it.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
China is definitely responsible for it, but I feel that
China is using fentanyl as a weapon of war. It's again,
it's a conspiracy theory. I don't have much to back
it up. It's just a hypothesis of minds. But you
go back in history and you see what America did
to China back in the days. China was actually hooked
(09:21):
on heron because of America, and I believe China does
not forget. So they played the long game. And then
if you pay attention to the two type of people
that hate American American laws is.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
China and the cartels.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So China is providing the cartel with the stuff to
make the fentanyl because they couldn't get it continue getting
it straight directly into America, so they got it through
Mexico and then you know, so that's how it's getting here.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I would say my conspiracy theory about this is I
don't think it would have been a big deal if
it didn't hit other races. I think that if this
would have stayed with certain races, I think that they
probably wouldn't have been I don't think that they would have.
I don't think that they would have gained so much
support like they're given now because I think of opio
like the crack epondemic. Crack only affected certain people, right
(10:21):
but now we have this new drug and it's affecting everybody,
and now it's a big deal. But drugs should be
a big deal, period, no.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Correct, And the whole race thing, it's very sensitive. It's
something that you know, I've heard a lot of people
saying saying these things, like when it was the black
community strung out on crack, y'all.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Was throwing them in jail.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Right now that it's affecting beyond the African American community,
this seems to be more like people's paying more attention.
Crack was not killing people fentanyl is I think Boozy
(11:06):
said it. He was like crackhead was not dying.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean a lot of people that I do know.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
He was like Crackhead was fixing your cars. There was
getting you stuff for cheap. He was like fetanol addicts,
they're dropping like fly, So for me would I would
go more towards that it's life and death, where crack
was probably just creating more crimes. True, fentanyl is you
(11:36):
know how many future soldiers, future doctors, future sports people,
future teachers that are no longer here with us. Yeah,
when you have people dying at the level that fentanyl
is killing people, people is going to pay attention. And
I like to believe that race has nothing to do
with it because how many people was dropping like flies
(11:58):
in Harlem in the nineteen seventies in the crack epidemic.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean, people were dying, but they wasn't dying as
rapidly as people on phenoen That's.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
My argument to why I think it's not solely focused
on race.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, okay, pretty you want that one. Okay, So take
me back to where you grew up, Like, tell me
about your environment, your your household, your siblings, Like what
was that?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Like, I mean, so I was born in Campana, Cape Verge.
You probably don't know. No one's going to know what
that is. So I want you to imagine a village
in the mountains of Cape Verge, no running water, no electricity,
live off the land. So many uncles, aunts, in the house,
(12:52):
just not knowing what poverty is because you're not going
your stomach is not going without you have nothing to
compare it to. So it was just so peaceful and
so much love. Like the crop season, the whole village
comes together and they plant their whatever they got a
plant weather it's corn, beans, peanuts, mango, everything, and you
(13:16):
just live off the land. And then the dream and
like the fairy tale was immigrate to America, right, and
then you would have the elders that already had immigrated
to Americas and they would send drums on the boats.
So that's what America was to us. You would see
a piece of new clothing, new sneakers that you've never seen.
(13:38):
I mean at the time, Cape Verd was a Third
World country. So in a village, probably one house had
television and then you would have thirty people go sit
and watch the news or something like that very closely.
So yeah, I have memories dating back to maybe when
(14:00):
I was three years old. I had a pet, a goat,
a baby goat as a pet. And when people would
uh that has immigrated out of the country. When they
would come back to visit the village, people would feast
for them, and I remember I could not find my
baby goat pet and then they ate it.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
They ate my.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Baby goat pet to where I will never eat. I'm
traumatized anything that falls under that category, I would. The
smell of it just traumatized me.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, heartbreaking. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So my grandfather immigrated very early on, and he you know,
took care of his kids back home and his grandkids.
In my village. We were one of the first house
to have I have a bathroom with like toilet, bathtub
(15:04):
and everything everything else that we did.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We would shower on the roof of the house out
of a bucket.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And then when you need to use the restroom. I
remember being a kid, you go into the field and
you know there was no toilet paper. You know, you
would use a leaf or a rock. I have the
memory leaf or a rock.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yeah, you use a rock to rip you I did,
and you got all the shit out? Yes, Wow, yeah
I have. That's why I appreciate Ammerica so much, because.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
To be able to come from that and have memory
of that, yeah, and then to be able to place
where I can say, Alexa, play little Wayne, and it just.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Proof it goes on.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
How could you not appreciate hard work, right, how could
you not appreciate growth?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I would to use a leaf like a rock is
like different, you know, so yeah, I mean it definitely
makes you appreciate where you come from. But then also
it makes you kind of miss those beginners because everything
was just so simple, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, everything was so simple back then.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Wow. So there was also a situation where he was
growing up there something traumatic happened to one of your siblings.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yes, so that.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You fast forward, that's after I immigrated to America.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And but how was that?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Were you nervous coming to America or you?
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Because so you got to remember I was about seven
years old, and in the mind of a seven year
old America it was like paradise in my head. Yeah, right,
it was paradise because even when the people would go
(16:52):
back to visit, their skin tone change. Yah, there wear
these new clothes and everyone in the villages like showing
so much life. So being a kid, it was like
you go into paradise.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And then I remember from my island, to go from
Fogo to Praya, I mean, the plane must have been
like a fifteen passenger plane to where you go to
the US Embassy because my grandfather petitioned for all of
us to come. So you would have to go through
like doctors do all the tests to make sure, you know,
(17:29):
you don't have anything that would prevent you from entering
a country like America. So and then after all that
it was done, and then South Africa Airline boying in
a seven year old and it's like wow, right, oh
(17:52):
my god. It was two floors and the flight attendant
automatically knew my first time that I'm immigrating.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And then to take a.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Kid that I played with scraps from whatever those was
my toys, right, and then to take me to the
cockpit of a plane like that.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So it was like wow. It was just wow. Was like.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
The whole thing, the whole experience, everything about America was wow.
And this is American the nineties, right, This is not
America of today.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You know, America of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
One paycheck, you go so far, you know, you can
do a lot with right. So my family created I
don't want to say the word wealth, but they created
a good financial financial stability or foundation. You know, most
(18:58):
eighty or ninety percent of my uncles and aunts that
immigrated our homeowners and they've built their homes back back
in our country to where now we live in the cities,
and we have vacation houses and all these things.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You know, when you went to America was like the
entire family, or where's your mom and them already over there.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
So what happened is my grandfather came first, and then
he petitioned for my grandmother, and the first in line
who was able to come with the grandmother was my
uncle and aunts that were under twenty one.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
So who stayed back in Cape verd was my.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Mom, my two uncles, and one of my other aunts.
Because there was already of age. So when you're already
of age, that petition takes longer. It could take five
to ten years.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh damn, that's long.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah. So so when I immigrated, it was me, my mother,
my uncle, two of my uncles, and one of my
aunts and one of my cousin, Vanilda, and we came
to reunite with the younger siblings that was already here.
They might have been here, I don't know, maybe five years.
(20:15):
And then so I want you to imagine this, right
three Decca in Boston and my uncle Antonio, he had
purchased a home because he knew he was all coming
on each floor. You have an aunt or an uncle
and just so much love like that nineties that we
(20:39):
will never get. And you know the doorbell ringing and
you're not knowing who it is, but it's probably someone
coming over to.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Visit, just so much.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, you could just feel the love so immigrating to
America from Cape Verde, it's it's it's it's a dream
come true.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What's up, y'all? It's Chagara m and A here, and
be sure to follow me on Instagram and TikTok at
pretty private podcasts, and don't forget to subscribe to my
YouTube channel at the Professional Homegirl. Now let's get back
to the show. But did you have a hard time
on Justin once you got to Boston?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Well, you got I was seven years old, so I'm
so young. The brain a child's brain adapted dimester. It's
still developing. That's why when people when I tell people
that English is not my first language, and like what
because I don't they don't. I don't have an accent
of like a person that immigrated from you know, Cape Verd, Africa,
(21:45):
I don't, you know, So it was not that challenging
where I have aunts that immigrated in nineteen ninety five
with me that can't carry a conversation in English. There
was already probably like thirty years old, and they went
straight into factory work.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But they're homeowners and so you know the American dream.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, okay, So talk about your because I know your
brother passed away when you were sixteen, right.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yes, So that's when I had moved from New York.
I used to live in New York with my uncle.
He's a bishop, Bishop Angelo Barbosa. His church is the
Temple of Restoration. It's all around Brooklyn, Queens. I think
every borough is. Dree's a temple. He has cathedrals and stuff.
And I had moved from New York back to Boston
(22:39):
and my brother Damien was like one years old, and
my mom had just moved into that apartment, and so
the furniture hadn't gotten there yet. So we had placed
the television on top of a my gravestand and then
we got comforters and put it on the floor and
we were just watching TV. And you got to remember
(22:59):
back this is probably like two thousand and three, maybe
two thousand and four, So you're dealing with cable so
cable wire was all around the house. And then my
brother Damien was playing with it, and then he was
just learning to walk, and then he was like trying
to press the button on the TV and the TV
fell down and hit his chest and the cable box
(23:21):
hit his head. So again I could talk about it
so opening now. And yeah, because I processed in therapy.
You know, I believe therapy is the best medicine.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Anyone I know agree therapy changed my life. Yeah, I
always advocate for therapy mm hm.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Where before it was so hard for me to talk
about this.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Up until five years ago, I couldn't talk about watching
my one year old brother die right in.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Front of me.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
And then when you show up to Sears to go
pick up the pictures that you took for his one
year birthday, you're using it for funeral.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It was tough for me to talk about those things.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And I can only imagined during that time you probably
was You probably lost your faith.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
That's when my beef with God started. Yeah, because I
was brought up in a bishop home. He didn't have
any kids at the time, so I was the first
kid of the church. You know how the black churches,
everything is like under microscope when you're the bishop's family.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
My dream was to be a pastor like my uncle.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
And when I moved back to Boston, even because he
didn't die right away, they took him to the hospital,
there was running a lot of surgeries and I would
go down in the chapel. I was fasting and I'm like,
you know, this is just God testing my faith and
all these things. And when this thing happened, you like
looking at Homie upstairs.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like like how could you let this happen?
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Like how could you that this happened? You're blaming God,
not understanding. You know, God works in mysterious ways, and
who am I to question God?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
But try tell him that.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
To a sixteen year old, that was like, now God
is testing my faith, right, We're going to get through this.
I'm gonna you know, he's going to see that I'm praying,
I'm fasting, and we're going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And that'd be the hard part when you go through
some shit like you be thinking like I gotta do this,
like I do that, and then when you don't get the
results so that I'll call it. He's supposed to get
Oh man gets you.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Hard and what Oh it scars you. Yeah, it scars
you facts.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Facts. So is that when you started to do, like
get into the drug gang because I know one of
your interviews you were saying how you had like an
infectuation where like drug does or just the lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So Lil Wayne was my god.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
M hmm, what's your favorite little Wyne song?
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Ah? What? It was all the like the song from
the mixtapes. It's been so long, but like the drought,
what was those bigstape name?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Look at that. It sound like I'm a bad fan,
like a bad fan now.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
A card three, card two.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
It was the drought, the whole mixtape era when him
and Joel Santana and all that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
The more mhmm you listen to him, the more.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
No, I've not that. I don't listen to him anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
The music not hidden.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Stuff's change.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, you know, uh, I mean every now and then
I'll throw a little Wayne song on and then ollivant.
Notice the way I'm driving starts to change, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
The energy coming right?
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Yeah, It's like if I listen to NBA Young Boy,
I catch myself shooting a gun that I don't own.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Right, you see, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's a fact.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Music has so much influence on us that I'm not
here blaming Wayne at all to how my life went.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
You know, he he did his music and it's up
to the person to digest it. He was telling his story.
He was not sitting here telling me, pretty, go do this,
so go do that. But you know, Wayne had a
big inspiration into the way I started to party, and
(27:26):
you know, like I got into it. So I always
tell people I'm far from a gangster, but I'm a
real street nigga.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Excuse my French, you know, because I say nigga too,
so we can say nigga.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, I don't know your audience and all that, so,
you know, respectful as possible. You know, I was never
the dude that's gonna go pick up a gun and
ride out on anyone. But I'm gonna, like I'm gonna
run up a bag. And if i feel like I'm
(28:02):
paying too much in Boston for weed, this is when
we're going back like Purple Hayes days, you know, the
weed where it was like six k a pound.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Right, So you figure out if you could go to Miami,
because Miami was like.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
The hub for the for the Purple Hayes era, and
you could.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Link up with a plug over there and you could
get it for whatever thirty two and then down ninety
five ninety five and double up. So I got heavy
into that, you know, I started moving weed heavily, and
then I got into the you know, people might say
(28:47):
I'm a hypocrite, but I started pushing the perk thirties
as well.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
In Miami. That's where the pill mill was at.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
You know, you get a doctor to write your aus
script and you start to figure these things out. So
I just got money fast, and I was moving one
hundred miles an hour in the nightclub. This is when
true religion was like the only gene I could touch
my body? What true religion genes? In the Polo t
(29:18):
right yep and the Gucci bel You couldn't tell me anything.
And I'm in the club blowing blowing hell of money,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It was good times. It was definitely good times.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
You know, mid two thousand was was was definitely good times.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So when did you start using parts? Like how were
you introduced to it?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
I got into a motorcycle accident in two thousand and six,
and again I believe that America did not have the
knowledge then that they have today on the dangers of
the oxycodone. And the doctors I couldn't walk for six months.
(30:07):
They prescribed me oxy cotton, they prescribed me vicoins, they
prescribed me so much things, and then your body just
becomes immune to it to where if you don't.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Have it, sure.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You will sell your soul for the next pill. Right,
because what oxy cotton is? What again, You're gonna hear
me calling it different things, just because different people call
it perks, oxy blues, perky, perky. It's all the same thing.
It's heroine in a pill form. And that's what Purdue
(30:48):
Pharma did not tell.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
People, Right, So when did you what would you say?
When did you say when you start to become addicted
to it?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I started to become addicted to perks, I want to say,
seven eight months after the accident, you know, but at
this point I'm deep into the street game. I'm moving
hell of perks.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
You know. A thousand used to call it a boat.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
So I was moving four five six vowt a week,
So you're not paying attention that you got an addiction,
because first of all, you don't consider it a drug.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It's a pill. I'm looking at it like it's.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Just a better tiler, know, or a better advil. So
you just you know, Little Wayne's coming through the speaker.
I'm a pill popping pill and pill popping the animal.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
And you're just going with nothing. Right, Yeah, you couldn't
tell me anything.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I'm a young twenty two, twenty three whatever at that time,
and I'm running up a bag.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What's the most money you made?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
You know how people will exaggerate when you ask them
that question.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh d right, Nigga, I laid like nigga stopped.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, for a young man like myself, I was definitely
playing with close to one hundred thousand around. You know
what I'm saying, you could be up about thirty forty
fifty thousand, and but you know then you can. I'm
looking at it if you can make twenty five to
(32:31):
thirty thousand dollars a month back Inspire two thousand and eight,
twenty ten, you know that's the type of money I
was touching. I was not no like Kinkpin running up
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
No, that's not a lot of money though for back
in the day.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, yeah, for my age, I was definitely touching paper.
I was.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
I could go to a nightclub and drop four five
thousand dollars and it didn't affect me.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Right, So when you was out there pushing parks, did
you ever hear it? But about this time or no.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I didn't even know what that was. I didn't know
what that was.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So how were you introduced to it? I know you
say you've introduced to a counterfeit pill, but what was
going on with the prescriptions at the other places that
you wasn't able to get it?
Speaker 4 (33:17):
So the fence cracked down on it. They saw that
America is strung out and they see where the problem came,
so they cracked down on scripts like for now, for
you to get again. I feel so bad for those
people that needed the pills, and you know, they need
pill management.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I am not to blame.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
They are the real victim here because they really need that.
And because of Purdue Pharma not letting the doctors knows
that this thing is so addictive and doctor, you go
to the er with a back pain, you can walk
out with with percocets.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
How can you see pain?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You can't see pain, right, And I had a lot
of pain.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Wait, the rule was the guy you purchased the pills wrong,
Like did.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You start once?
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Once the pill mail in Miami shut down, you start
dealing with connects, right, and they get in it. They
get in it whether whatever, however they're doing it. One
day I just got a badge and the stuff looked similar.
You're not thinking. But when I took it, I got
super high. And then my body rejected it instantly, But
(34:35):
I got super high. I really enjoyed that high that
I didn't want that high to go away. And then
you know, you just continue going going. And then the
next time I bought more like probably I don't know
another two thousand, because I was still shaking, and I
did it. It didn't take my pain away. I did
(34:55):
two three four. I remember one day I was coming
from Stoat and driving back into Brockton. Within the spam
of twenty minutes, I popped like thirteen pills perk thirty.
These are thirty milligrams. These are so strong it did
not touch me. And then I remember I had gave
someone the other batch and I told him if he
(35:16):
had it. He said yes, and I said, I'm gonna
go switch these and that's when I find out I
was given counterfeit perks that was pressed with something. I
didn't even know it was fentanyl at that time.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Oh wow, And how does you feel? Like, what were
you thinking?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I was thinking like Jesus Christ that my uncle was
preaching to me that was coming back. I was feeling
like every time I took it, he touched me. I
felt like Jesus came.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That is crazy, mm hmm. So what did your peak
what did peak audition look like for you? Like, like,
do you remember being so far gone that you were
just like, I don't know if I'm be here much longer.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
So in the beginning I told you that I'm not
some gangster. I was just a street nigga, So you know,
I frequent nightclubs and I was not some disrespectful ass dude.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
I was brought up by my grandparents, so I have
great upbringing. I was very respectful, very well known individual
in the community. You know, Cavert cave Verty is such
a tight knit community. Everyone knows everyone. I gained popularity
just because of you know, you're blowing money fast, you're
living fast. But I was not like some egotistic dude.
And once fentanyl came into the picture, I became a
(36:41):
slave to fentanyl. And I always say when my master called,
I answer at any cost. So fentanyl stripped me, stripped
me from myself, it stripped me from society. If I
had fentanyl in a pack of new Ports, I didn't
(37:01):
need anyone and I didn't need anything. It was like
a warm blanket in New York winter time.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And what was your family thinking, Like were they aware
of the drug use or were they like, what's going
on with him?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Like my family was like, I don't think that was
not knowledgeable in the extent of the drug use.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
They ain't.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
They knew something was off, and they couldn't pinpoint it
because it's not like I had cousins that was doing it.
It was just me, And I was kind of the
black sheep of the family already, like, oh, pretty, that's
just you know, he sells drugs, he does this, he's
a rock star.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Blah blah blah blah. They couldn't pinpoint it. But I mean,
I mean I was married lost that.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Yeah, I try to run a legitimate life. I opened
a commercial cleaning company. I lost that. I got evicted
from luxury apartments. I used to have an apartment at
the Avalon.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Lost that. You just keep.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Downgrading and downgrading and just giving and given and given.
If you notice, I didn't say that fentanyl robbed me.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I gave it. Yeah, I gave all these things up.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
I gave into my master because I became a slave
to it and peak addiction.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
My name is pretty.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
For God's sake, I could go ten days without taking
a shower, and if I have some acts.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Bout myself, another five days. But you know, so I
became someone that I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, and I can only imagine the lies that you
would tell yourself to make yourself believe that it's not
as bad as it is.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, you would negotiate with yourself like it's not that bad.
It's not that bad. It was bad. It was hell
on earth no one wanted. First of all, I didn't
even go out like that because isolated, now my mental
health is it's done for Right now you're contemplating suicide
(39:24):
and now fear of judgment. You don't know how to
ask for help because people are gonna look at you
like what right, So you deny, deny, deny, deny M
And then Fetnahl brought me to my knees where I
had no more hustle.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah. So I didn't even know how to how I
was gonna get my next fixed. M. It's not like
I was one.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Of those people that could go into a store and
steal something and go sell it because everybody know me.
So you know, my ego was so big, I can't.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
You know, show it.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Pride won't let me show it. So I'm not going
to no stores. Still nothing I did. I'm going to
die on this couch, right, you know. But you start
to try to do this, reach out to this, hey,
let me get forty dollars for whatever you make up.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Lies and this and that, you just run out of options.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Man. To be able to suffer in silence and to
not know that there's a solution, this is the worst
pain any human can go through. Yeah, and me being
a black man, I personally came out with my story
(40:48):
because I know there's so much men and women in
our community that is suffering that does not know that
there's a way out of that situation. Yeah, because I
didn't need to go out and talk about this.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
I didn't. Yeah, but I kept thinking.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
After I got saved from the shackles of addiction, I
started to think back of how lonely I was and
how I wish someone told me, like, hey, there's rehab,
you know, there's professional help, there's resources out there.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But no one told me.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
But I think that's the beauty of when people say
your life is not your own. So it's like, when
you go through all these things, you're not going through
it for you, You're going through it for the next
person to give them hope that they can't too come
out on the other side.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I strongly believe that.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
God did not allow me to go through all those
I mean, I've gone through a lot, right, you know.
Obviously maybe from this interview, people could go see my
other interviews I've done and they could get more in depth.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
To overdose two like three times.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Hell yeah, I've overdosed.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
I've been narcan three times, and none of those times
was the last time. That's the sad thing. Yeah, that's
the insanity that comes with it.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
And you follow Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Was listening to one of them, one of the interviews,
and you were saying how you overdose in your mom's
arm and then when you came back, you saw that
you had socks on, and you was like, oh shit,
So you were back in the bathroom and did another
line or something.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
I'm like, did another line effect on?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah? And I was like wow, Like drugs would really
just have you like.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You gone?
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I mean, listen, Addiction is a disease. Yeah, that is
a fact. No, no one chooses to wake up. And again,
people that hasn't personally gone through it, or lack of
education on this cause, on this situation, won't understand it.
(43:14):
But it's been proven. It's been studied that addiction is
a disease of the mind. The same way a woman
that has breast cancer is not by her choice. Is
the same way me that represents as an addict is
not by my choice. It's a disease of the mind.
The only difference is there's a solution, right, There's a
(43:37):
solution for me today, right, And I live in it
daily And.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
I always tell people.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
That the substance is not the problem, because when you relapse,
you make a sober decision to go back to the substance.
So something that's not in your body cannot be the problem.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah, are you following?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, for sure. No, it's a lack of discipline.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's once you get to that place, it becomes a
daily thing. People tell me like, yo, pretty well, you're
never going to drink again. Because I don't represent this
as an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict, right, but I
haven't touched alcohol for as long as I haven't touched fentanyl.
(44:35):
The last time I did fentanyl was July twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Right, and damn that was doing a pandemic.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, I got I got sober during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
M Yeah, wow, I thought I thought this was earlier.
I didn't five years ago, damn mar Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Yeah, yeah, I just celebrated five years. Like for me,
it's a miracle to not touch fentanel for five years.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I can go three hours. Damn and you're talking five years.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
How do you? How does your family feel? Like do
y'all have conversations about that? Like especially with you and
your mom and you overdose in her arms? Like what
are those conversations?
Speaker 4 (45:28):
Like they reminisced every time I'm around family member. It's somehow,
some way my story ends up coming up. It's like
the topic of the conversation, right, or the conversation of
topic or whatever, and for me to see the pain
that I put him through, but then for me to
(45:50):
see how proud they are the man I am today, right,
because I do a lot. Now, There's so much that
I do that sometimes I'm like, like, a, am.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I really doing this? Do I really?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Like? Because I do so much that my best explanation
is God. Yeah, because I don't. I don't have a
college degree.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
You understand what I'm saying, right, But I'm a business
owner and it's like what right? Like I was stealing
five and a half years ago to get high on
for fentanel mm hmm. And today I employ people like that.
(46:47):
There's no better explanation than God.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah. But let's always say God is always with you, man, Yeah, yeah,
God is always. It could always be a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I remember one of the things I could remember my
uncle preaching was the Bible says, if you have faith
as small as a mustard seed, you can move a
mountain mountain.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
That's a fact.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
And not even.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
Understand it then. But when I began my sobriety journey,
my faith was as small as this must seed. Yeah,
and my accomplishment today is as if I've moved a mountain.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So how did you get into recovery?
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Like?
Speaker 2 (47:35):
What was that?
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Did I introduce you to it?
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Or yeah? Yeah yeah. So I have a childhood best friend, June.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
He lived in Los Angeles, and my family sent me
to Phoenix, Arizona, to a Christian based program. It was
just not a good fit for me. I'm not going
to sit here in bad mouth the place. It was
just not a good fit and I ended up escaping
five days in.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Y'ah. Nigga was like fuck this shit.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, So I escaped five days in and then I
came to Los Angeles. I had never been to Los Angeles.
My childhood best friend June Freedom, who happens to be
a phenomenal singer. He's my favorite artist. By the way,
this is not a shotou or nothing. He's like an
established artist. He's like with Empire and has like a
million monthly listeners. But he was I'm saying all that
(48:30):
to say this. He was like, You're not an addict
like those people. I'm like, no, I'm not. He was
in the middle of like releasing a single or a
music or whatever.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
He was doing.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Took him twenty four hours to find out that I'm
a full blown junkie and I am worse than those
people he thought I was not.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Wait, how did he find it? Was you like stealing
or was you ODM?
Speaker 4 (48:53):
I was not stealing. He had a dog named Ninja.
I'm walking the dog for two hours on some crackhead ship,
on some crackhead ship, because I've never had to score drugs,
regardless of you know, I was always well connected. I
knew somebody and but to walk the street of California
(49:15):
try to find fetanol. Yeah, me and my boy Ninja
down Tarzana, poor Ninja, porn Ninja.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I didn't know what was going on, just going for a.
Speaker 4 (49:26):
Walk, man, I ended up. That's how you know that
when like the devil had.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
My soul.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
The environment, I'll allow myself to be in to score drugs.
You wouldn't pay me enough to go there with a
gun today.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Oh wow? You know it was all bad, just all bad.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
So you he was doing in music. He finally came
to the conclusion that okay, we have a p So
was he the one to introduce you to rehab or no?
Speaker 4 (50:03):
He remembered he had met someone six months prior, and
he remember from conversating with this guy, his name is Gil,
that the guy.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Had been sober for thirty three years.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
And then he called this guy and told them everything
I just told you. The guy said, bring him here
when I got there. I want you to imagine yourself, right,
that you've been living in China for ten years and
(50:36):
no one spoke English, and you do not understand Chinese.
In those ten years, you just in existence in China, right,
and then someone comes and taps your shoulder, Hey, my sister,
how are you after ten years?
Speaker 3 (50:57):
You're like, what? Right?
Speaker 4 (51:00):
What? This guy Gil started to speak to me in
a language that I finally understood. It is a person
that had gone through what I was currently going through.
And then from that day on I took direction from
him thoroughly. I didn't dilute it. If you go to Ikea,
(51:23):
if you notice to have these stages that they have
these nice things, and it's the way that they decorate
the bed and everything that attracts you to it. And
then you go downstairs and you get this box.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
It's like, wait, where's the bed? Like it's in the box.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Got to put it together now.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
It is up to you to follow those directions, and
if you follow those directions thoroughly, you're going to get
the result of the bed that you saw on the
show floor. And I wanted what Gilly had and I've
been taking direction from him since July twenty twenty. Wow,
(52:13):
I went to a rehab called Hubbad Treatment Center. Listen,
there's so much happening in the world today with and
I don't get into politics, I don't get into religion.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Saying, but it's a lot going on.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Though there's a lot going on.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
My opinion of the Jewish community, it is completely different
than what the media is portraying them to be because
they saved my life, they took me into their rehab
and the way they made me felt part of them.
(52:59):
I had been long lost and I look like a
terrorist if you look at me thoroughly. And for these
Jewish people at Habbad to just take me in at
my lowest and.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Just make me feel part of them.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
And Man, I go to so much Shabbat dinners, I
go to so much bar Mitzvah.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
But there are great people.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Man, And it breaks my heart that a lot of
people that have opinion of the Jewish community is solely
based upon the propaganda on social media you follow.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Yeah, And I'm not going to get too deep into it.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
Like I said, I'm just going to say that I
believe if the world are able to get an experience
with the Jewish community, that they will have a different
opinion about them.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think social media and everything that's going
on in the world really plays a role in how
we treat each other. I think that we remove all
of that and get back to what's important, which is love. Yes,
I think the world will be a better place. So
I totally agree with you on that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:24):
So it just breaks my heart that all this hatred
is going on again. I'm not here to discredit what's
happening on the other side. I'm not here to do
none of that. What I'm saying is my experience with
the Jewish community is the complete opposite of what the
media is portraying today. Yeah, and the Habbad community are
(54:49):
amazing people. They are my second. I don't have family
in Los Angeles. Thanksgiving dinner, I go to their house.
Yeah know, it's Hanukah. I'm going to be going there,
you know. I mean, they're my community, and they took
me in when I felt this small my mentor believed
(55:15):
in me when I couldn't believe in myself. Hmm.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
He thought for me when I couldn't think for myself.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
M hmm.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
And he didn't know me. I'm not of his kind.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Yesterday we was having a conversation and we was talking about,
you know, different things. He said, ma'am pretty, I saw
something in you that you was not able to see
in yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
And that's all it takes is somebody to see.
Speaker 3 (55:53):
You, you know what I mean? And Gil is, so.
Speaker 4 (56:02):
How can I put this? Because the way what he
did for me, and the way he would go visit
me at the rehab when I was there, bring me cigarette.
I was a complete stranger to him at that time
and he had only met my boy June one other time.
And he's a very busy individual, right and then, like
(56:27):
I would ask him, how can I ever repay you back?
You know what this guy would.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Say, stay sober, stay sober.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
And just do it for someone else. I'm like, they
gotta be a catch. Yeah, you understand. And guess what today,
I've done it for a lot of someone else's.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, because you owned recovery homes. Now right.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
I own, Yes, I own sober living homes a lot
of people people who don't know this. But I also
own a medical facility.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
I own a.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Detox Oh nice, nice. I remember I called mom about
five months ago. I said, Mom, I said, maybe you
had a dream of me going to college and being
a doctor or a nurse. And I said, unfortunately it
(57:26):
didn't go as planned. I said, but today your son's
in a position that I employed nurses and doctors. And
I didn't say that from my egotistic place. I just
said that so my mom could get an idea of
her son's achievement.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Yeah, you follow.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah, that's so dope.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
It's amazing. I mean five and a half years ago,
give or take, I was stealing to get high.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Today.
Speaker 4 (57:56):
You know, I'm also the brand ambassador of many for
Another detoxes, but I also own one of mine's as well.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
And for you, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yeah, that's dope.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:12):
You know. And to be able to personally see someone
come broken, Yeah, and for me to be that person like, hey,
I know what you're feeling. I've been there. Yeah, if
you do this, it's going to be all right. Because
(58:33):
I'm a living testimony of sobriety.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, and also a living.
Speaker 4 (58:37):
Testimony of a person that's gone through what you're about
to start going through.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
But you are also a physical manifestation of hope, like
people can actually see it.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not no hoax, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (58:53):
No. I always tell people I'm not some guy that
went to Harvard and studied addiction on brain from a
guinea pig. No, I'm the guy that stole to get high.
I'm the guy that did not take showers for ten days,
and if I had acts, I'm going to another five.
Speaker 3 (59:15):
You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
So if I can do it, I believe anyone can
and not anyone, not everyone has to.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
What do I define a success in sobriety?
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Not materialistic stuff, not a business owner, not employing people?
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Inner piece, Yeah, inner piece is priceless.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah. So we're almost finished. But looking back of your
entire life and all the things that you accomplished and
all the things that you're not proud of, what did
forgiveness look like for yourself?
Speaker 3 (59:52):
Forgiveness for myself look like? Wow, that's a deep question.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Have you forgiven yourself?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
I have, okay, but I.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Want to know what it looks like, though, I want
to know how can I articulate the words for you?
It looks like not being so hard on myself anymore,
and it looks like when things get difficult, I'm like,
(01:00:26):
I have the blueprint of like, it's okay, it's temporarily
you're going to get through this. If that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Yeah, And last, but not least, what would you say
to someone who feels trapped in addiction right now?
Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
Mmm, you are not alone. That feeling that you get
from those drugs is its face. There is those Louis
Vautalon bags from Canal Street.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
It is not real.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Facts. I don't care how good it looks.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I don't care how good it looks. Facts, it is
not real.
Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Life is pretty on the opposite side of addiction, and
if you want help, there's resources everywhere and personally on
coming on the twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Six, I have a.
Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
I just got out of a meeting yesterday to where
people are going to be able to go to. Life
is pretty dot com and you're going to be able
to be able to reach out and see how you
could be part of what I have going on?
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
How can I be of service to them?
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Right, because a lot of people, once you search rehab
dot com, you call and like, yeah, fifty thousand dollars,
seventy thousand dollars, like, oh my god, no, I'd rather
continue doing dr Yeah no, but there's resources everywhere out there.
Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
I tell people all the time, addiction is expensive, sobriety
is free.
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Facts, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
So it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
I'm excited for what I got going on and to
share to the world. Coming up in twenty twenty six, sties,
it's going to be a platform that anyone that's out
there struggling and would just go there and they will
have a representative reach out to them and see how
we could be able to help them start their journey
(01:02:39):
of sobriety. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Well, however, I can support it. Definitely keep me posted.
I'm so happy that we were able to make this.
And I always tell people like stories like yours is
the epitome of why I create this platform, because I
always tell people your storyline is someone else's lifeline. So
I appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
I appreciate you for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
Sorry, I took a little bit longer to get to you,
but I believe God moves in mysterious ways. And it
was not on our time, it was in his time.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Absolutely, is there everyone where we can follow you at,
we can support you at when the website's going to
be up.
Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
Yeah, you can follow me at Yo, pretty F. That's
how you know. It was a big little Wayne fan.
Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
When I found you, I was like, Yo, this name.
Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
So hy oh and then p r e t t
y F And that's my Instagram and that's my Twitter,
that's my what's the other? U TikTok? Everything is yo,
pretty F. Or you could just google me pretty Brandy.
(01:03:47):
I'm sure you'll put my name in the description and yeah,
or ask Tragic p T about who Pretty brand Dale
is and they'll just give it to you all over there.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
All right, Well, thank you so much, Pretty bringdeo and
he called you for having me, what some crazy shit.
Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Forgive me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
You've been in this country long enough, stop it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Forgive me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
But if y'all have any questions, comments of concerns, please
make sure to email me at hello at the phgpodcast
dot com. And until next time, everyone, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Love is love. You gonna say bye, y'alla, and thank
you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Pretty Private is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget
to subscribe and rate the show, and you can connect
with me on social media at pretty Private podcast
Host
Eboné Almon
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