Digital Social Hour - Zac Gulbranson On Being in Prison, Witnessing Overdoses & Overcoming Drug Addiction | DSH #167

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

On today's episode of the Digital Social Hour Podcast, Zac Gulbranson talks about his crazy drug journey, his life-changing moment witnessing an overdose, and what it was like in prison. BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH HelloFresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/50dsh Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know students with they call them, you know mental disabilities or disorders, right? When really it's not a disorder. I'm just a growing 13 year old boy going through puberty I mean, I'm not my attention is not being captured. Yeah the right way. Yeah, it's terrible They tried giving me Adderall in like fourth grade Really like a ten-year-old. Wow. Yeah, it's like are you serious welcome back to the digital social hour guys i'm your host sean kelly got with me a very interesting guest for you today Zach O'Branston. How's it going? Yeah, can't wait to dive in your story you got a pretty incredible journey Pretty pretty excited to be here though

The clips episodes the page I'm i like what you guys got going on yeah so walk walk me through the start like what were you like growing up like what was the family dynamic like as a kid and i want to learn like who you were early on yeah so basically i mean growing up um i had you know both my parents were together um i had two sisters um and uh and I was the middle child. So big thing was, is like, I always kind of felt like I longed for like a brother, a male figure. My dad was, you know, working a lot where he was gone for, you know, weeks at a time. So for me, that obviously put a toll on me just being at home with, you know, two, two women all the time. So I started to attach to people that were, you know, outside, um, outside of the family. Um, and a lot of them became, you know, kind of bad influences on me, but, um, obviously like, you know, which we'll get into my story a little bit more as we go. um a lot of that just came from um you know just wanting to

kind of be noticed or have a have a some sort of like a brother uh father figure around yeah they're doing a lot of studies on like kids growing up without father figures and how impactful it actually is yeah so my and just i just want to be clear my My dad was, he was there, he was there, just wasn't there a lot. Right. He was working a lot. Yeah, exactly. So he, he, he drives trucks. So he would leave for like two weeks at a time. Yeah. Come home for like a day, but he would be just so tired. Right.

He would literally just sleep. I remember he'd just sleep in his, his chair, um, like all day, the day, the day or two that he was home and then he'd take off again. So I remember like vividly throwing the football up to myself a few times. Now, obviously I don't want to make it seem like I completely didn't have a dad because there are obviously people out there that are going to be like, look at this guy. He actually had a dad like that was there like a couple days i had no dad but um i mean i feel like um you know just the the attachment to some sort of you know father figure um you know i was kind of i was looking for but um we're we're cool now nice um and and you know things are good but by the time he started to be home a lot um i was out of the house, you know, I was out of the house at like 16.

So, wow. Yeah. So I left pretty early and just got got, you know, got to to live in the lifestyle. Nice. So 16, you're in high school, you leave the house. Where are you at from there? So I had a good friend and he had three brothers. So obviously me being middle child with two girls and my mom yeah you know um i uh you know became really good friends with him um and he had three brothers so i was always there like constantly i think i would go to my house maybe like once a week that's it maybe wow probably like you were already sleeping there pretty much. I was sleeping there, living there. I considered them my family, my brothers.

So I found kind of like the brother or father figure in them. Unfortunately, they weren't doing the best things, right? They were selling drugs and making money that way and doing other things that obviously are not looked at you know as as good things to do i guess you could say looking back on it now but then during that time i was like man this is this is what i wanted this is definitely what i wanted um and and that you know being i feel like i didn't have anyone to look up to i looked up to the wrong people right so i would look up to them and they were you know making money and had a lot of girls around and you

know new cars and things like this and um and then obviously they would go to jail for a little bit and they'd get out and i just thought it was normal like that's just what became normal to me so um you know i uh just found myself in in in uh you know just a lot of trouble because of that right so are you going to school at this time or you dropped out yeah so i i was going to school okay um yeah the the i was pretty smart all through school so the big thing is is like i was i never really struggled um I started, I got prescribed Adderall in ninth grade because the teacher actually was like, hey, your son can't sit still and he's always getting up and going around and sitting next to girls and talking to girls.

And so they did evaluation. They came back. They said, he's got ADHD. They put me on Adderall. And obviously at that age, and this is a big thing that i feel like is wrong with like big pharma and and uh the you know medication and prescription industry is yeah they label someone so quick when really you got to think like a 13 year old boy you know that is not being fulfilled or my attention is not being um you know um uh gravitated towards what the teacher is talking about yeah like i'm not interested in it you know what i mean so i'm gonna get up and i'm

gonna go sit next to girls which i am interested in for sure so like um and i think that's just a normal thing but they're so quick to throw medication because obviously that's how they make money and these teachers are actually looked at as good people for reporting kids um you know hey i think your son might have adhd we should get them checked out they actually get praised for doing that i wouldn't be surprised if they even get a kickback honestly they might get a kickback because you got to think about it the the big thing is is people um or teachers right they get not only praised because they're like wow this teacher's not only looking you know teaching the class but they're also looking to help uh you know students with they call them you know mental disabilities or disorders right um when really it's not a disorder i'm just a growing 13 year old boy going through puberty

right and i'm not my attention is not being captured yeah um the right way so yeah it's terrible they tried giving me adderall in like fourth grade dude yeah really like a 10 year old wow yeah it's like are you serious yeah and like thank god my mom talked them out of it my dad wanted me on it and honestly like in high school it was kind of like a cool thing to be on those oh yeah 100 and and honestly that's like what i feel like it was kind of the gateway to other things because what happened is is i got on them and i was doing really good in school like i didn't have uh i feel like i'm pretty naturally smart so um you know the school work came easy i'd pay girls to do like my tat or my my homework for me and i'd come in and just ace the test,

like not even knowing anything. So like it came pretty easy, but it was the gateway because what happened is I got Adderall and then what did I do? I started selling it to other kids in school where I became known as like, oh yeah, Zach has Adderall, right? And then they would come to me like,

hey, do you have this or do you have that, right? So then I'm like, no, but I can can get it i'll look around for it yeah so um and and obviously you know being just around that crowd i just became known as that person so i feel like i always had to kind of live up to that persona you know growing up um which inevitably was not good yeah but i'm i'm still to this day and I'll say it, you know, forever. I'm still to this day. So glad that I went through every single thing that I went through because I won't be where I'm at today. Um, without, without having going through those things. Yeah. Everything happens for a reason, right? Yeah. So how high of a level were you getting

to? Like, did you keep doing it after high school? Oh, yeah. So like basically I started selling Adderall ninth grade, which also turned me into pain pills. Started started getting those funny story or not. I shouldn't say funny, but a story. My my good friend in school, his dad was professional skier um and he had broken every single bone in his body um so he had you know oxy cotton um you know and and my buddy came to me he's like yeah dude my dad has a whole bottle i can get him for you and i was like cool yeah let's do it so he gets them for me and they're like the real like oc like the original back in the day that obviously now they got discontinued because you know you could smoke them and all that but and they're just super strong but um i got those and then i kept a pill cutter in my locker

and just would cut cut into cut it into fourths and just sell a fourth for like 20 bucks and ninth grade and you're selling you know one pill for 80 dollars right making 80 dollars because you're selling each quarter for 20 bucks dude you're balling you know i mean like that age yeah oh yeah ninth grade and and the big thing is like you know everyone was you know then they just kept coming to me for more things and then you know um i ended up getting pretty heavy heavily addicted to pain pills um in ninth grade and then by 10th grade i wouldn't even go to school unless i had pain pills to wake up to whoa um just because i would get sick and and going through something like this at such a young age was like it it was it was crazy and everyone that i that i tell this

story to um they're like man that is young because i went right in from that um and and luckily made it through and then in 11th grade i'm still heavily addicted to pain pills still selling my adderall 11th grade i got kicked out of school for selling coke in the bathroom they would look at the cameras during like the break hours um and they would see you know five six people going to the bathroom with me every after every hour you know and we're going in there and doing lines and things like that so um uh they they ended up bringing in like the the cops and searching my locker and then uh i think a few kids even like told on me um so this is in 11th grade yeah and then um at this time um i'm

in sports i'm in like basketball yeah um and uh and the crazy thing is is i got they kicked me off of all sports right they said you can't do any sports anymore um i think they uh expelled or suspended me for i think it was 30 days um and and then obviously coming back to school everyone knows what happened right yeah um and then at this time i'm still taking pain pills and still on my adderall obviously i'd gotten trouble for like the coke they sent me to the to the um to take a a urine analysis right and my mom is there and i still shout my mom out for this like even though she knew what i was doing was wrong but she looked at me and she's like did you do it and i was like um yeah i did and then

she went into the principal office and she was just like my son would never do that he would never do that yeah because i mean obviously that's my mom yeah so i mean obviously i i i got home and i still got you know um you know she obviously cared right yeah she was like hey we need to get so she didn't know you were selling any of this? She didn't know I was selling. She knew that I think she had an idea I was using. But at that time, my addiction to pain pills got really bad. I ended up going to treatment. My first rehab when I was in 12th grade, I went off to rehab.

And that was my first one. And then I went like five other times holy but uh yeah so it's been a long road yeah um but yeah after high school um i got into uh i couldn't find pain pills so i ended up running into that and uh and then obviously anything that i would get i would start selling because i was like to offset the cost i don't want to be spending all my money on this um i'm gonna sell it so i would always start selling whatever i was using um and then i you know started getting into other things like and things like that and then i'd say fast forward like five six years um i've been in and out of uh re like about five rehabs um and then um in and out of jail a bunch of times and then um when i was 23 i went to prison for uh about eight months yeah so um

and then i got out continued in the lifestyle because it was the environment for me you know i was more addicted to the the lifestyle and being known as you know the guy and you know with with the connections and and you know and i thought people looked up to me for that which is crazy but crazy to think and look back on now but um but uh and then i i got out of prison and started i think i lasted like 30 days, about 30, 45 days. And then I started using and selling again to make money because I got a job and I was making nothing. I think I got a job at like Taco Bell or something like that. Yeah, like 7-Hour.

And I was like, what the hell is this? I can't do this. And yeah, and ended up, fast forward two more, or two and a half, three years. When I was 26, that's when everything changed. I have almost eight years clean now. Nice. Congrats, man. Yeah, so I'm 33.

So yeah, everything changed. And basically, I just had to move away from everything. Yeah, I can't wait to dive into that part of your story. Were you sober in prison? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can you can get things in there i think i might have done things a couple times but um obviously like things cost a lot of money in there yeah um like money talks in prison oh yeah like double some double

or triple sometimes what it would cost out here yeah um and i just didn't want to get into the mix in there and obviously sitting in there i like, I knew I had really screwed up. So I was like, I'd be an idiot to just keep going down this path. Right. Yeah. Which we can get into prison a little bit more in a minute. But it was just like, it was, you know i was 26 and i and i had a couple different events that happened like within the span of like a couple months um that i was just like i can't do

this anymore like i need something different because the crazy thing is is for the whole time that i was using and heavy heavy into my addiction and, you know, selling, selling drugs and weight and all that. I always kept a strong relationship with God. Like I never, ever veered away. And I would, I remember that I would pray to him like, Hey, please help me like find a new way or get out of this because I knew that I was meant for greatness. I just didn't know how to get it. I just didn't know where to go or what to do or like i i feel like i always was very held back and that's why i have a tattoo on my arm of um it's an eye with with uh jail bars like so it's i feel like my vision was very clouded and i felt kind of locked behind that

clouded vision and i just didn't know where to go and who to turn to and everything to make it happen. Yeah. And you talk about like finding your purpose. Did you manage to find yours in prison or was it after? It was after. It was after. In prison, I still, I was still young, 23. I was still like, you know, I had thoughts of like, hey, I want to change.

Obviously, who's not? You're in prison. You're locked behind bars. You you can't you don't really have options to do anything else right yeah um but in there I learned a lot of good lessons and one of those was you know who to surround myself with and who not to like I could see in there pretty easily why people were in prison yeah like like you go in there and like pretty quickly you're like okay this guy needs to be here you know what i mean and then you look at yourself and you're like why am i here right i'm nothing like these people yeah right and you start to question yourself and you're like man this is not i wouldn't want someone coming in here and looking at me like why am i around this guy

i'm not meant to be right like this right So when you put yourself in the outside perspective like that, and you start to question like, would I look up to me? Then I was starting to be like, you know, because I felt like I was looked up to when I was out there using and selling drugs. But really, I was just looked up to because I had drugs. That's really it, right? And I felt like a lot of the relationships

that i had with people and friends and girls and it was all it was all it was all fake um because it was just all you know they were reliant on they just wanted to hang out with me because i had drugs right period right so it's like um but i started to realize a lot of things in prison that that led me to inevitably you know two years later after up some more um to really really changing everything um there's a couple different events that happen nice yeah that's kind of how i felt with high school i felt like girls were kind of using me just to smoke for free right a lot of girls do that oh percent. And it's crazy, you know, the, um, you know, just the different things that people will, um, you know, make up to be around you or different things like that.

Yeah. So you mentioned there was a moment earlier. What was that specific moment you were talking about? So the moment when I, when I changed everything. Yeah. So basically, um um it was probably the height of everything um my addiction i had overdosed about three or four times um i was in the back of um one overdose actually i i uh was in the back of an ambulance um my roommate had called the ambulance because i just i fell down smacked my head on yeah on the ground started bleeding. I don't know if I was conscious or not, but he called the ambulance and woke up in the back of an ambulance. Before I woke up, I just seen this rope like flying in front of my face. And, and I was trying to move my arms up and I was trying to move my arms and I couldn't grab it. It was this rope that was just, it was going super fast in front of my face and I couldn't

grab the rope. I couldn't get my arms to grab the rope. And I was trying so hard and so hard. And then finally I got, I got enough strength to grab the rope. And that's when I woke up. And what I still think to this day is that I was dying. You know, I was literally like going down like I was I was, you know, dying. And then they revived me. And that's when I was able to to grab the rope. Yeah. People in near death experiences have similar stories about. Yeah.

Yeah. It was wild. But so then, you know, overdoses and being locked up and I was just tired of it. And at the time and in the height of everything. And I kept knowing and I was just tired of it and at the time and the height of everything and I kept knowing that I was meant for greatness I just didn't know what I was doing like my family at this point I had lost their trust so many times I kept telling them I'd change when I went to rehab and I knew that I was just there to you know for them I wasn't there for me um so a lot of people ask me is it rehab or is it prison

that changed you and it's not like none of those things were were what changed me what changed me was when i was ready to be done and and basically you know there's a saying uh when you're tired of being sick and tired is when you'll when you'll give it up. And, um, I was just to that point and I was living with just a quick story. I was living with two guys, right. Um, I won't name names, but I was living with two guys. Um, we're all doing the same thing, you know, using very heavy, you know, we had girls around, um, like we, we had, you know, a lot of things going on like making a lot of money just you know different things and i was so paranoid that i was carrying like a police scanner with me all all the time everywhere i went what is that a police scanner it's like a portable scanner that

you can get that you can tap into the cops frequency oh wow basically i did that because i was so scared that we were going to get raided like at any time so um one of my boys he um he had a really bad thing with girls like he would just let girls use him like crazy yeah um and what happened is is he ended up driving somewhere i think he had like uh i think he just had like an ounce of meth on him or something like that but he ended up driving somewhere he's with this girl um they ended up getting pulled over um find out later that she was a confidential informant so she had she had tipped off the cops like hey i'm gonna be with him i'll be riding with them yeah pull us over they pulled him over for a like a something about his license plate something that a normal person would just

not get pulled over for they pulled him over for that um he ended up going to prison um he was my best friend he had to go into prison for seven years um and i think he it was seven years he served four um and uh no he actually served i think six um and uh and then it was just me and my other buddy right my other roommate really really good friend and we're just super paranoid because of that yeah um that instead of being smart and being like hey we need to change we're just like let's just use more drugs more heavily because like we just have to block this out that this just happened so um he overdoses dies dies right in front of me holy and and and at this point in time my family had lost all their trust in me um and basically said

that they wanted nothing to do with me anymore and to hear that Especially, you know from people that matter so much to you It really hits home, right? It's like where you really start questioning I don't care how many drugs you're doing or what you're doing in life and trying to mask this or mask that You'll feel that it will be in your heart. You'll feel it and What happened was is um he ended up dying my family wasn't talking to me um and at this time they're moving to arizona and all so i grew i grew up in

minnesota um and uh and they were moving to arizona basically to get away from me they just couldn't they couldn't be around me even though i didn't live at home right i had two different places but um they they just couldn't be around me because i would always like go and check in and acting like things were normal and i'm just you know not looking good yeah not looking good at all right and i was just killing them slowly right just stressed yeah and um they're moving to arizona during this time my best friend just went to prison you know um my other my other roommate um overdosed right in front of me um and at this time i was just like i have to do something different so i literally hopped uh on the day that they were moving i just left

all my stuff there hopped in the u-haul with them and drove down to arizona left everything that i had everyone that i knew and i knew that i had to do something drastic like that or i was going to end up in one of those two places right prison or uh or or overdosing yeah so i slept the whole way from minnesota to to arizona i think i think i slept for 28 hours like yeah in one straight city yeah you know what's wild is i actually was riding with um my dad and you know our relationship had just been so right yeah like horrible because I was resenting him. He was looking at me like, what the hell is this my son turned into? And we had such a good time to actually talk and amend our relationship.

But I was just so strung out that I just slept the whole way for 28 hours. We get down there and I didn't know what the you know what i was going to do all i knew was is i had to do everything different than i've ever done before yeah and i'm a very extreme extreme person like when i want something or when i um you know and and going towards something i go to the extreme to get it right um so i knew that i had to do that except just in the other direction instead of running full speed backwards i had to actually you know gain my traction and run full full speed forwards right so um basically i i went full speed and and i got down there and um just started like meeting the right

people instead of meeting the wrong people right um you know i was uh i was very humbled because at 20 what was i 25 um i just had turned 26 at 20 uh at 26 um i was living with my parents after being out of the house since 16. So I was just very humbled. And I was just like, all that I cared about was my family not seeing me like that anymore and me not ending up in one of those two places. So I didn't know what I was going to do every day. But I just took it one hour at a time, one hour at a time, you know, and, and that's what, you know, I feel like has been a very motivating, motivating factor for me in life is if you don't know where to go, just,

just accomplish today or accomplish this hour, get through this hour and just keep moving one foot instead of the other. And then pretty soon, uh soon uh you know 30 days will go by you know four months will go by eight months a year before you know it's three years four or five you know and during this time that i was changing um i had accomplished so many things that i started to feel like I was recreating myself. I was able to rewrite my story. Um, and, and, and I would have, you know, I'm like, I want people to look up to me. I want to be able to inspire people. I don't want them to look at me and they're like, yep, that's what we thought. That's kind of where we thought Zach would end up. You know, like I want them to look up to me and be like, like i'm in this spot too and and if he can do it i can do it you know and and you know make changes because of that i

love that and i want to talk about your ig agency before you wrap up because now you're making a ton of money you're doing it ethically what's that process been like yeah no so it's good so i've been in the sales uh i've been in sales industry. So when I got clean, um, I started network marketing, um, did pretty well at that. The company went under, um, and then I started door to door. It was actually in pest control door to door for, um, four years. I was the number one rep in the industry for two years and that. So not just in the company, but in the industry, I broke all the records and then I rebroke them all my fourth year. So I broke, I broke my, my own records twice. Um, I was the first one to ever do a million in revenue and pass control in the summertime. Um, and then, uh, I just didn't see

that I was growing there enough. So I ended up getting out of that, starting my Instagram agency. I moved to Miami and in Miami entrepreneurs all over, you know, you got guys, you know, that are 22 years old making 10 million a year, you know, million a month. Like it's, it's, it's a normal thing down there. So I just got in, you know, got around the right people and started making some really good connections. And, and, uh, and all the while, the last, you know, four years I was kind of growing my personal brand, um, and, and kind of helping people on the side do it too and then i was like i'm just gonna make this into a business

um and i and i i would have come people come to me all the time that got you know their instagram disabled they're hacked or deleted or you know banned for just reasons that is crazy that that a lot of times are not even true right yeah it's just people are attacking them um you that a lot of times are not even true, right? It's just people are attacking them. A lot of businesses will get copyright and counterfeited banned for no reason. It's just their competition's trying to take them out. So I would have a lot of people coming to me and they're like, hey, can you help me get my Instagram back?

So I started, obviously, I made some good connections and started recovering Instagrams a lot. I started making really good money and just turned that and the whole, you know, building brands and personal pages into a business. Nice. And then all the while I had, you know, guys that I was used to being door to door with in pest control. They're shooting me checks over of what they're making in solar and i'm like all right you know i'm making a lot of money i'm living a good life in miami but like these checks are wild you know they're making 60 80k a week not a month like

a week solar's not smart you know they're they're literally making you know i've seen you know 60 80 90 i've seen 120k a week like they're wild. So I was like, okay. And everyone was telling me, they're like, with how good you were in door to door, you would be an idiot not to, not to do this. So I ended up getting into that, um, and then built a pretty big team. And, um, and currently I'm launching a winter program in Arizona that's going to be starting in October, December off and going through April. So, you know, door to door for a long time has always been a summer program. So I'm going to launch the first ever winter program. And I'll link the winter program Instagram in the bio.

Yeah, I'll put in the description. But yeah, so. Dude, crazy. Got a lot going on. Super inspired hearing your story, man. Anything you want to close off with? the the winner program instagram in the bio yeah i'll put in the description um but yeah so dude crazy got a lot going on super inspired hearing your story man anything you want to close off with no man i just want to say thanks for for inviting me on here and yeah i'm honored and and i'm excited to you know kind of let people know you know that everything online a lot of times looks very good and and things like that and there's a lot behind the scenes right there's a lot that i had to go through to get here you know and and um and you

know i feel like the goal in life is you know to find your gift um and the purpose in life is to give it away yeah so i mean your gift you know, connecting with people and you're super smart and, you know, a lot of people look to you, you know, for advice. And I feel like my gift is I have such a wild story that I'm able to use that and possibly help save lives, right. And inspire and influence a lot of people. Um, and obviously make a lot of money and all that too. But the biggest thing is, is like being able to impact and change lives like that will leave the mark. Love it.

Thanks for coming on, man. It's been great. Thanks for watching guys. See you next time.