Barbell Shrugged - Building a Badass — A Look Into The Future, The Ditch — 2

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

In the second episode of Building A Badass, I tell a story about how a tragic car accident, where I watched my sister almost die, spun a major downward shift in my life, which included a long run with drugs and running wild.   I started victimizing myself to release responsibility of how I was feeling or what I did. I hid behind bad behavior and that “I don’t care” attitude,  which can only take you so far before you’re in some serious trouble. I became a victim to my circumstances.   Years later, I had a moment where I saw who I was destined to become if I stayed on the path I was currently on. It was shocking and discouraging. I had to make a change, but I didn’t have any idea what that looked like or even if I actually wanted to change at this point, I enjoyed the chaos.   Stay Relentless, - Christmas Abbott ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bab_theditch ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hi everybody, this is Christmas Abbott here and I am sharing my personal journey on building a badass. Today I want to talk to you about personal accountability and specifically my teenage years. I've talked about this in a couple different podcasts as well as my books, Badass Body Diet and Badass Life, but never in depth enough to where I think that people really truly understand how much I struggled and how deep I was into this lifestyle, or as you'll find out today, how deep I was into being a victim of my circumstances. So today, this specific episode,

I want to talk about personal accountability and how we take that on or how we hide from it. And that's exactly what I did during this time period, was I hid from my personal accountability. In short, I used a very tragic experience to avoid all self-accountability to a point of almost no return. So I want to share that experience with you today. I had shared a little bit before with you about how I played baseball. My mom stood up for me, and I was able to really see my mom as an amazing figure that would do anything for me, but also really handled a difficult situation with grace and ease. And I had emulated a lot of what she had done up until this point that I'm discussing today. And to kind of give you a little bit of background

on where I was in my life, I was, you know, the accident happened when I was 13. But before then, I went to Young Life with my sister, who was three years older than me. We both helped take care of my younger brother, who's six years younger than me. And we were a family unit. Now, we were highly dysfunctional, which we definitely claim to be able to own, you know, and we were okay with it. Dinner time was when we came together and discussed awkward things like sex, schoolwork, not being able to play on the boys baseball team. Dinner time was our time to come together and share what we thought as a family and discuss it and have disagreements, but still have love and support for one another. So we actually didn't have much growing up in the sense of, you know, I had everything that I needed, but we didn't ever notice that until about 13, 14 years old.

So when I say that my life was full of love, I mean that. But we were also hard-pressed. So my mom worked all the time. My dad was out of town a lot of the time. And it was me and my sister taking care of my brother. Now, at the time of this car accident, which was a huge pivot in my life, I was 13 years old. My sister was 16 and we, my sister and I shared a bedroom. We not only shared a bedroom, we shared a bed. We lived in a little house that was kind of actually a concoction of a house, meaning that it had half of a trailer,

and that was where the bathroom and kitchen was, and then the other half of the house was the living room, which we had wooden stove, so we actually had wooden heat, and this was in Virginia where it got really cold for the winters and snowed occasionally. So we had wooden heat, not electric heat, my sister's room and my parents' bedroom, and then my brother slept in the hallway on a cot, which wasn't the first house that he did that with. And I kind of want to explain that because I feel like it was – that's how close we were.

My sister and I would actually sit up in the bed at night and read the Bible to one another. We would, you know, discuss each other's days at the, um, at school and just in life in general. We were very, very close. My sister was a straight A student, crosscountry athlete. I was still in athletics. This time I was playing baseball and cheerleading. So I got to use that really fun spirit in something productive. And my sister was such a good girl, so was I, and my brother was kind of a terror, but we loved him anyway. Love you, Chris. And my sister was going to these parties out in the country. So my sister and friend decided to go to this party. And for some

reason, we thought it was a great idea that I was the DD to drive home that night. Well, yes, 13 years old, I was supposed to be the DD. Look, we were young and dumb. That's okay. So we went to the party. I didn't drink, and at that time, I really didn't drink much. I was still experimenting with cigarettes and smoking, but because my parents smoked, I thought it was okay, and I would just steal their cigarettes, but I wasn't doing it every day. We get into this party, and my sister starts drinking. Her friend starts drinking, and I see clearly I really am gonna have to drive home well we pull out of the driveway her friend drives out of the driveway I'm in the front seat my sister's in the back center seat and we were gonna pull down the street

so people didn't see me driving because they knew that I was underage. And the next thing that I remember is flipping and turning and we wrecked. This wreck, nobody should have walked away from. The car rolled side to side, flipped seven times and flipped tail end to tail end twice. We rekt in an empty field on a straightaway in somebody's front yard in the country. And thank God because that person came out. And I remember them trying to ask me questions and I just kept asking for my sister. And he was like, she's right beside you. And I said, no, no, no, that's not my sister. Cole, Cole, Cole. And so because of that, he walked around the car. When he walked around the car, he ended up tripping over my sister. She had been thrown from the car because she was in the back seat. We all had our seatbelts on, but she had her lap belt, and so she got thrown on so

much that it trajectory her from the car. The car had rolled onto her legs from one of the flips, and so from the knees down, the car was there. He tripped over her and turned her head so the blood could actually come out of her mouth. Now, I remember bits and pieces. It's come back over the years, but at the time, for months, I didn't remember anything. Eventually, the ambulance came and took all three of us to the hospital. Now, to give you a rundown of the injuries from that night, we all went to the ER. My sister's friend had a broken vertebrae in her neck from the severe whiplash, the rolling around. She, um, other than that, I think that she was released about a week later. I had no broken bones, no major injuries, and was actually released that night. I had major whiplash, swollen face, and bits and pieces of this very traumatic experience. My sister was in the hospital for quite some time.

She actually went into a coma. She broke two vertebrae in her lower back. She had a bruise on her brain, and she was in a coma for a couple days. They actually let me see her that night before I was released because they just didn't believe she was going to make it through the night. Seeing your hero in the hospital with a swollen skull that is the size of a basketball, the only thing that I recognized on her was her black curls. She had these black Goldilocks curls. And because you knew that that could be the last time that you saw her. I was sent to stay with my grandparents for the week.

And every day that went by that she didn't wake up was more and more dangerous. Finally, a couple days later, she woke up and we were all so relieved and we kept being told what her restrictions were going to be. She's never going to walk again. She is not going to have a full memory of what happened. Her personality may change. She will never be able to bear children because of the danger of her broken back and just a slew of do's and don'ts, actually just don'ts of what her life looked like after that. Now, because of her broken back, she could not walk initially. And through time and therapy, and because my sister is just a relentless woman, she had to wear a back brace. She had to relearn start to walk, you would think would be really inspiring and incredible. It wasn't for me. It was actually quite the opposite.

I watched my hero fall from grace, almost die. And then from there, she had such a attitude towards the world. The world owed her something. She was angry, where before she was the most loving and caring person I knew. And to see this shift in her, it was devastating, but more so I just didn't know how to cope with the experience that I had. I carried a ton of guilt because I was supposed to be the one driving. I should have been able to protect my sister. I should have been the one in that hospital bed instead of her. And I walked away without a scratch. And then here's this straight-A student, this track all-star. She was working, and I just didn't understand why this happened to her and not me, or even her in general. And I took on that guilt. I took on that nightmare

of remembering the incident and I did not deal with it. I did not cope with it. I pushed it down deep, deep, deep inside and I allowed this anger to arise instead of sadness. I allowed myself to lie to myself about what I wanted in life, about how I wanted to be. And this concept of not giving a shit, not caring, was my mantra at that point now. Because I figured that if I didn't care then I wouldn't get hurt. I'll tell you now most of you guys know listening to this that is just not true. So you get hurt either way and that is okay. That's part of the experience. That's part of life. It's part of learning. So I actually went into therapy. I was put on medication, various different medications. I had a single therapist at a girls group, which was awesome, and started trying to process this. Now, I was processing it because that's what

I was told to do, was go to therapy, take this medicine. And I don't believe Now I was processing it because that's what I was told to do was go to therapy, take this medicine. And I don't believe that I was actually given the tools to understand what I was coping with and how and smoking to not necessarily cope, but rebel. I didn't want to live the life that I had lived before. And it's not because I didn't love it because I did. I loved it. And I secretly missed it. I missed my talks with my sister. And that's why I rebelled is because she wasn't there in a way that I knew her before. She was a different person. And so was I. And at 13 years old, it was too much for me to take. It was too much of a burden. And to no fault of my parents, they didn't know how to help me cope with it either.

They did everything they knew they could. So during this time, I identify this experience of becoming a victim of my circumstances. I allowed life to happen to me where before the incident, I was taking charge of my life. I chose the activities that I wanted to be involved in. I was making an effort. I enjoyed them. And now I was rebelling. I didn't want to participate in sports anymore.

I was experimenting heavily with variations of drugs. I was smoking on a regular basis now, sneaking out. And this started when I was 13. I started to have so much trouble that at 14 years old, I went to stay with my uncle in Florida. In attempts to straighten me out. Well, that didn't really happen either. But I did start working. I worked at a restaurant as a busser and I got paid under the table. So here I am, 14 years old, a little rebel and had cash in my pocket. So it only fed my ability to misbehave, as you will call it. Since that didn't really work very well, I came back home

right before the school year started and was just a nightmare for my parents. My dad worked out of town a lot, so my mom had to deal with me. And man, I don't know if you're a parent and you have a daughter and she's just like you or your daughter and your parent is just like you, you can understand how you can hit heads a lot until you have some space. So I am so much like my mother to a fault where we would just not agree. And a lot of it was just me wanting to fight. I was angry because I couldn't process the sadness. It could not go away because I was refusing to feel it. Fast forward a little bit more. My parents just tried everything they could and I am stubborn. You know, I lock in and I'm like my dog Fran.

I am a bulldog. You cannot have me let go once I have decided something, which is an amazing trait, but also devastating for the wrong activities. And I locked in. I knew I was going to be the cool kid, the badass, the one that you go to for parties. And I did exactly that. I tried everything I could get my hands on and in abundance. I was smoking pot every day. I was drinking every day. I was hanging out with people that were much older and a really bad influence

for me. I ran away a few times. And by the time I was 17 years old, my mom actually sat me down and had a conversation with me about potentially surrendering me to the state because I was so wild. And I remember that conversation. I remember looking at her thinking like, what the heck? Because she would always tell me, you know, Joy, as my parents called me growing up, Joy, you're not a bad girl. You just make bad decisions. And I didn't really understand what she meant by that at the time. And what she was telling me is that, hey, Christmas, you are a good soul. You're a good girl. You want positive things in life, but you're making really, really shitty decisions and it's affecting you.

It's affecting the family. It's affecting the rest of your life. And I get it now, but at the time I did not. I kept lying to myself regularly about wanting this super alternative life and that I, you know, deserved that. And in truth, I really wanted to cheerlead again. I really wanted to play baseball. I really wanted to play volleyball, to be honest. And I wanted to be part of a positive community. I wanted to be part of the group of people in high school that were making good grades and doing a positive thing in their community. But because I just had lost so much of my self-worth over the years because of the decisions that I was making, also because I was a victim of my circumstance that I just didn't accept that I could change.

And even at 16, 17, 18, all the way up to 21, I didn't believe that I could change the cards that I had been dealt in my life. I believed that whatever had happened to me was how it was supposed to put me on my path and I had this mentality of if I don't care, then it doesn't matter and I won't get hurt. And that is so not true. So fast forward a few years, you guys get the idea. I mean, I'm doing any drug that I can get my hands on by 17, acid at 16, coke, you know, all the designer drugs that should not ever be done, period. And fast forward to 20 years old, I am living in Richmond, Virginia, not far from my hometown, Lynchburg, Virginia, and still just living the dream, you know, just being this badass that is reckless, careless, doesn't give a shit, is miserable inside, has no self-worth,

and is constantly doing things to compromise my safety. Now, as I got older and older, and now I'm in my 20s, I kept upping the ante. Like, what other drugs could I do? How else could I be rebellious? And I'll be quite frank. I was drinking and driving. I was doing whatever drug I could get my hand on. And really hanging out with a group of people that had no interest in any sort of well-being for me. That's just the life that I lived. That's the life that I chose, even though I didn't think that I was choosing it at the time. I was still riding the wave of

being a victim of my circumstances and using this incident from 13 years old as my crutch. It was my excuse because then I could do whatever I want, whenever I wanted, however I wanted. But truly I was becoming a victim to this lifestyle. I was becoming the lifestyle. Now, in order for you to understand where I really was, I have to kind of give some explicit detail about some of this lifestyle. I was reckless with my sexuality and I was also reckless in the drugs that I used. Um, at this time I had done coke plenty of times in high school, but with, with now I had to up the ante, you know, and for some reason, um, I'm not sure exactly why, uh, heroin scared the shit out of me. Just point blank. Not sure why, you know, that's where I drew the line.

However, I, um, associated with this group of people in Richmond and Richmond's a huge drug hub, uh, with crystal meth. And for some reason I thought that that was acceptable because it was like coke but a lot longer you know about eight hours longer and so I actually started recreationally using crystal meth I would also drink every day and you know weekends that was just a blackout the whole weekend was mostly just a blackout I was working at a bar and I loved working at a bar. I had so much fun. I was just, I'd go tell people to buy me shots and then, I mean, I would get blackout drunk at work. And I remember what, what was really a true indicator

of that moment where I started to flirt with the epiphany that I have much later, which we'll talk about in the next episode. But I really started to kind of have a moment where I was like, Hmm, what, where am I going with this? What am I doing? And one morning I was working brunch. So I had to be there what I considered outrageously early, which was really about probably 10 a.m. And for 20-year-old, 21-year-old drinking, rock and roller, occasional mac user, that was absurdly early. You could have just said 3 a.m. and I've been like, well, that's insane. So I show up to work. And of course course I had been partying the night before, probably only got a couple hours of sleep. And I remember calling my friend.

I was like, hey, can you do a drop? Which indicated that I needed a little piece of rock to get me through the day. and I, even though I was in action calling this person and asking for this to be dropped off at my work in order for me to get through the day, I knew deep down that that was the beginning of the end and that I didn't necessarily need to take action because I just didn't believe that I was there, but I knew what that meant. And in the back of my mind, in a deep, dark corner, I knew that I was accepting this life that I didn't really want, filled with addiction, which I wasn't really addicted to anything. And I was almost playing the role in order to avoid coping with what happened to me much earlier on in life.

And then I also just stockpiled a whole bunch of other shit on top of it throughout the years. In a weird way, I saw what my life was about to become and I didn't want part of that. I had a flash of honest moment with myself where I really acknowledged that I wanted something more. I wanted something different. I wanted something not necessarily better for myself because I wasn't there yet. I didn't have that epiphany yet, but it was flirting with the concept of, is this really the life that I want? in this turmoil with almost coming to an epiphany, almost having a pivotal time change in my life, that my mother simultaneously had just taken a job in Iraq as a civilian contractor in Operation Iraqi Freedom. She was one of the first civilians to go over embedded with the military

in order to give the military support logistically so they could do their job in Iraq. And this was huge for my mother. We had finally started to get along once I moved out of the house. And she would call me once a week and she would just tell me about how she would see the most incredible things, the palace details and talking to the local Iraqis and helping out the soldiers getting set up in Baghdad, Iraq. And she would just paint this amazing experience. Now, I want to be clear. She never said it was fun. She never said that it was a good time or anything like that. She did just give me what she was experiencing

because she wanted me to be able to take this opportunity like she did. And what's incredible is that she knew where I was in my life. She'd seen me struggle through my teenage years and get into more dangerous things as I got older. So she was constantly telling me about this job and encouraging me to apply for a job in Iraq as a contractor. Now, I'm not sure if it's my mother's persuasion or having a flicker of a small epiphany that morning that I was having my drugs delivered to me or the combination of both or even just understanding that I wanted something different, I needed to change my life, and in order to do that, I had to radically remove myself from my current life. I don't know exactly what it was, but something inside of me clicked,

and I decided that week that I wanted to go work in Iraq. And I have to tell you that it is the most life-changing decision that I have ever made. In the next episode, I'll explore what that experience was, but also what came out of it and how that experience truly formed, or not necessarily formed, but really unveiled and revealed my core character, who I am, and allowed me to learn the disciplines that I have today that have made such a difference in my life. Because up until that point, I had absolutely been a victim of my circumstances. I allowed life just to happen to me and whatever happened, happened. It wasn't my fault, right? If you don't take initiative for that action,

then you're not really responsible for the consequences, right? No, no, you're absolutely responsible for the consequences, especially if you don't take action. You have to understand how to drive your own life. And even though from 13, 11, 12-ish, I was experimenting with things up until I was 22, almost a decade of debauchery, that doesn't mean that there weren't lessons there. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of who I did not want to be, not necessarily who I could become, which comes a little bit later through Iraq. I also learned that I had to have kind of a rude conversation with myself and I started to be honest with myself. I wasn't completely honest, but I started to be honest a little bit with what I really wanted, mostly what I didn't want.

You know, it's really easy to say, well, I don't want this, this, and this. And then somebody asks you, then what do you want? And you don't know. That's where I was. I knew what I didn't want in this moment of my life, but I actually didn't quite understand what I did want. How did I want my life to become? And that's something that I would discover a little bit later, specifically through Iraq. But one of the things that I really did learn during this time is that no matter what happens to you, you're still responsible for your life. You're responsible for your decisions. And if you keep having shitty things happen to you, then you need to look at what you're doing in order to entice it or to lay the groundwork for it to happen.

This was the start of me becoming honest with myself, self-reflection, self-accountability, and understanding that I could actually start making decisions that were going to change my life in a positive way, even though I didn't understand the full impact of that or how to do that yet. And even though I was at the point of almost no return, there's always a point of return. No matter where you are in your life, you get to choose what your day is like. Even when unfortunate circumstances happen to you, you choose how you cope with it. You choose how you react to it. You choose everything else other than the actual event.

And a lot of times you have had a choice in how that played out. So this experience for me, this episode really is all about self-accountability. And for so long, I ignored it. I put my head in the sand. I denied it until a point where it was so dangerous that I literally was choosing to become an active addict over just being honest with myself. It's a hard lesson to swallow, but it's one that I'm grateful that I had. And through the next experience in Iraq, in the next episode, you'll see where I took this self-accountability that I discovered right before and really made it into a life transformation.