September 3, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode of Front Porch Chronicles, I sit down with Brooke Evans (@bareknucklebrooke) to unpack a story of survival, struggle, and strength. We talk about her childhood roots, the years lost in addiction, the breakthrough that turned her life around, and how stepping into the bare-knuckle fight world became a symbol of redemption. Brooke’s journey proves that scars don’t define you — they refine you. Listen in for one of the rawest conversations yet.
#FrontPorchChronicles #BareKnuckleBrooke #AddictionRecovery #FighterMindset #RedemptionStory #KnuckleUp #RealTalkPodcast #PodcastLife #CombatSportsFamily #FightForYourLife #BareKnuckleBoxing #OvercomeAddiction #RecoveryWarrior #FighterSpirit #PodcastCommunity #RawAndReal #bkfc
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-front-porch-chronicles--5999017/support.
🎧 Front Porch Chronicles — real conversations on healing, growth, fatherhood, and fighting through it. ▶️ Full Episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefrontporchchronicles
🤝 Collabs / Booking: (949) 933-4349 • thefrontporchchronicles1@gmail.com
🔔 Subscribe & drop a comment—tell us what hit home.
#FrontPorchChronicles #BareKnuckleBrooke #AddictionRecovery #FighterMindset #RedemptionStory #KnuckleUp #RealTalkPodcast #PodcastLife #CombatSportsFamily #FightForYourLife #BareKnuckleBoxing #OvercomeAddiction #RecoveryWarrior #FighterSpirit #PodcastCommunity #RawAndReal #bkfc
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-front-porch-chronicles--5999017/support.
🎧 Front Porch Chronicles — real conversations on healing, growth, fatherhood, and fighting through it. ▶️ Full Episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefrontporchchronicles
🤝 Collabs / Booking: (949) 933-4349 • thefrontporchchronicles1@gmail.com
🔔 Subscribe & drop a comment—tell us what hit home.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, Front Porch Chronicles. I'm your host, Clinton Fochet,
and this is where we strip away the surface. We
get we're all real and unfiltered with conversations. And today
we have somebody that embodies a fighter in every sense
in the ring, outside the rink, in life. We have
Brooke Evans, you might know on Instagram as bare knuck
(00:25):
or Brook. Thank you so much for coming on and
taking a seat with us on the front Pork.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited
to be on here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Meta. Yeah, let's take it all the way back. Where
are you from? How was your upbringing?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Okay, so I'm from it's like a smaller town Erlinger,
Kentucky is where I was born as close to like Florence.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You know it's not city, but it's not like country necessarily.
But I had I had a good upbringing. You know.
I was born in eighty seven, Okay, so I was
one of the nineties babies. So our upbringing, I feel like,
is a lot of us are a lot similar, like,
you know, running around playing outside. We didn't have social media,
you know, drinking out of the water hoses, all that
stuff you see, you know, just playing and having fun
(01:08):
and just running around the same.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I was born in seventy seven, I'm a little bit older,
but it was the same thing. We didn't have all
of this stuff that the kids have these days. Like
we had to be out of the house in the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm always That's what I'm saying. Parenting was different back then,
you know what I mean, Like everybody's like, just get outside,
go do something and have fun.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Don't come into the street lights. Come home.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, it don't make me fu that's fun. Yeah,
Like I was a tomboy growing up, you know when
I was little and stuff like that, always playing outside
in the dirt and in the mud and getting dirty
and all the animals and riding horses and grew up
with tons of animals and dogs and turtle just anything.
You know. I was an only child, so I had
to like create my own entertainment. You know, a lot
(01:53):
of animals that would pick up and stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I missed that part. I live in southern California now,
but being from originally Alabama, I miss those times and
those things. Like I remember I used to we would
like swim into the water and try to catch the
turtles while they were on the logs out basking the
summer or whatever. I miss those things, and I wish
(02:18):
my kids. I mean, my daughters now they're like n
they're bougie, but my sons. I have two sons, three daughters.
My two sons would be all about it, but my
daughters would be like, no, that water's thirty. I'm not
going remember.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I can even remember, like when we would have big
rains or whatever, and I was, you know, probably third
grade or something. We would go lay out on the
street where the water would all be running down, do
you know what I mean? And like playing all these
mud puddles.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We had read I call it the redneck slipping slide
where we would get the tarps.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
What type of kid were you allow the rules, pushing
the boundaries?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I think when I was like young, I mean like
elementary like I was, I was like follow the rules
kind of, but I wasn't really defying or anything, I
don't think. But I also, at a young age, like
I said, riding the horses and stuff like that, I
was always drawn to like stuff that made me feel tough.
It wasn't that I necessarily want to be cool, but
(03:17):
I wanted to be like tough, you know, and I wanted,
and I can remember that kind of stuff maybe got
me in a little bit of trouble or something, you know,
like tell me I can't do something because I'm too
young or something, so I might go try to do
it or something with one of the horses or something
like that. But when I was really young, I don't
think I was super defiant. That didn't start that part
of me. I guess didn't start till maybe like fifth
(03:39):
grade or later on an elementary school, middle school, stuff
like that when I was like kindergarten, Hang, were you
automatically just like what I grew up?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's funny this is how pro white trash I was.
I grew up like in My full name is Richard Clinton.
So the Richard is after my uncle who got caught
with my mom and my dad selling marijuana large quantity
to an undercover agent. So my mom was like seven
(04:13):
months pregnant with me. So my uncle took the charge
so they as a as a thank you. I guess
name my first name is after him. So he got
paroled like I was three or four. Back then, you know,
you could get parole easier, and he came and lived
with us. So like I remember the I got suspended
(04:36):
the first day in kindergarten, I told somebody to like
suck my d. But that's where I grew up. I
grew up like in in that so to me, like
when I was a kid, thinking back, I remember, like
the kids when I was in like kindergarten, first grade,
the kids would we had a seven or eleven on the corner,
(04:57):
and I remember the kids would be like, Hey, I'll
give you a Crispy Kreme donut if you'll go fight
that kid and literally for a Crispy green.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, now I can.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I view.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was like I was definitely like with the fight,
with getting into it or trying to like intimidate other girls.
Like I'd be like, I'll fight you right now. And
that was at a young age that I was like
third fourth grade, you know, fifth grade. But I think,
like I said, elementary schools when more of my like
partying and experimenting and all that probably came into play
more so. But when I grew up the way I
grew up, like it wasn't talked about, like it just
(05:31):
wasn't that generation like alcoholism, addiction, drug use, like it
wasn't like nobody was like, hey, be careful, you know,
like not that. I don't know if that would have
made a difference, honestly, I mean, I don't know, but
there just wasn't the awareness that there is now about
what can happen, you know, and then talking about genetics
or things that maybe your family kind of has experienced.
(05:53):
But it was so much more hush hush back then,
you know, Like I'm very open with my son.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
General it was general toxicity, right, generational, Yeah, like I
think back, yeah, like we were taught so many Like
there were good times where, like you said, we went
out and we played and we did but there was
also a lot of things that hindered us, I think
because we didn't talk about feelings, emotions, how to deal
(06:23):
with things, how to navigate those things. Because most of
the time, whenever somebody is getting an addiction problem or whatever,
generally they're running from something that they don't want to
deal with or that they can't process. And so what's
the easiest way to not deal with something is use something,
(06:47):
get drunk or use you know, grows. So I'm like you,
with my kids, I'm very open. No, I don't tell
them I don't go down like the rabbit of telling
them how ratchet or how bad things were or at
that time. But I do kind of let them. I've
(07:10):
also learned with my oldest daughter. One of the problems
that I had is because I had a very troubled childhood,
you know, into early adulthood, would overly divulge with her
the world and not really let her live in the world,
(07:31):
if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Very protective, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Because when you Yeah, but I had to learn with her.
I also have to let my kids grow and and
understand that they're not gonna listen to me, whether I
tried to get them to or I try to be
dire need with them. They're not good. They're gonna do
(07:54):
at the end of the day what they want.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You know, if we went back, what would people say
about you as a kid in a.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Cent and stuff? You know, probably that I was like
super sweet. I feel like I was really nice, do
you know what I mean? Yeah, just kind. I was
like nice to everybody. I just I don't know. I
was definitely not a bully or never would I do that.
I would stick up for people that were getting picked
on and stuff like that. I couldn't stand that stuff.
So yeah, probably outgoing. I might have been pretty funny
(08:22):
back then. I think I'm kind of funny now, but
I feel like even then when I was little, But
so yeah, probably just like pretty.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Speaking of kind of addiction, we did all of that
come into play for you? And what do you feel
like push you down that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So I wouldn't say that like I really had like
a certain event or anything that pushed me, because with me,
my thing that happened with me really, I mean, obviously,
if I look back now in hindsight, there's a lot
of things I look back on and I'm like, wow,
that one might have been a red flag. Like I
was like sixth grade, I'm snorting pixy stix. The thing
you can do where you make each other pass out
and you like, you know, like hypervent and then hold
(09:00):
your I'm like front and line like I want to
do it sixteen million times. I remember I was just
talking about this the other day, and when they let
go of me, I obviously passed out right and my
face went all the way across the carpet and it
looked like I had road rash on the side of
my face from the carpet burn or whatever. But so
looking back, you know, I was, yeah, like there was
probably And then even in middle school and I grew
(09:23):
up again, I didn't think anything about partying. I didn't
think partying was a bad thing. I didn't think partying
was going to leave me into anything bad. And in
middle school and stuff is when I really started to like,
you know, drink smoke weed. I would I would tell
my mom I was going to stay here, but I'd
stay somewhere else, and I would go to all the
parties I hung out with, like older kids, and then
(09:44):
that just continued. Now, I did play sports in middle school,
so I played sports all through middle school in high school,
and I really think that that kept me out of
a lot of trouble because at least I had a
goal and I had a group. Yeah balanced me out.
I think I had a had goals and I had
friends from those groups and stuff. But you best believe
in the summer or when I didn't have practice, I mean,
(10:06):
I was partying in high school, partying a lot. I
was drinking like the party one fifty one, you know,
in high school. That way, I didn't have to drink
as many beers to get drunk. So these are all
things that I look back and I'm like, I definitely
just but in my mind I thought I thought I
was just having fun. I thought I was like a partier,
I thought. But I don't think it got really out
(10:27):
of control until after I got out of high school,
because that's when I started like partying on pills and
stuff like that too, So it started. I think it
a little bit more consuming me out of high school.
In anitsa. I think I did get into boxing right
when I graduated, but I can remember, you know, taking
pain pills over the weekend, partying on them. I smoked
(10:48):
cigarettes like the whole time when I first got into
boxing and stuff. So yeah, it uh. I think that's
when it kind of took off a lot of my
traumas and stuff. I guess you could say it was weird.
It was like the deeper I got my addiction, and
the more things were happening, and the deeper deeper I dug. Right,
that's when like crazy crazy stuff started to happen or
things that I had to deal with or whatever. But
(11:09):
I think like initially, like what kind of jump started,
It was just kind of not realizing what I was
getting myself into I know that sounds crazy, but it's
like by the time you're ready to try heroin, you're
already too late. And that's what people don't understand too,
because it's not like you wake up one morning you're like, oh,
I'm gonna try heroin. That wasn't now cocaine, Okay, I'm
not gonna I had to try that out like it
when I was young, Cocaine doesn't sound as scary. Movies
(11:30):
make that look cool, you know what I mean, But
nobody makes heroin look cool. Okay, so it was like
I can't really like I think the first time I
ever tried cocaine was like in high school, and again,
it was just like fun. It's like that adrenaline, you know,
risky thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. You know,
I loved it whatever. But the harder drugs and stuff
like that, you're just digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper,
and everything becomes easier and easier and easier to do.
(11:52):
And it's kind of when you've reached that point, you're
kind of like in a bad spot. You can't probably
stap on.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Your you learn to hate yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Oh god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's like that's where I like, for me, I never
did drugs or alcohol. I mean I shouldn't say never did.
I smoked a whole lot of weed, but like in
any hard drugs, I never really did because I grew
up my dad was an alcoholic and you know, dabbled
in drugs. My mom was a pill head. You know,
(12:27):
she was very smart, woman, has master's degree, teacher, all
of those things, but she was a pill head and
she was a different person at home than what she
was at the schoolhouse.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And so for me, they ever opened about their struggles
and stuff or probably not right, were they ever open
about it?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Or it's like you said, you were taught to shut up,
like you.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Didn't payin you didn't.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It was taboo, and so we were taught the most
fed up things was we were taught you're supposed to
protect family. How do you protect family you don't tell? Well,
for me that was a double edged sword because I
was sexually assaulted by a cousin, right, and so I
didn't even know it happened. It was so traumatic to
(13:15):
me that until I started going to therapy and talking
about all of these things. Then I went to MDR,
and that's when I realized that really actually is Yeah.
And so then once I told, once I found out,
it made sense because for me, I didn't do to you.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Didn't realize you didn't know that until you did the EMDR. Right,
I'm so interested in EMDR and I want to do
it so bad, but a lot of insurances don't cover
you know what I mean. But it's something I would
love to like tap into. Did you did you like it?
I mean, did you think it helped you or did
it like bring up too much that you were like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It one hundred percent helped me because it unearthed. So
for me, I'll kind of give you a backstep. So
for me, I was a whore. Right. I slept with
a lot of women, and it was because I was
taught at the early age to over sexualize myself and
that my only self worth or value was sexual energy. Right.
(14:15):
So I didn't talk about any of these things, some
of which I didn't know, so I was holding on.
So I was constant in fear that if I talk
about things, or if I try to work things out,
then I'm going to have to talk about people that
I was told that I have to protect that I
was told I wasn't supposed to talk about. So MDR
(14:38):
helped me because once I realized that what happened, my
therapist said doesn't make sense, and I said, what she said.
You slept with all these women. You got at least
five kids by three different women. You're a fighter, you
have done all of these. What you deem is manly things.
(14:59):
You were trying to prove your manhood through toxic traits
to mask, right, And so it was good in that
sense because then you get some sort of normalcy because
you can be like, Okay, not any excuse on me
doing those things because.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I didn't make that connection.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You know, yes, because unless you know how you're wired.
And by wired, I mean there's a lot of things
that have happened to us in our lifetime that people
don't all the way realize or they don't know. Hey,
that probably was inappropriate, and it led me down a
path of feeling a certain way. So EDR was good
(15:38):
on that side of it. But you take somebody that
had abandonment issues and all these other issues. My dad
was also very physically and verbally abusive, So you take
somebody who already is kind of their mind is in
chaos and they're constantly in survival mode. And I went
to my mom and I was like, hey, you know
(16:00):
this this happened because it was her uncle's son that
had done it. And so I didn't want to go
tell my mom because I didn't want my mom to
think I'm lying, or because most of the time, generally
when somebody's been sexually assaulted, rape big.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, it's a big thing to try to talk about,
and you have this weird guilt that maybe you know
that it's like maybe it was your There's a lot
that yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And then you're like, if I tell somebody, are they
going to believe? Because what's the first thing that happens
When people come out now and they say, hey, this
happened to me years ago, people are like, well, if
it happened to you, why didn't you say something about
it twenty Yeah, why are you waiting twenty years? And
so like, we have these stereotypes in these taboos that
people hold on to this shit and it's cancrous. And
(16:48):
so I came to my mom and I said, hey,
this happened. You know, I just want to be open
and honest with you. I don't want and she started crying.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
It was over the phone and I'm gonna She's like,
you know, I'm sorry, and I'm like, you know, it's
it's okay. You know, it's not your fault, and she goes,
what I never thought they would do it to a
family member. So basically, you take somebody with all this
already stuff, and then you find out the one person.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Your mom, who's supposed to like protect you and take
care of you and nurture you no matter what, like
because I would die for my kids. People say that,
but I would literally die to protect my kids. And
so MDR was good for me in a lot of ways,
and that honestly ultimately turned out good for me because
(17:37):
it allowed me to further see what the world really
is and be able to see people for who and
what they are, because a lot of times we get
delusional and we feel like if we love somebody, they'll
eventually love us if we do enough for them though eventually,
but at the end of the day, it's all So
(17:59):
have you have you thought about doing the Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I thought about it, Yeah I have. Like I said,
the I know, it's pretty expensive, like the sessions are,
and a lot of insurance doesn't cover it, you know,
But it's something I've looked into. I do do just
regular therapy and stuff like that, and then I work
my program and stuff. But it is something that I
probably will look into in the future because I want
to continue to grow and I want to continue to
work on myself. And it's like a lot of these
(18:23):
behaviors that we have, it's like, where do they come from?
Where do they stem from? I don't even I think
that things like that allow you to uncover little things
like that you know, or big things like that you
know and not like.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
The more that I understand myself allows it helps me
with navigating life because even like in relationships or dating,
I would see a red flag and grow, I would
make that flag everything red flag because again delusional. But
at the end of the day, you finally you live
(19:00):
and you learned and you kind of progress. Was there
ever a rock bottom moment that you were like, hey,
you know, I don't know if I'm coming back from there.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So many, like so many, I'm not kidding, so many,
so many rock bottoms really, and I'm not kidding, you know,
because it was like you hit one rock bottom and
you're like, Wow, this is bad. But everybody knows I'm
on drugs. I knows I'm using heroin. That was the
first time when my uh, I had been I had
been up for a couple of days, and I had
my son at this time. He was he was probably three,
(19:33):
and I wasn't an ivy drug user or anything yet,
but I was. I was using heroin and meth and
all that stuff. Anyway, I guess my uh, my mom
and dad they're not married or anything, but when all
this stuff happened, they kind of had to like work together,
you know. I wake up, My mom and dad are
sitting on the couch and they had gotten in my
(19:54):
wallet because somebody had told him that I was doing
dumbst you know or whatever, and uh he people had
looking out for me. But I don't know what the
people's motives were or whatever. So I wake up and
I walk out there and they're sitting there, and I
look and they got my pack of heroin on the
table that they had gotten on my wallet, you know.
And I'm like and they're like, so what's going on.
(20:15):
I'm like, look, here's the deal. And I was like, so, yeah,
I'm using drugs. Right, and I'm on heroin and I'm like,
but if I don't do that, I'm gonna be really sick.
So I had to like explain them like this dope
sick stuff all that, you know, And they didn't end
up given me that, but they helped me. There's like
different medications to boxine and things like this, yeah medically,
so help. Yeah. They helped me find some suboxone and
(20:37):
stuff like that and took me to some doctors. But
that was like, and I think at that time, I mean,
that's kind of to me that was like a little
bit rock bottomish because I went from party and partying
to here's my family with heroin on the table like
looking at me, like what are you doing? And I'm like, shit,
like okay, how do I explain this? But you know,
it was weird because even then, though I don't know
if I was really ready to be serber yet, I
(20:58):
was thinking that maybe everybody was reacting like you know,
I thought there was a long time that I just
thought that that the only reason my life was unmanageable
is because of my consequences, Like because of these consequences
I was getting. I didn't think it was actually what
I was doing, Like I got to one point where
I was like, I think it's stupid drugs or even illegal,
Like why can't I do what I want to do?
(21:19):
Like that's really how I felt, you know. Yeah, But
there are so many different rock bottoms because you know,
fast forward, I mean, eventually I become an IVY drug user,
so then you can imagine what that looks like. And
losing custody of my son, like the very first time
I ever lost cussy of him, that was like terrible
and traumatic. And but what's messed up is when you
hit these rock bottoms, like especially kind of early on,
(21:40):
it's they it almost makes you use more because it's
this vicious cycle and like not hating myself, you know
what I mean? Yeah, And too it's like here I
am being told like that I can't be around my
son and I can't. And the whole reason I had
lost custody of him any of the times, but the
first time in particular, Oh, it was around that time
(22:01):
that my parents wasn't on the needle or nothing like that.
So I'd gone around to a bunch of different treatment centers.
I was trying to figure I had never been a
rehab or nothing right, So we're kind of like trying
to figure out how this was. Yeah, I had gotten
some sbocks and so I wasn't that sick trying to
do that. We had gone to this doctor that was
a suboxone doctor and it was all the way like
in Lexington, so it's kind of far. What ended up
happening was they took me to this detox place and
(22:24):
I don't know how the system works at this time, right,
I've never been involved with any of this. And the
lady when she did my intake, was like asking me
questions about my son Hunter at this time three three
years old, and I'm doing my intake and I'm not
exactly being nice, okay, cause I'm just like a lot's
going on. Oh my whole world is crumbling around me.
And I'm like and she was like, so I kind
(22:45):
of had a bad attitude, and she was asking me questions.
She's like, so are you high around your son? I'm like,
I'm fucking high every day, Like I have to be
high or I'm sick, you know what I mean. And
really you get to a point where you're not even high, honestly,
you're just getting her self well, like you're just getting
yourself well where you can just function. So I'm telling
her these things, you know, and she's asked me these
(23:06):
questions and she's like, have you ever drove in the
car with your son when you're high? And I'm like,
well again, I'm hot, like I use every day, so
whatever I'm doing that day, that's what I'm doing, right.
So she's just taken notes of all this stuff. And
I ended up leaving the rehab. So I was there
for maybe like five hours, you know, and my mom
and dad are the one who took me, and they
(23:28):
told the They told that woman. They were like, you know,
we have her son. He's fine, he's safe, you know
all that. Don't worry. You know. They were very active.
My grandma, my mom, my dad, They you know, took
care of Hunter when stuff like all that was going on. Well, anyway,
I left and they came back and got me because
I was like, I don't want to stay here. We
got to figure something else out, which I ended up
going to a different rehab and it kind of worked
(23:50):
out for a while. But that woman what happened was
because I left against medical advice because I had said
all that stuff. She called TPS Social Services, and so
within a couple of days, I mean being back home
and we're in the process of figuring out like a
longer term treatment center honestly, like a thirty day place,
and they show up, you know, and it was crazy
(24:13):
because I hadn't used. I really, I hadn't used probably
in four days, four or five days, which is enough
time for heroin and stuff to be out of your system.
But I was so stick that I wasn't up and moving,
so I guess my metabolism wasn't burning it very well.
Long story. They have me go do a drug test
CPS does, and my mom and dad or boy's at
(24:33):
the apartment, Hunters there or whatever. They check, you know,
to make sure everything's clean, blah blah blah. And I
went and tested positive because it was still in my system,
and they took custody, you know, and told me that
I couldn't be around him. And you got thinks to
the system that hasn't been involved in the system, I
don't know anything, and you're telling me that I can't
be around my kid without being monitored, and it was
(24:54):
like it crushed me. And I had it my dog.
So I had my dog Baron at the time, and
I can remember are just crying and being like, they
can't take my dog from me? Can they like my
own son, my child, you know? And it was like
and I mean yes, looking back now, okay again in
hindsight and I can see things and as things progress,
it was the best thing for sure for my mom
(25:15):
and dad and grandma to have him and take care
of him, no doubt my mind. But it's really hard
to comprehend that you're not a piece of shit when
somebody's telling you that you're not allowed to be around
her kid. Do you know what I mean? So you're
telling me I can't be on my child, and it's
like all it made me want to do was like
use more because I was like, obviously I am a
piece of a piece of crap. Then, you know, again
(25:36):
justifying it's not it's not the That's just how I
looked at it at that time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Call it.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, because that was yeah. So that was that was terrible.
I think about you know, you have like a mama
bear out in the woods. You know, this is how
I kept thinking of it. I'm like, you go take her, cub,
I don't care what state that mama bear is in okay,
whether she's making me and like a mess or what,
it's still her baby, right, It's still her child, and
(26:04):
it's it's a terrible, terrible feeling. And I thank god
that like my mom and dad and my grandma were
like the people that stepped up and all that, because
I see that a lot and so sad when people
are struggling with addiction and alcoholism and they don't have
family and there's kids involved. In a lot of time
they go to foster homes, which the truth is, foster
homes are just can be really messed up. Like I
(26:28):
have heard from being in rehabs and jails and all that,
some of these stories, you're just like, wow, you know,
I it's just terrible, absolutely terrible. And that's the foster
you know that the kids are going to.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
What you were going through at the time that you were.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Going probably how much I hated myself, Like how much
I really hated myself, Like it just as hard as
everybody else was being on me, or as everybody was
like disgusted with me and all that, Like I felt
like that about myself times one hundred, you know what
I mean. And then another thing is like for me,
And this is something, this is why I don't do anything.
I'm so protective over my sobriety. Like I don't drink,
(27:02):
I don't smoke weed. I'm completely abstinent because that is
the only way I can stay sober. Some people can
dobble and dabble in all that or just smoke weed
or and that's great, Yeah, but you know what I mean,
some people are like that and like, but I can't.
And I've learned that the hard way over and over. Yeah,
My mom and you know are just like they would
be like why can't you just stop, like just stop?
You know. It's like I can't, you know, I like
(27:23):
couldn't just stop. And it's like if I could, just
if I could have just stopped, I would have, like
before I went to jail, or before I lost Hunter,
all these things like it had just gotten a hold
of me where I couldn't. And that's and I know
that that's how it is. That's why I don't do
anything because I know I don't want to go through
all that shit again to get sober, because it's not
easy to get sober.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It is not, no, and that's the thing where people
don't have enough grace and mercy in the art society
these days where they look at it from like what
you're saying, because again, we have our minds warped of
what we're taught because people think it's just easy. Well yeah,
just stop believe me. It's kind of like boxing or
(28:06):
UFC or whatever. It's like when you watch a fight
with somebody and they're like, oh, why don't he just
get up, ma'am. I'll promise you he does not want
to get hammer fisted in his face.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I know, yeah, I think I could get.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Up, he would get up. You know what, what was
it that really made you say, hey, I've got to change?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Probably before I went So, this is the longest I've
ever been sober. I have a little over six years,
by the way, thank you, thank you so much. But
prior to this, I only I managed to get like
nine months. It's the longest I've ever had before this.
And I think it's important to say that because there's
so many people out there that keep trying, and they
keep trying, they can only get thirty days, forty days whatever.
It's like, all I know is you got to keep
(28:49):
trying because more of them times, you know, what I mean,
It's like I never thought I would get this much
to Fride. I never thought I'd be here, you know.
But anyway I had. I had the nine months that
I was in a long term treatment center where you
go through phases and stuff and you kind of get
more freedoms, but you stay there. But that was the
first time that I really actually wanted to be sober,
and I was like, I really wanted this, and it
was just accumulation of a bunch of stuff prior to
(29:11):
I actually ended up getting promoting contraband charge. I got
some charges and stuff like that. I was on diversion.
I had been Casey log which would we do this
thing In Kentucky you can Casey law where if you
have a family member or a child or something or
that's like using and they're harmed to theirself with the
drugs and all that, you can actually kind of put
some warrant out for them and they have to get
(29:32):
treatment basically. But I mean, I got ca C logs
so many times, like and I would just take off
running and I would whatever. One of the times I
got picked up on the warrant. For the warrant, I
had stuff on me and all that, and I ended
up getting a promoting contraband charge. But long story short,
I think I just kind of got tired. I guess
(29:52):
I got tired of running, and I got tired of
it was like I was running from myself, really, but
everywhere I went there I was okay.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I could be in the bottom of a trap house
apartment trying to find a phone charger, yelling at a
homeless man to hold a flashlight for me while I'm
trying to hit my vein no fear. I don't care.
There had been so much that had happened to me
at this point, I didn't care, you know what I mean,
I didn't care. It's not that I necessarily like wanted
to die because of the love I had for Hunter,
you know what I mean. I think there was there
(30:22):
was something in me I guess that didn't completely want
to give up, right. But at the same time, when
I'd be shooting Heroin and all that, if that was
the one that took me out, it wilso be it,
you know, I just so, I think I just got
to that point. I was just tired. I can remember
somebody had picked me up at this trap house place
and my dad. I was in a UDF bathroom. These
(30:42):
people drop me off and I'm in the bathroom and
I'm still trying to just get another shot, you know,
trying to see what all I got, and I got
everything dumped on the floor and my dad opens the door,
you know, and I'm just sitting there on the floor
and I looked at him and I'm like, I need help.
I was like, I really just need help, Like I
don't want to do this anymore. And I had already
lost at this point. I don't have custody a hunter
(31:03):
at this time, and i'd lost cussy because I would
kind of get stuff together for a little bit and
then mess up. But yeah, I was so when I
went to that treatment center, I really gave it my
all and I really tried, and I was really I
had a different outlook on it. I really wanted it,
you know, I really wanted at that time. And then
I just made some mistakes when I got out. I
(31:23):
had a relapse on diet pills. I had gotten out
of the treatment center, I'd gained a lot of weight,
and I got this job at a kickboxing studio, so
I wanted to be like fit, you know what, I mean,
I'm like I was being an instructor or whatever, and
a friend of mine she had those prescription diet pills.
They're like at of packs. It's kind of like adderall, yeah,
(31:44):
I'm shooting Heroin met crack okay and all that. So
in my mind, I'm like, these little diet pills are
not going to take me back, because in my my
motives were good. My motives were completely I just wanted
to lose some weight, not even joking, like there was
no fiber that still to use right or get high
or whatever. I was happy things were coming together. I
got cussy back of Hunter all that stuff, and I
(32:08):
got some them die pills, and I, no joke, was
snorting them out of a dollar bill by the end
of the night. Like I took a couple of them,
right or it just took them, and then I'm snorting
them have a dollar bill at the end of the night.
And then I was getting met like three days later,
and I'm like, I'm just not going to go back
on the needle. And then I've got the needle, and
then within two and a half weeks, I'm full blown
addiction again. And that was like and as much as
(32:29):
that sucked to like have to have that relapse. And
at that time, I was working a program, I was
doing AA and I'd made like these amends to my son,
and I made these amends like that I wanted that,
I wanted, you know, to do different and I was
going to do better and blah blah blah, and so
so as as shitty as it all was to have
(32:52):
to say, I guess you know, I failed or whatever.
If it wasn't for that happening, I wouldn't have like
just learned that I really can't do anything, do you
know what I mean? Like how how you know?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I don't. I don't think people succeed unless they fail.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, and I don't like.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Negative, but failing like I consider it.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
No, it's like a learning experience. It's like when you
lose a fight. Okay, you lose a fight, right, did
you fail? Like if anything, any of my fights that
I lost or didn't do this or didn't do that,
It's like those are the ones that you learn the
most from. You don't learn as much from like a
fight that you go out there and just wipe the
other person out, when like you learn when you're struggling
and you're trying to figure stuff out, and you learn
(33:36):
by like what doesn't work. You know, honestly, what was.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
The hardest part of recovery for you? Was it the physical,
the mental or emotion?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Probably my perception of myself. So whatever you want to
call that, it's probably a mixture of mental and emotional,
I think, because the physical, believe it or not, physical
is terrible, absolutely terrible. You're sick, you don't want to move,
blah blah blah. But you can, like, you can push
through that, you can get through that, you can medicate
yourself through that. It's what you're left within your brain,
right and what you're thinking and the way you're looking
at yourself in and then two it was like, you know,
(34:10):
for that relapse, I had right on those diet pills
and all that. So I went on that little run
and then I ended up actually in jail. That's when
I got my felony and all that, and I ended
up in jail again. I'd been to jail tons of
different times before, but this time I was in there
for olmost a year. But it was right after that relapse.
And the reason I'm bringing that up is because I'm
so grateful because it was weird. It was like, that
(34:32):
was the first time I think that I really like
made amends to like myself, because I was sitting in
jail and you got and I had gone to a
thirty day place before I had to go turn myself
in because I didn't want to be sick in jail.
So I had thirty days of not using right and
then here I am sitting in jail eventually get sentenced
(34:52):
to SAP program and all that. So it's a lot
of time to like think and reflect, you know, But
it was the first time. It was the first time,
like I ever thought to myself, I'm like, like, what
am I doing to myself? Not so much what am
I doing to everybody else? And not what am I
doing to my son and all that which is all obvious,
but I truly felt it within me. I was like,
why am I doing this to me? Like why do
I hate me so much? And I would think about
(35:15):
me when I was young, and I would think about,
you know, when I was pregnant with my son. I
would think about all these happy things, and it's like,
why am I destroying myself? Like I deserve better for me,
you know, And I never had that thought before ever.
In fact, think about it, like getting out of that
treatment center and thinking I'm fat and need to lose
weight in the diet pills. That's probably still not loving
(35:36):
yourself very much, right, you see what I mean? Like
I think I was always just picking myself apart. I'm
not good enough, I'm not good enough whatever what you know.
But it was like when I was stripped from everything
and I was like in jail and I'm sitting there
and I'm like, I gotta I've got to like love
myself more than this. Like it was weird, but it
wasn't any other motives than just within me. And that's
when they say they're like people will be like and
(35:59):
everybody's different, you know. But sometimes it's like, you know,
you can't just get sober for your son, or you
can't get sober for your family. It's like you really
have to want it for yourself. And it was like
I really understood what that meant. But that was the
hardest part you asked. That was what you asked. You're like,
what's the hardest part of recovery that piece? Because I
don't know where it finally came from, you know, or whatever.
(36:19):
But that's the piece that if you if you can't
eventually yeah, yeah, and don't get a twisted either. I
don't ever think I'm like cured and good, you know
what I mean. Anything could happen, But I do know
that that's been a pivotal turning point in the farther
I've been away from the drugs and the farther I've
been living my life the way I have. It's like, yeah,
(36:42):
it does get easier, Like the option to get high
now is not like it was at thirty forty even
sixty days sober.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, habit habit one way, one way or the other.
Habits are contagious, is yeah. What I like to say,
do you feel like some are there with somebody along
the way they just refuse to give up?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
All you people that a lot of people really uh yeah,
so my I mean, geez, my family they all you know.
And this is another thing, Like it's weird sometimes when
I talk about my recovery, especially in situations like so
when I my meetings and stuff and I give my lead,
it's different, right because you're sharing your experience, strength and
(37:26):
hope to help people, right, But it's we're all on
the same page. We're all in recovery, right, So when
I'm on these platforms, like sometimes I get this weird
like guilt still because I think to myself, like everything
I've put my family through and what the families have
to deal with, do you know what I mean? It's
like because it really because the things I put my mom,
my dad, my grandma, my son, you know, and like,
(37:48):
and they didn't give up on me. They were always there.
But it's like I think sometimes when people there's a stigma,
or sometimes when people are angry at people that are
addicts or alcoholics, maybe they have a family member that
just won't get so has it got sober, and it's
like a deep anger or resentment towards that. You know,
I don't know, does that make sense what I just said,
It's like weird feel it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Makes sense in a flip side to what we're talking
about about you feeling guilty about putting them through that,
think about how amazing you are to choose to recover.
Think about how proud they are of you because the devil,
(38:31):
the devil had you in class and was dragging you down.
And yet yeah, it took peaks and valleys and it
took a lot of shit to get to where you are,
but you chose, and you were choosing to get up
every day and fight the good fight. That as a
(38:52):
you know, your grandparents, your parent whoever, has to feel
good to know that they were part of that journey
with you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, and they because I even was talking to my
mom the other day about it, and I brought this
up and she goes, bro, are you serious. She's like, like,
it is not easy to do what you do and
you're doing like we're you know, but it is. It's
sometimes it's like the further you get away from and
all that, you kind of look back and you're like,
I guess you just start to you're not a selfish
I'm not a selfish. And I can see what I've
(39:22):
put everybody through and I'm able to see these things
and you know, but yeah, so my family they were
there through it all. My sponsor who I had through recovery,
she taught me so much because she was there when
I was in jail. She would do phone calls with me.
When I relapsed. I go over her house, you know
what I mean, and she I mean, there's plenty of
times she hung up on me and was like get
(39:43):
sober and just hung up right because she was hard
to hear my stuff. But so many friends and these
friends and stuff that I made through rehabs and jails
and stuff like that, Like I they're still in my
life today. You know, There's a girl that I was
in jail with in the program who I give her
and her daughter sessions at boxing. You know, friends I've
made that are still supporting me in there and I
(40:06):
support them. And just these like lifelong friendships that I've
made through all that, through all the messiness.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, when you when you look at the old Brook
versus today, what's the biggest shift in the way you
see yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's a self worth, you know, like now, which it
is still it's still struggle, and there's still things that
I deal with and you know, little demons that I
battle with with with that kind of stuff. But yeah,
I just yeah, I don't know. I was so just
lost and I was so everything was so dark, you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Did I did a post it as was on a
podcast last week, somebody Else's podcast, and I said something
in that about exactly what you're talking about. And I
struggle every day with the self worth side of it.
I was told so much that I would never be
this or never be that. Even to this day, I've
won world championships, I've won Pan American championships, I've won things.
(41:07):
But for me, in my mind, everybody's like, oh, you're
so good. In my mind, I never think. I'm always like, oh, yeah,
that's cool. But I could have, you know whatever. So
it's a constant struggle to do that. So I know
you previously had done boxing before, what made you shift
(41:27):
to bear knock.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Because the opportunity presented itself. So I so here in
the past like two years, I guess that I've been
pro boxing. So I think I don't have some stellar
amateur background. I have plenty of amateur fights and stuff,
but it's not like I'm like some Olympic you know,
or you know was doing it. You know. I just
didn't have that kind of backing, right. So, like when
(41:50):
I turned row, so a lot of the opportunities I
was getting, It's like, you know, you're going against someone
that it's their promotion, it's their hometown, you know, and
you're you got to look out for yourself a little bit,
you know, the business side, I guess of pro boxing.
So I was kind of in the process of like
navigating that because in my mind my goal for my
pro boxing this was my goal, my original goal, Well,
(42:12):
I wanted to turn pro, and then I was like, okay,
once I turned pro, I want to I wanted to
just have a cool experience. I wanted to like maybe
get to fight on ESPN Plus or like you know,
like some big stage. That was what I was thinking.
So I was trying to navigate how to get my
self where I could be in a position to do that, okay,
which it wasn't very easy. Right and right around all
(42:35):
the time, I had somebody reach out to me who
he's he's kind of my manager now and he like
helps me out with everything. Tyler Pauls. He reached out
to me through social media and was like, have you
ever thought of Bare Knuckle the BKFC. And I didn't
even believe him at first. I was like, yeah, okay, whatever, Yeah,
and he's like telling me this stuff and I get
to talk one with him, and long story short, like
(42:57):
it was all true, and I got to be on
like a phone call with him and David Feldman and
you know, all these things and I was like, no, way,
Like this is a like cool opportunity and I'm thirty eight.
I would be crazy not to take it. Yeah, and
it's what it's a it's a it'll be an awesome
experience and think that I want to use it all
for the good. I want to maybe start like a
(43:18):
nonprofit things like that, And I feel like on a
platform like this, I'll have that ability, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, let me ask you, do you feel like finding
this therapy to you?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Sure? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:28):
What message do you hope, especially young women take away
from your story when they see you.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Find you know you can do anything you want to
do and like, you know, don't don't give up on things,
like you can do anything you put your mind to it.
I think I'm thirty eight, I'm a single mom, I work,
I support me and my son. I'm in recovery, you know,
I'm a woman that's out here and I'm trying to
make my way, like in a like good, honest, genuine way.
(43:58):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Very good at reading people. They're very powerful in a
way that you don't even really know. To go through
what you went through and to have the strength to
choose to recover and choose to wake up each day,
because it's a struggle choose to wake up each day
(44:20):
and do the right thing when the easy way is
to go the opposite way. That is strong and that
is powerful, and not just women, but anybody. Yeah that
sees that would know you are a lion.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
This for that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Really.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You know you've got a fight coming up? When when
is that?
Speaker 2 (44:49):
It's October eighteenth, so it's soon. I got the seven weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Sweet. Where are you fighting at?
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It's going to be Hammond, Indiana at the Horseshoe Casino.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah. My my nephew live on the border of like
Louisville and it's technically Indiana, but like he lives like
right over the border, so I know about it.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Okay, this is close to Yeah, this is like close
to Chicago.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, right on the border. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
What is different about broke walking into you walking in
to fights?
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Before I'll tell you that something that's different is like
I'm just so okay, I am so grateful to have
this opportunity, right, and I'm so grateful for this experience.
So I'm coming from this place where it's like I
am so like just happy to be there and like
and I know that no matter what it's gonna be,
it's gonna be great, you know what I mean, no
(45:42):
matter what happens. And let me just tell you though,
because I think that that's a very good place for
me to be, because you know, having that fear of like, oh,
I of course, like I hope I do good. I
want to win. Okay, there is all that, right, but
sometimes that pressure can break you down. Okay, So to
come from a place that you're just pumped to be
there and you're like, this is gonna be fucking awesome, right,
(46:02):
Like that's when I fight good. That's when I do
things good, you know what I mean, Like just you're free. Yeah, yeah,
you get what I mean. Like I'm like, whatever happens, happens,
Like here I am, this is great, this is awesome.
It's gonna be fun. You know. After it's never the
nerves and stuff going or not during or never fun,
but after it's always a relief. You're like, Okay, I
(46:25):
did that always.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I had two amateur NA fights, and I remember my
first fight. I came over after round one, well, I said,
I remember, I don't remember, but they said I came
over after round one and said, are we done yet?
I ended up winning, but it was like people don't
understand like the why yeah stuff that goes into it
when fans tune in to your fight. What did you
(46:49):
want them to.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
See somebody that knows how to fight? Because I knew
I know how to fight. I have I have like technique,
and I train. I train like I trained my ass off,
you know, and I'm always going and getting sparring here
and sparring there, and with these women life. If there
is a high level woman or girl or where anywhere
near me, I'm going and getting work with her. You know.
I try to train like these people that and you know,
(47:13):
I have really worked hard to get this like technique
and the ring IQ and all that. So that mixed
with just my natural aggression and my natural just hit me.
I'm gonna hitch it ten times harder, about sixteen more times, right,
like mixed with that, right because I had to find
a balance because the early me fighting was very much
(47:34):
just like now I'm standing and we're training, right, and
it's like now it's like head movement, you know your range,
your distance? What do we were just so much more right, So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
I'm the same. If you could sit with younger B
before she turned to the drugs, what would you.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Tell her now makes me want to cry. I don't know.
Probably I probably just say you're gonna be really proud
of yourself. One day.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
You're gonna make me cry. I'm proud of you. Thank
you to go through it, to go through what you've
been through and to choose yourself and to choose to
do the good thing.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Is very very, very very hard and got me cracking up.
I'm very proud of I know. This is the first
time we talked, but I kind of followed your journey
because I vet it kind of you beforehand. But I
think your story and the light that you are. Every
time that you second guess or doubt yourself and your
(48:40):
self worth, know that there's so many people that are
watching you you and your story and are grateful for
the person that you are.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Thank you so much. That means a lot. And my son,
I'll tell you what he looks up to me so much,
you know, and everything we've been through in that that's
something else that's like, I'm so grateful for my relationship
with him, and it's such a beautiful thing that's come
from a lot.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
I love, I love it. I love like Wow, I
could feel the power in your story and who you
are and watching your son, So it's powerful, you know. Yeah,
legacy is a word that's thrown around a lot. What
do you help your.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, I've been I was asked this somewhere else and
I can remember I talked about and touched on. It's
like legacy to me is like what kind of person
are you? Are you? Like, what kind of person are you? What?
What are you doing to help others? And how I
am with my son okay, and how I'm trying to
raise him, and how I'm showing him that even having struggles,
(49:46):
even all these things, like you can still keep pushing forward.
I try to instill like to be honest and genuine
and all these things. And like I said, what are
because like, okay, if I can do the nonprofit and
give back to others, and and that's what legacy is
to me. It's it's what kind of mom I am
(50:06):
because my son will be the next generation, right, and
what kind of man am I raising? Right? And people
can look at my story or people can think that God,
you know everything that he had to go through. But
he is such an amazing kid, you know, And I
think that if he wouldn't have seen some of the struggles,
you know, maybe he wouldn't have the outlooks he has,
you know. But I really think it's just, yeah, what
(50:28):
kind of mom I am, How I'm raising him, and
how I'm treating others, and what I'm doing for other
and what I'm putting out in the world just in general,
Just what do you put out?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Resilient, grit, determination, powerful, like all of these things instantly
pop in, you know. I want to thank you so
much for coming here and sitting down.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I don't cry very much.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Maybe look you see look pride to I've got I've
got a meeting it up. They're gonna be like, what
the hell's wrong with you? I have?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
And look I have the ugliest cry face because I
don't cry, so I try to hold it in. And
my face I was over here.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Look, my lip was trembling. I knew it was coming
to my lip was my lip was. But I thank
you so much for being the person that you are,
coming on and sharing your story. It's going to be
a light to a lot of people. Thank you in
and being the light you are. I'm always here. Anything
(51:33):
that you need, you got my personal number now, anything
that you need text or call me. I mean that
from the heart. I'm always here and you're always welcome.
You're always welcome on the front porch, and I'll definitely
me and my family will be cheering for you.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
At your five eighteenth ye two weeks for my birthday.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Thank you so much, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I'll see you bight.
Welcome back, Front Porch Chronicles. I'm your host, Clinton Fochet,
and this is where we strip away the surface. We
get we're all real and unfiltered with conversations. And today
we have somebody that embodies a fighter in every sense
in the ring, outside the rink, in life. We have
Brooke Evans, you might know on Instagram as bare knuck
(00:25):
or Brook. Thank you so much for coming on and
taking a seat with us on the front Pork.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited
to be on here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Meta. Yeah, let's take it all the way back. Where
are you from? How was your upbringing?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Okay, so I'm from it's like a smaller town Erlinger,
Kentucky is where I was born as close to like Florence.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You know it's not city, but it's not like country necessarily.
But I had I had a good upbringing. You know.
I was born in eighty seven, Okay, so I was
one of the nineties babies. So our upbringing, I feel like,
is a lot of us are a lot similar, like,
you know, running around playing outside. We didn't have social media,
you know, drinking out of the water hoses, all that
stuff you see, you know, just playing and having fun
(01:08):
and just running around the same.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I was born in seventy seven, I'm a little bit older,
but it was the same thing. We didn't have all
of this stuff that the kids have these days. Like
we had to be out of the house in the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm always That's what I'm saying. Parenting was different back then,
you know what I mean, Like everybody's like, just get outside,
go do something and have fun.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Don't come into the street lights. Come home.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, it don't make me fu that's fun. Yeah,
Like I was a tomboy growing up, you know when
I was little and stuff like that, always playing outside
in the dirt and in the mud and getting dirty
and all the animals and riding horses and grew up
with tons of animals and dogs and turtle just anything.
You know. I was an only child, so I had
to like create my own entertainment. You know, a lot
(01:53):
of animals that would pick up and stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I missed that part. I live in southern California now,
but being from originally Alabama, I miss those times and
those things. Like I remember I used to we would
like swim into the water and try to catch the
turtles while they were on the logs out basking the
summer or whatever. I miss those things, and I wish
(02:18):
my kids. I mean, my daughters now they're like n
they're bougie, but my sons. I have two sons, three daughters.
My two sons would be all about it, but my
daughters would be like, no, that water's thirty. I'm not
going remember.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I can even remember, like when we would have big
rains or whatever, and I was, you know, probably third
grade or something. We would go lay out on the
street where the water would all be running down, do
you know what I mean? And like playing all these
mud puddles.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We had read I call it the redneck slipping slide
where we would get the tarps.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
What type of kid were you allow the rules, pushing
the boundaries?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I think when I was like young, I mean like
elementary like I was, I was like follow the rules
kind of, but I wasn't really defying or anything, I
don't think. But I also, at a young age, like
I said, riding the horses and stuff like that, I
was always drawn to like stuff that made me feel tough.
It wasn't that I necessarily want to be cool, but
(03:17):
I wanted to be like tough, you know, and I wanted,
and I can remember that kind of stuff maybe got
me in a little bit of trouble or something, you know,
like tell me I can't do something because I'm too
young or something, so I might go try to do
it or something with one of the horses or something
like that. But when I was really young, I don't
think I was super defiant. That didn't start that part
of me. I guess didn't start till maybe like fifth
(03:39):
grade or later on an elementary school, middle school, stuff
like that when I was like kindergarten, Hang, were you
automatically just like what I grew up?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's funny this is how pro white trash I was.
I grew up like in My full name is Richard Clinton.
So the Richard is after my uncle who got caught
with my mom and my dad selling marijuana large quantity
to an undercover agent. So my mom was like seven
(04:13):
months pregnant with me. So my uncle took the charge
so they as a as a thank you. I guess
name my first name is after him. So he got
paroled like I was three or four. Back then, you know,
you could get parole easier, and he came and lived
with us. So like I remember the I got suspended
(04:36):
the first day in kindergarten, I told somebody to like
suck my d. But that's where I grew up. I
grew up like in in that so to me, like
when I was a kid, thinking back, I remember, like
the kids when I was in like kindergarten, first grade,
the kids would we had a seven or eleven on the corner,
(04:57):
and I remember the kids would be like, Hey, I'll
give you a Crispy Kreme donut if you'll go fight
that kid and literally for a Crispy green.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, now I can.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I view.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was like I was definitely like with the fight,
with getting into it or trying to like intimidate other girls.
Like I'd be like, I'll fight you right now. And
that was at a young age that I was like
third fourth grade, you know, fifth grade. But I think,
like I said, elementary schools when more of my like
partying and experimenting and all that probably came into play
more so. But when I grew up the way I
grew up, like it wasn't talked about, like it just
(05:31):
wasn't that generation like alcoholism, addiction, drug use, like it
wasn't like nobody was like, hey, be careful, you know,
like not that. I don't know if that would have
made a difference, honestly, I mean, I don't know, but
there just wasn't the awareness that there is now about
what can happen, you know, and then talking about genetics
or things that maybe your family kind of has experienced.
(05:53):
But it was so much more hush hush back then,
you know, Like I'm very open with my son.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
General it was general toxicity, right, generational, Yeah, like I
think back, yeah, like we were taught so many Like
there were good times where, like you said, we went
out and we played and we did but there was
also a lot of things that hindered us, I think
because we didn't talk about feelings, emotions, how to deal
(06:23):
with things, how to navigate those things. Because most of
the time, whenever somebody is getting an addiction problem or whatever,
generally they're running from something that they don't want to
deal with or that they can't process. And so what's
the easiest way to not deal with something is use something,
(06:47):
get drunk or use you know, grows. So I'm like you,
with my kids, I'm very open. No, I don't tell
them I don't go down like the rabbit of telling
them how ratchet or how bad things were or at
that time. But I do kind of let them. I've
(07:10):
also learned with my oldest daughter. One of the problems
that I had is because I had a very troubled childhood,
you know, into early adulthood, would overly divulge with her
the world and not really let her live in the world,
(07:31):
if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Very protective, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Because when you Yeah, but I had to learn with her.
I also have to let my kids grow and and
understand that they're not gonna listen to me, whether I
tried to get them to or I try to be
dire need with them. They're not good. They're gonna do
(07:54):
at the end of the day what they want.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You know, if we went back, what would people say
about you as a kid in a.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Cent and stuff? You know, probably that I was like
super sweet. I feel like I was really nice, do
you know what I mean? Yeah, just kind. I was
like nice to everybody. I just I don't know. I
was definitely not a bully or never would I do that.
I would stick up for people that were getting picked
on and stuff like that. I couldn't stand that stuff.
So yeah, probably outgoing. I might have been pretty funny
(08:22):
back then. I think I'm kind of funny now, but
I feel like even then when I was little, But
so yeah, probably just like pretty.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Speaking of kind of addiction, we did all of that
come into play for you? And what do you feel
like push you down that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So I wouldn't say that like I really had like
a certain event or anything that pushed me, because with me,
my thing that happened with me really, I mean, obviously,
if I look back now in hindsight, there's a lot
of things I look back on and I'm like, wow,
that one might have been a red flag. Like I
was like sixth grade, I'm snorting pixy stix. The thing
you can do where you make each other pass out
and you like, you know, like hypervent and then hold
(09:00):
your I'm like front and line like I want to
do it sixteen million times. I remember I was just
talking about this the other day, and when they let
go of me, I obviously passed out right and my
face went all the way across the carpet and it
looked like I had road rash on the side of
my face from the carpet burn or whatever. But so
looking back, you know, I was, yeah, like there was
probably And then even in middle school and I grew
(09:23):
up again, I didn't think anything about partying. I didn't
think partying was a bad thing. I didn't think partying
was going to leave me into anything bad. And in
middle school and stuff is when I really started to like,
you know, drink smoke weed. I would I would tell
my mom I was going to stay here, but I'd
stay somewhere else, and I would go to all the
parties I hung out with, like older kids, and then
(09:44):
that just continued. Now, I did play sports in middle school,
so I played sports all through middle school in high school,
and I really think that that kept me out of
a lot of trouble because at least I had a
goal and I had a group. Yeah balanced me out.
I think I had a had goals and I had
friends from those groups and stuff. But you best believe
in the summer or when I didn't have practice, I mean,
(10:06):
I was partying in high school, partying a lot. I
was drinking like the party one fifty one, you know,
in high school. That way, I didn't have to drink
as many beers to get drunk. So these are all
things that I look back and I'm like, I definitely
just but in my mind I thought I thought I
was just having fun. I thought I was like a partier,
I thought. But I don't think it got really out
(10:27):
of control until after I got out of high school,
because that's when I started like partying on pills and
stuff like that too, So it started. I think it
a little bit more consuming me out of high school.
In anitsa. I think I did get into boxing right
when I graduated, but I can remember, you know, taking
pain pills over the weekend, partying on them. I smoked
(10:48):
cigarettes like the whole time when I first got into
boxing and stuff. So yeah, it uh. I think that's
when it kind of took off a lot of my
traumas and stuff. I guess you could say it was weird.
It was like the deeper I got my addiction, and
the more things were happening, and the deeper deeper I dug. Right,
that's when like crazy crazy stuff started to happen or
things that I had to deal with or whatever. But
(11:09):
I think like initially, like what kind of jump started,
It was just kind of not realizing what I was
getting myself into I know that sounds crazy, but it's
like by the time you're ready to try heroin, you're
already too late. And that's what people don't understand too,
because it's not like you wake up one morning you're like, oh,
I'm gonna try heroin. That wasn't now cocaine, Okay, I'm
not gonna I had to try that out like it
when I was young, Cocaine doesn't sound as scary. Movies
(11:30):
make that look cool, you know what I mean, But
nobody makes heroin look cool. Okay, so it was like
I can't really like I think the first time I
ever tried cocaine was like in high school, and again,
it was just like fun. It's like that adrenaline, you know,
risky thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. You know,
I loved it whatever. But the harder drugs and stuff
like that, you're just digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper,
and everything becomes easier and easier and easier to do.
(11:52):
And it's kind of when you've reached that point, you're
kind of like in a bad spot. You can't probably
stap on.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Your you learn to hate yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Oh god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's like that's where I like, for me, I never
did drugs or alcohol. I mean I shouldn't say never did.
I smoked a whole lot of weed, but like in
any hard drugs, I never really did because I grew
up my dad was an alcoholic and you know, dabbled
in drugs. My mom was a pill head. You know,
(12:27):
she was very smart, woman, has master's degree, teacher, all
of those things, but she was a pill head and
she was a different person at home than what she
was at the schoolhouse.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And so for me, they ever opened about their struggles
and stuff or probably not right, were they ever open
about it?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Or it's like you said, you were taught to shut up,
like you.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Didn't payin you didn't.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It was taboo, and so we were taught the most
fed up things was we were taught you're supposed to
protect family. How do you protect family you don't tell? Well,
for me that was a double edged sword because I
was sexually assaulted by a cousin, right, and so I
didn't even know it happened. It was so traumatic to
(13:15):
me that until I started going to therapy and talking
about all of these things. Then I went to MDR,
and that's when I realized that really actually is Yeah.
And so then once I told, once I found out,
it made sense because for me, I didn't do to you.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Didn't realize you didn't know that until you did the EMDR. Right,
I'm so interested in EMDR and I want to do
it so bad, but a lot of insurances don't cover
you know what I mean. But it's something I would
love to like tap into. Did you did you like it?
I mean, did you think it helped you or did
it like bring up too much that you were like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It one hundred percent helped me because it unearthed. So
for me, I'll kind of give you a backstep. So
for me, I was a whore. Right. I slept with
a lot of women, and it was because I was
taught at the early age to over sexualize myself and
that my only self worth or value was sexual energy. Right.
(14:15):
So I didn't talk about any of these things, some
of which I didn't know, so I was holding on.
So I was constant in fear that if I talk
about things, or if I try to work things out,
then I'm going to have to talk about people that
I was told that I have to protect that I
was told I wasn't supposed to talk about. So MDR
(14:38):
helped me because once I realized that what happened, my
therapist said doesn't make sense, and I said, what she said.
You slept with all these women. You got at least
five kids by three different women. You're a fighter, you
have done all of these. What you deem is manly things.
(14:59):
You were trying to prove your manhood through toxic traits
to mask, right, And so it was good in that
sense because then you get some sort of normalcy because
you can be like, Okay, not any excuse on me
doing those things because.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I didn't make that connection.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You know, yes, because unless you know how you're wired.
And by wired, I mean there's a lot of things
that have happened to us in our lifetime that people
don't all the way realize or they don't know. Hey,
that probably was inappropriate, and it led me down a
path of feeling a certain way. So EDR was good
(15:38):
on that side of it. But you take somebody that
had abandonment issues and all these other issues. My dad
was also very physically and verbally abusive, So you take
somebody who already is kind of their mind is in
chaos and they're constantly in survival mode. And I went
to my mom and I was like, hey, you know
(16:00):
this this happened because it was her uncle's son that
had done it. And so I didn't want to go
tell my mom because I didn't want my mom to
think I'm lying, or because most of the time, generally
when somebody's been sexually assaulted, rape big.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, it's a big thing to try to talk about,
and you have this weird guilt that maybe you know
that it's like maybe it was your There's a lot
that yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And then you're like, if I tell somebody, are they
going to believe? Because what's the first thing that happens
When people come out now and they say, hey, this
happened to me years ago, people are like, well, if
it happened to you, why didn't you say something about
it twenty Yeah, why are you waiting twenty years? And
so like, we have these stereotypes in these taboos that
people hold on to this shit and it's cancrous. And
(16:48):
so I came to my mom and I said, hey,
this happened. You know, I just want to be open
and honest with you. I don't want and she started crying.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
It was over the phone and I'm gonna She's like,
you know, I'm sorry, and I'm like, you know, it's
it's okay. You know, it's not your fault, and she goes,
what I never thought they would do it to a
family member. So basically, you take somebody with all this
already stuff, and then you find out the one person.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Your mom, who's supposed to like protect you and take
care of you and nurture you no matter what, like
because I would die for my kids. People say that,
but I would literally die to protect my kids. And
so MDR was good for me in a lot of ways,
and that honestly ultimately turned out good for me because
(17:37):
it allowed me to further see what the world really
is and be able to see people for who and
what they are, because a lot of times we get
delusional and we feel like if we love somebody, they'll
eventually love us if we do enough for them though eventually,
but at the end of the day, it's all So
(17:59):
have you have you thought about doing the Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I thought about it, Yeah I have. Like I said,
the I know, it's pretty expensive, like the sessions are,
and a lot of insurance doesn't cover it, you know,
But it's something I've looked into. I do do just
regular therapy and stuff like that, and then I work
my program and stuff. But it is something that I
probably will look into in the future because I want
to continue to grow and I want to continue to
work on myself. And it's like a lot of these
(18:23):
behaviors that we have, it's like, where do they come from?
Where do they stem from? I don't even I think
that things like that allow you to uncover little things
like that you know, or big things like that you
know and not like.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
The more that I understand myself allows it helps me
with navigating life because even like in relationships or dating,
I would see a red flag and grow, I would
make that flag everything red flag because again delusional. But
at the end of the day, you finally you live
(19:00):
and you learned and you kind of progress. Was there
ever a rock bottom moment that you were like, hey,
you know, I don't know if I'm coming back from there.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So many, like so many, I'm not kidding, so many,
so many rock bottoms really, and I'm not kidding, you know,
because it was like you hit one rock bottom and
you're like, Wow, this is bad. But everybody knows I'm
on drugs. I knows I'm using heroin. That was the
first time when my uh, I had been I had
been up for a couple of days, and I had
my son at this time. He was he was probably three,
(19:33):
and I wasn't an ivy drug user or anything yet,
but I was. I was using heroin and meth and
all that stuff. Anyway, I guess my uh, my mom
and dad they're not married or anything, but when all
this stuff happened, they kind of had to like work together,
you know. I wake up, My mom and dad are
sitting on the couch and they had gotten in my
(19:54):
wallet because somebody had told him that I was doing
dumbst you know or whatever, and uh he people had
looking out for me. But I don't know what the
people's motives were or whatever. So I wake up and
I walk out there and they're sitting there, and I
look and they got my pack of heroin on the
table that they had gotten on my wallet, you know.
And I'm like and they're like, so what's going on.
(20:15):
I'm like, look, here's the deal. And I was like, so, yeah,
I'm using drugs. Right, and I'm on heroin and I'm like,
but if I don't do that, I'm gonna be really sick.
So I had to like explain them like this dope
sick stuff all that, you know, And they didn't end
up given me that, but they helped me. There's like
different medications to boxine and things like this, yeah medically,
so help. Yeah. They helped me find some suboxone and
(20:37):
stuff like that and took me to some doctors. But
that was like, and I think at that time, I mean,
that's kind of to me that was like a little
bit rock bottomish because I went from party and partying
to here's my family with heroin on the table like
looking at me, like what are you doing? And I'm like, shit,
like okay, how do I explain this? But you know,
it was weird because even then, though I don't know
if I was really ready to be serber yet, I
(20:58):
was thinking that maybe everybody was reacting like you know,
I thought there was a long time that I just
thought that that the only reason my life was unmanageable
is because of my consequences, Like because of these consequences
I was getting. I didn't think it was actually what
I was doing, Like I got to one point where
I was like, I think it's stupid drugs or even illegal,
Like why can't I do what I want to do?
(21:19):
Like that's really how I felt, you know. Yeah, But
there are so many different rock bottoms because you know,
fast forward, I mean, eventually I become an IVY drug user,
so then you can imagine what that looks like. And
losing custody of my son, like the very first time
I ever lost cussy of him, that was like terrible
and traumatic. And but what's messed up is when you
hit these rock bottoms, like especially kind of early on,
(21:40):
it's they it almost makes you use more because it's
this vicious cycle and like not hating myself, you know
what I mean? Yeah, And too it's like here I
am being told like that I can't be around my
son and I can't. And the whole reason I had
lost custody of him any of the times, but the
first time in particular, Oh, it was around that time
(22:01):
that my parents wasn't on the needle or nothing like that.
So I'd gone around to a bunch of different treatment centers.
I was trying to figure I had never been a
rehab or nothing right, So we're kind of like trying
to figure out how this was. Yeah, I had gotten
some sbocks and so I wasn't that sick trying to
do that. We had gone to this doctor that was
a suboxone doctor and it was all the way like
in Lexington, so it's kind of far. What ended up
happening was they took me to this detox place and
(22:24):
I don't know how the system works at this time, right,
I've never been involved with any of this. And the
lady when she did my intake, was like asking me
questions about my son Hunter at this time three three
years old, and I'm doing my intake and I'm not
exactly being nice, okay, cause I'm just like a lot's
going on. Oh my whole world is crumbling around me.
And I'm like and she was like, so I kind
(22:45):
of had a bad attitude, and she was asking me questions.
She's like, so are you high around your son? I'm like,
I'm fucking high every day, Like I have to be
high or I'm sick, you know what I mean. And
really you get to a point where you're not even high, honestly,
you're just getting her self well, like you're just getting
yourself well where you can just function. So I'm telling
her these things, you know, and she's asked me these
(23:06):
questions and she's like, have you ever drove in the
car with your son when you're high? And I'm like,
well again, I'm hot, like I use every day, so
whatever I'm doing that day, that's what I'm doing, right.
So she's just taken notes of all this stuff. And
I ended up leaving the rehab. So I was there
for maybe like five hours, you know, and my mom
and dad are the one who took me, and they
(23:28):
told the They told that woman. They were like, you know,
we have her son. He's fine, he's safe, you know
all that. Don't worry. You know. They were very active.
My grandma, my mom, my dad, They you know, took
care of Hunter when stuff like all that was going on. Well, anyway,
I left and they came back and got me because
I was like, I don't want to stay here. We
got to figure something else out, which I ended up
going to a different rehab and it kind of worked
(23:50):
out for a while. But that woman what happened was
because I left against medical advice because I had said
all that stuff. She called TPS Social Services, and so
within a couple of days, I mean being back home
and we're in the process of figuring out like a
longer term treatment center honestly, like a thirty day place,
and they show up, you know, and it was crazy
(24:13):
because I hadn't used. I really, I hadn't used probably
in four days, four or five days, which is enough
time for heroin and stuff to be out of your system.
But I was so stick that I wasn't up and moving,
so I guess my metabolism wasn't burning it very well.
Long story. They have me go do a drug test
CPS does, and my mom and dad or boy's at
(24:33):
the apartment, Hunters there or whatever. They check, you know,
to make sure everything's clean, blah blah blah. And I
went and tested positive because it was still in my system,
and they took custody, you know, and told me that
I couldn't be around him. And you got thinks to
the system that hasn't been involved in the system, I
don't know anything, and you're telling me that I can't
be around my kid without being monitored, and it was
(24:54):
like it crushed me. And I had it my dog.
So I had my dog Baron at the time, and
I can remember are just crying and being like, they
can't take my dog from me? Can they like my
own son, my child, you know? And it was like
and I mean yes, looking back now, okay again in
hindsight and I can see things and as things progress,
it was the best thing for sure for my mom
(25:15):
and dad and grandma to have him and take care
of him, no doubt my mind. But it's really hard
to comprehend that you're not a piece of shit when
somebody's telling you that you're not allowed to be around
her kid. Do you know what I mean? So you're
telling me I can't be on my child, and it's
like all it made me want to do was like
use more because I was like, obviously I am a
piece of a piece of crap. Then, you know, again
(25:36):
justifying it's not it's not the That's just how I
looked at it at that time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Call it.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, because that was yeah. So that was that was terrible.
I think about you know, you have like a mama
bear out in the woods. You know, this is how
I kept thinking of it. I'm like, you go take her, cub,
I don't care what state that mama bear is in okay,
whether she's making me and like a mess or what,
it's still her baby, right, It's still her child, and
(26:04):
it's it's a terrible, terrible feeling. And I thank god
that like my mom and dad and my grandma were
like the people that stepped up and all that, because
I see that a lot and so sad when people
are struggling with addiction and alcoholism and they don't have
family and there's kids involved. In a lot of time
they go to foster homes, which the truth is, foster
homes are just can be really messed up. Like I
(26:28):
have heard from being in rehabs and jails and all that,
some of these stories, you're just like, wow, you know,
I it's just terrible, absolutely terrible. And that's the foster
you know that the kids are going to.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
What you were going through at the time that you were.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Going probably how much I hated myself, Like how much
I really hated myself, Like it just as hard as
everybody else was being on me, or as everybody was
like disgusted with me and all that, Like I felt
like that about myself times one hundred, you know what
I mean. And then another thing is like for me,
And this is something, this is why I don't do anything.
I'm so protective over my sobriety. Like I don't drink,
(27:02):
I don't smoke weed. I'm completely abstinent because that is
the only way I can stay sober. Some people can
dobble and dabble in all that or just smoke weed
or and that's great, Yeah, but you know what I mean,
some people are like that and like, but I can't.
And I've learned that the hard way over and over. Yeah,
My mom and you know are just like they would
be like why can't you just stop, like just stop?
You know. It's like I can't, you know, I like
(27:23):
couldn't just stop. And it's like if I could, just
if I could have just stopped, I would have, like
before I went to jail, or before I lost Hunter,
all these things like it had just gotten a hold
of me where I couldn't. And that's and I know
that that's how it is. That's why I don't do
anything because I know I don't want to go through
all that shit again to get sober, because it's not
easy to get sober.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It is not, no, and that's the thing where people
don't have enough grace and mercy in the art society
these days where they look at it from like what
you're saying, because again, we have our minds warped of
what we're taught because people think it's just easy. Well yeah,
just stop believe me. It's kind of like boxing or
(28:06):
UFC or whatever. It's like when you watch a fight
with somebody and they're like, oh, why don't he just
get up, ma'am. I'll promise you he does not want
to get hammer fisted in his face.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I know, yeah, I think I could get.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Up, he would get up. You know what, what was
it that really made you say, hey, I've got to change?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Probably before I went So, this is the longest I've
ever been sober. I have a little over six years,
by the way, thank you, thank you so much. But
prior to this, I only I managed to get like
nine months. It's the longest I've ever had before this.
And I think it's important to say that because there's
so many people out there that keep trying, and they
keep trying, they can only get thirty days, forty days whatever.
It's like, all I know is you got to keep
(28:49):
trying because more of them times, you know, what I mean,
It's like I never thought I would get this much
to Fride. I never thought I'd be here, you know.
But anyway I had. I had the nine months that
I was in a long term treatment center where you
go through phases and stuff and you kind of get
more freedoms, but you stay there. But that was the
first time that I really actually wanted to be sober,
and I was like, I really wanted this, and it
was just accumulation of a bunch of stuff prior to
(29:11):
I actually ended up getting promoting contraband charge. I got
some charges and stuff like that. I was on diversion.
I had been Casey log which would we do this
thing In Kentucky you can Casey law where if you
have a family member or a child or something or
that's like using and they're harmed to theirself with the
drugs and all that, you can actually kind of put
some warrant out for them and they have to get
(29:32):
treatment basically. But I mean, I got ca C logs
so many times, like and I would just take off
running and I would whatever. One of the times I
got picked up on the warrant. For the warrant, I
had stuff on me and all that, and I ended
up getting a promoting contraband charge. But long story short,
I think I just kind of got tired. I guess
(29:52):
I got tired of running, and I got tired of
it was like I was running from myself, really, but
everywhere I went there I was okay.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I could be in the bottom of a trap house
apartment trying to find a phone charger, yelling at a
homeless man to hold a flashlight for me while I'm
trying to hit my vein no fear. I don't care.
There had been so much that had happened to me
at this point, I didn't care, you know what I mean,
I didn't care. It's not that I necessarily like wanted
to die because of the love I had for Hunter,
you know what I mean. I think there was there
(30:22):
was something in me I guess that didn't completely want
to give up, right. But at the same time, when
I'd be shooting Heroin and all that, if that was
the one that took me out, it wilso be it,
you know, I just so, I think I just got
to that point. I was just tired. I can remember
somebody had picked me up at this trap house place
and my dad. I was in a UDF bathroom. These
(30:42):
people drop me off and I'm in the bathroom and
I'm still trying to just get another shot, you know,
trying to see what all I got, and I got
everything dumped on the floor and my dad opens the door,
you know, and I'm just sitting there on the floor
and I looked at him and I'm like, I need help.
I was like, I really just need help, Like I
don't want to do this anymore. And I had already
lost at this point. I don't have custody a hunter
(31:03):
at this time, and i'd lost cussy because I would
kind of get stuff together for a little bit and
then mess up. But yeah, I was so when I
went to that treatment center, I really gave it my
all and I really tried, and I was really I
had a different outlook on it. I really wanted it,
you know, I really wanted at that time. And then
I just made some mistakes when I got out. I
(31:23):
had a relapse on diet pills. I had gotten out
of the treatment center, I'd gained a lot of weight,
and I got this job at a kickboxing studio, so
I wanted to be like fit, you know what, I mean,
I'm like I was being an instructor or whatever, and
a friend of mine she had those prescription diet pills.
They're like at of packs. It's kind of like adderall, yeah,
(31:44):
I'm shooting Heroin met crack okay and all that. So
in my mind, I'm like, these little diet pills are
not going to take me back, because in my my
motives were good. My motives were completely I just wanted
to lose some weight, not even joking, like there was
no fiber that still to use right or get high
or whatever. I was happy things were coming together. I
got cussy back of Hunter all that stuff, and I
(32:08):
got some them die pills, and I, no joke, was
snorting them out of a dollar bill by the end
of the night. Like I took a couple of them,
right or it just took them, and then I'm snorting
them have a dollar bill at the end of the night.
And then I was getting met like three days later,
and I'm like, I'm just not going to go back
on the needle. And then I've got the needle, and
then within two and a half weeks, I'm full blown
addiction again. And that was like and as much as
(32:29):
that sucked to like have to have that relapse. And
at that time, I was working a program, I was
doing AA and I'd made like these amends to my son,
and I made these amends like that I wanted that,
I wanted, you know, to do different and I was
going to do better and blah blah blah, and so
so as as shitty as it all was to have
(32:52):
to say, I guess you know, I failed or whatever.
If it wasn't for that happening, I wouldn't have like
just learned that I really can't do anything, do you
know what I mean? Like how how you know?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I don't. I don't think people succeed unless they fail.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, and I don't like.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Negative, but failing like I consider it.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
No, it's like a learning experience. It's like when you
lose a fight. Okay, you lose a fight, right, did
you fail? Like if anything, any of my fights that
I lost or didn't do this or didn't do that,
It's like those are the ones that you learn the
most from. You don't learn as much from like a
fight that you go out there and just wipe the
other person out, when like you learn when you're struggling
and you're trying to figure stuff out, and you learn
(33:36):
by like what doesn't work. You know, honestly, what was.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
The hardest part of recovery for you? Was it the physical,
the mental or emotion?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Probably my perception of myself. So whatever you want to
call that, it's probably a mixture of mental and emotional,
I think, because the physical, believe it or not, physical
is terrible, absolutely terrible. You're sick, you don't want to move,
blah blah blah. But you can, like, you can push
through that, you can get through that, you can medicate
yourself through that. It's what you're left within your brain,
right and what you're thinking and the way you're looking
at yourself in and then two it was like, you know,
(34:10):
for that relapse, I had right on those diet pills
and all that. So I went on that little run
and then I ended up actually in jail. That's when
I got my felony and all that, and I ended
up in jail again. I'd been to jail tons of
different times before, but this time I was in there
for olmost a year. But it was right after that relapse.
And the reason I'm bringing that up is because I'm
so grateful because it was weird. It was like, that
(34:32):
was the first time I think that I really like
made amends to like myself, because I was sitting in
jail and you got and I had gone to a
thirty day place before I had to go turn myself
in because I didn't want to be sick in jail.
So I had thirty days of not using right and
then here I am sitting in jail eventually get sentenced
(34:52):
to SAP program and all that. So it's a lot
of time to like think and reflect, you know, But
it was the first time. It was the first time,
like I ever thought to myself, I'm like, like, what
am I doing to myself? Not so much what am
I doing to everybody else? And not what am I
doing to my son and all that which is all obvious,
but I truly felt it within me. I was like,
why am I doing this to me? Like why do
I hate me so much? And I would think about
(35:15):
me when I was young, and I would think about,
you know, when I was pregnant with my son. I
would think about all these happy things, and it's like,
why am I destroying myself? Like I deserve better for me,
you know, And I never had that thought before ever.
In fact, think about it, like getting out of that
treatment center and thinking I'm fat and need to lose
weight in the diet pills. That's probably still not loving
(35:36):
yourself very much, right, you see what I mean? Like
I think I was always just picking myself apart. I'm
not good enough, I'm not good enough whatever what you know.
But it was like when I was stripped from everything
and I was like in jail and I'm sitting there
and I'm like, I gotta I've got to like love
myself more than this. Like it was weird, but it
wasn't any other motives than just within me. And that's
when they say they're like people will be like and
(35:59):
everybody's different, you know. But sometimes it's like, you know,
you can't just get sober for your son, or you
can't get sober for your family. It's like you really
have to want it for yourself. And it was like
I really understood what that meant. But that was the
hardest part you asked. That was what you asked. You're like,
what's the hardest part of recovery that piece? Because I
don't know where it finally came from, you know, or whatever.
(36:19):
But that's the piece that if you if you can't
eventually yeah, yeah, and don't get a twisted either. I
don't ever think I'm like cured and good, you know
what I mean. Anything could happen, But I do know
that that's been a pivotal turning point in the farther
I've been away from the drugs and the farther I've
been living my life the way I have. It's like, yeah,
(36:42):
it does get easier, Like the option to get high
now is not like it was at thirty forty even
sixty days sober.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, habit habit one way, one way or the other.
Habits are contagious, is yeah. What I like to say,
do you feel like some are there with somebody along
the way they just refuse to give up?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
All you people that a lot of people really uh yeah,
so my I mean, geez, my family they all you know.
And this is another thing, Like it's weird sometimes when
I talk about my recovery, especially in situations like so
when I my meetings and stuff and I give my lead,
it's different, right because you're sharing your experience, strength and
(37:26):
hope to help people, right, But it's we're all on
the same page. We're all in recovery, right, So when
I'm on these platforms, like sometimes I get this weird
like guilt still because I think to myself, like everything
I've put my family through and what the families have
to deal with, do you know what I mean? It's
like because it really because the things I put my mom,
my dad, my grandma, my son, you know, and like,
(37:48):
and they didn't give up on me. They were always there.
But it's like I think sometimes when people there's a stigma,
or sometimes when people are angry at people that are
addicts or alcoholics, maybe they have a family member that
just won't get so has it got sober, and it's
like a deep anger or resentment towards that. You know,
I don't know, does that make sense what I just said,
It's like weird feel it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Makes sense in a flip side to what we're talking
about about you feeling guilty about putting them through that,
think about how amazing you are to choose to recover.
Think about how proud they are of you because the devil,
(38:31):
the devil had you in class and was dragging you down.
And yet yeah, it took peaks and valleys and it
took a lot of shit to get to where you are,
but you chose, and you were choosing to get up
every day and fight the good fight. That as a
(38:52):
you know, your grandparents, your parent whoever, has to feel
good to know that they were part of that journey
with you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, and they because I even was talking to my
mom the other day about it, and I brought this
up and she goes, bro, are you serious. She's like, like,
it is not easy to do what you do and
you're doing like we're you know, but it is. It's
sometimes it's like the further you get away from and
all that, you kind of look back and you're like,
I guess you just start to you're not a selfish
I'm not a selfish. And I can see what I've
(39:22):
put everybody through and I'm able to see these things
and you know, but yeah, so my family they were
there through it all. My sponsor who I had through recovery,
she taught me so much because she was there when
I was in jail. She would do phone calls with me.
When I relapsed. I go over her house, you know
what I mean, and she I mean, there's plenty of
times she hung up on me and was like get
(39:43):
sober and just hung up right because she was hard
to hear my stuff. But so many friends and these
friends and stuff that I made through rehabs and jails
and stuff like that, Like I they're still in my
life today. You know, There's a girl that I was
in jail with in the program who I give her
and her daughter sessions at boxing. You know, friends I've
made that are still supporting me in there and I
(40:06):
support them. And just these like lifelong friendships that I've
made through all that, through all the messiness.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, when you when you look at the old Brook
versus today, what's the biggest shift in the way you
see yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's a self worth, you know, like now, which it
is still it's still struggle, and there's still things that
I deal with and you know, little demons that I
battle with with with that kind of stuff. But yeah,
I just yeah, I don't know. I was so just
lost and I was so everything was so dark, you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Did I did a post it as was on a
podcast last week, somebody Else's podcast, and I said something
in that about exactly what you're talking about. And I
struggle every day with the self worth side of it.
I was told so much that I would never be
this or never be that. Even to this day, I've
won world championships, I've won Pan American championships, I've won things.
(41:07):
But for me, in my mind, everybody's like, oh, you're
so good. In my mind, I never think. I'm always like, oh, yeah,
that's cool. But I could have, you know whatever. So
it's a constant struggle to do that. So I know
you previously had done boxing before, what made you shift
(41:27):
to bear knock.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Because the opportunity presented itself. So I so here in
the past like two years, I guess that I've been
pro boxing. So I think I don't have some stellar
amateur background. I have plenty of amateur fights and stuff,
but it's not like I'm like some Olympic you know,
or you know was doing it. You know. I just
didn't have that kind of backing, right. So, like when
(41:50):
I turned row, so a lot of the opportunities I
was getting, It's like, you know, you're going against someone
that it's their promotion, it's their hometown, you know, and
you're you got to look out for yourself a little bit,
you know, the business side, I guess of pro boxing.
So I was kind of in the process of like
navigating that because in my mind my goal for my
pro boxing this was my goal, my original goal, Well,
(42:12):
I wanted to turn pro, and then I was like, okay,
once I turned pro, I want to I wanted to
just have a cool experience. I wanted to like maybe
get to fight on ESPN Plus or like you know,
like some big stage. That was what I was thinking.
So I was trying to navigate how to get my
self where I could be in a position to do that, okay,
which it wasn't very easy. Right and right around all
(42:35):
the time, I had somebody reach out to me who
he's he's kind of my manager now and he like
helps me out with everything. Tyler Pauls. He reached out
to me through social media and was like, have you
ever thought of Bare Knuckle the BKFC. And I didn't
even believe him at first. I was like, yeah, okay, whatever, Yeah,
and he's like telling me this stuff and I get
to talk one with him, and long story short, like
(42:57):
it was all true, and I got to be on
like a phone call with him and David Feldman and
you know, all these things and I was like, no, way,
Like this is a like cool opportunity and I'm thirty eight.
I would be crazy not to take it. Yeah, and
it's what it's a it's a it'll be an awesome
experience and think that I want to use it all
for the good. I want to maybe start like a
(43:18):
nonprofit things like that, And I feel like on a
platform like this, I'll have that ability, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, let me ask you, do you feel like finding
this therapy to you?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Sure? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:28):
What message do you hope, especially young women take away
from your story when they see you.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Find you know you can do anything you want to
do and like, you know, don't don't give up on things,
like you can do anything you put your mind to it.
I think I'm thirty eight, I'm a single mom, I work,
I support me and my son. I'm in recovery, you know,
I'm a woman that's out here and I'm trying to
make my way, like in a like good, honest, genuine way.
(43:58):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Very good at reading people. They're very powerful in a
way that you don't even really know. To go through
what you went through and to have the strength to
choose to recover and choose to wake up each day,
because it's a struggle choose to wake up each day
(44:20):
and do the right thing when the easy way is
to go the opposite way. That is strong and that
is powerful, and not just women, but anybody. Yeah that
sees that would know you are a lion.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
This for that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Really.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You know you've got a fight coming up? When when
is that?
Speaker 2 (44:49):
It's October eighteenth, so it's soon. I got the seven weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Sweet. Where are you fighting at?
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It's going to be Hammond, Indiana at the Horseshoe Casino.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah. My my nephew live on the border of like
Louisville and it's technically Indiana, but like he lives like
right over the border, so I know about it.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Okay, this is close to Yeah, this is like close
to Chicago.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, right on the border. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
What is different about broke walking into you walking in
to fights?
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Before I'll tell you that something that's different is like
I'm just so okay, I am so grateful to have
this opportunity, right, and I'm so grateful for this experience.
So I'm coming from this place where it's like I
am so like just happy to be there and like
and I know that no matter what it's gonna be,
it's gonna be great, you know what I mean, no
(45:42):
matter what happens. And let me just tell you though,
because I think that that's a very good place for
me to be, because you know, having that fear of like, oh,
I of course, like I hope I do good. I
want to win. Okay, there is all that, right, but
sometimes that pressure can break you down. Okay, So to
come from a place that you're just pumped to be
there and you're like, this is gonna be fucking awesome, right,
(46:02):
Like that's when I fight good. That's when I do
things good, you know what I mean, Like just you're free. Yeah, yeah,
you get what I mean. Like I'm like, whatever happens, happens,
Like here I am, this is great, this is awesome.
It's gonna be fun. You know. After it's never the
nerves and stuff going or not during or never fun,
but after it's always a relief. You're like, Okay, I
(46:25):
did that always.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I had two amateur NA fights, and I remember my
first fight. I came over after round one, well, I said,
I remember, I don't remember, but they said I came
over after round one and said, are we done yet?
I ended up winning, but it was like people don't
understand like the why yeah stuff that goes into it
when fans tune in to your fight. What did you
(46:49):
want them to.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
See somebody that knows how to fight? Because I knew
I know how to fight. I have I have like technique,
and I train. I train like I trained my ass off,
you know, and I'm always going and getting sparring here
and sparring there, and with these women life. If there
is a high level woman or girl or where anywhere
near me, I'm going and getting work with her. You know.
I try to train like these people that and you know,
(47:13):
I have really worked hard to get this like technique
and the ring IQ and all that. So that mixed
with just my natural aggression and my natural just hit me.
I'm gonna hitch it ten times harder, about sixteen more times, right,
like mixed with that, right because I had to find
a balance because the early me fighting was very much
(47:34):
just like now I'm standing and we're training, right, and
it's like now it's like head movement, you know your range,
your distance? What do we were just so much more right, So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
I'm the same. If you could sit with younger B
before she turned to the drugs, what would you.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Tell her now makes me want to cry. I don't know.
Probably I probably just say you're gonna be really proud
of yourself. One day.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
You're gonna make me cry. I'm proud of you. Thank
you to go through it, to go through what you've
been through and to choose yourself and to choose to
do the good thing.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Is very very, very very hard and got me cracking up.
I'm very proud of I know. This is the first
time we talked, but I kind of followed your journey
because I vet it kind of you beforehand. But I
think your story and the light that you are. Every
time that you second guess or doubt yourself and your
(48:40):
self worth, know that there's so many people that are
watching you you and your story and are grateful for
the person that you are.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Thank you so much. That means a lot. And my son,
I'll tell you what he looks up to me so much,
you know, and everything we've been through in that that's
something else that's like, I'm so grateful for my relationship
with him, and it's such a beautiful thing that's come
from a lot.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
I love, I love it. I love like Wow, I
could feel the power in your story and who you
are and watching your son, So it's powerful, you know. Yeah,
legacy is a word that's thrown around a lot. What
do you help your.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, I've been I was asked this somewhere else and
I can remember I talked about and touched on. It's
like legacy to me is like what kind of person
are you? Are you? Like, what kind of person are you? What?
What are you doing to help others? And how I
am with my son okay, and how I'm trying to
raise him, and how I'm showing him that even having struggles,
(49:46):
even all these things, like you can still keep pushing forward.
I try to instill like to be honest and genuine
and all these things. And like I said, what are
because like, okay, if I can do the nonprofit and
give back to others, and and that's what legacy is
to me. It's it's what kind of mom I am
(50:06):
because my son will be the next generation, right, and
what kind of man am I raising? Right? And people
can look at my story or people can think that God,
you know everything that he had to go through. But
he is such an amazing kid, you know, And I
think that if he wouldn't have seen some of the struggles,
you know, maybe he wouldn't have the outlooks he has,
you know. But I really think it's just, yeah, what
(50:28):
kind of mom I am, How I'm raising him, and
how I'm treating others, and what I'm doing for other
and what I'm putting out in the world just in general,
Just what do you put out?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Resilient, grit, determination, powerful, like all of these things instantly
pop in, you know. I want to thank you so
much for coming here and sitting down.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I don't cry very much.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Maybe look you see look pride to I've got I've
got a meeting it up. They're gonna be like, what
the hell's wrong with you? I have?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
And look I have the ugliest cry face because I
don't cry, so I try to hold it in. And
my face I was over here.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Look, my lip was trembling. I knew it was coming
to my lip was my lip was. But I thank
you so much for being the person that you are,
coming on and sharing your story. It's going to be
a light to a lot of people. Thank you in
and being the light you are. I'm always here. Anything
(51:33):
that you need, you got my personal number now, anything
that you need text or call me. I mean that
from the heart. I'm always here and you're always welcome.
You're always welcome on the front porch, and I'll definitely
me and my family will be cheering for you.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
At your five eighteenth ye two weeks for my birthday.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Thank you so much, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I'll see you bight.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.