Locked In with Ian Bick - I Got Sober… Then What I Saw as a Paramedic Made Me Relapse | Jonathon Parsons

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Jonathan Parsons grew up in a good family but fell into addiction at a young age, a path that nearly cost him everything before he got sober at just 21 years old. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, Jonathan shares how he stayed clean for seven years and built a life as a paramedic and firefighter, only for the trauma and stress of the job to pull him back into addiction. What followed was a rapid downward spiral — losing his career, his business, and his relationships, and ultimately landing in jail multiple times. Jonathan opens up about the mental toll of being a first responder, how relapse can happen even after years of sobriety, and what it took to hit rock bottom and start fighting his way back. _____________________________________________ #AddictionRecovery #Relapse #Paramedic #EMT #FirstResponder #MentalHealth #TrueStory #recoveryjourney _____________________________________________ Connect with Jonathon Parsons: Tiktok & Instagram: Jonnie_parsons_official Jonnie Parsons on Facebook _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Rock Bottom That Changed Everything 00:43 Early Life & Family Background 01:59 Growing Up Too Fast 03:05 First Exposure to Drugs & Sports Life 04:47 High School, Partying & Slipping Into Addiction 06:00 Dropping Out & Losing Control 08:35 First Arrest & Run-Ins With Police 10:27 The First Attempt at Getting Clean 11:57 Getting Sober & Starting Over 12:50 Becoming a Firefighter & Living a Double Life 14:38 Trauma on the Job & Relapsing 17:27 Losing Everything & Hitting Bottom Again 19:59 Helping People While Fighting Addiction 22:19 The Dark Reality of Being a Paramedic 25:22 Becoming a Father During Addiction 26:05 Losing the Business, Getting Locked Up 31:31 Inside Jail & The Wake-Up Call 35:35 Life After Jail & A Second Chance 40:00 Relationship Problems, Relapse & Final Turning Point 44:00 Marriage, Rebuilding & Turning Life Around 47:01 Staying Sober, Family Life & Giving Back 50:43 Sharing His Story & Finding Purpose 52:14 Triggers, Alcohol & Staying Clean 54:12 “Am I Still an Addict?” 55:35 Talking Openly About Addiction 57:12 Making Amends & Accepting the Past 58:33 Advice to His Younger Self 59:24 Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I used, I put so much in my body. It was a cry for help. 18-month-old baby that just had a heart transplant. So I'm the first one in there, so I'm starting CPR. Afterwards, I had nightmares. My son's face on this baby, not being able to save him. Jonathan Parsons went from seven years sober to becoming a paramedic and firefighter, only to relapse from the trauma of the job and lose everything. In this episode, he breaks down how it happened. What first responders really really face and how addiction can come back even when you think you've beaten it. I'm a Florida boy, man. I just saw snow for the first time in your parking lot.

A little piled up dirty snow in the corner was the first time I actually picked up real snow and I threw it at my wife. But so, yeah, South Florida. I grew up playing sports. Grew up normal childhood, man. I didn't have no, I didn't get like molested by my uncle or anything or anything. of that. Like my mom and dad were, my dad was a Vietnam vet marine. And my mom, he hurt, my dad heard his back the year I was born, which was 1986. And so he was disabled. He had back surgery. He was disabled. He

was disabled. He stayed home. My mom ended up going to work. She was the breadwinner. She worked for the post office. And my dad raised me. You know, like I said, he was injured. So it wasn't like taking me out to go, you know, learn how to shoot guns or anything like that. He was pretty much laid up at the house, taught me how to cook clean, you know, kind of take care of the house. Played sports. He brought me to every single baseball practice. He was there at every single game.

You know, he was that dad. Great guy. Five years later, when I turned five, my little brother came along. Ben, he's got Down syndrome. And then I have an older. brother, older sister, which is 14 and 15 years different. So I was like, whoops child, 15 years later, and then five years later came my little brother. And so once Ben came along, I had more, I call it freedom or I call it independence, whatever you want. They didn't care about me as much

anymore after Ben was born. He was special needs. And so I kind of took advantage of that and went and was able to just do my own thing. And I've always been, was a very independent child, I think. figured things out on my own, learned how to, we had, I joke with my son. We used to have the Britannica encyclopedias. And like I actually had real books. My mom was like part of a book club. So I was reading and like doing science experiments and stuff like that. So real independent and wanting to learn.

And I think that helped me later on in life, I think with, especially with now the information age, Google, all that. You can learn anything. But played sports. That was like my, I call it my drug. You know, I ate, slept, breathed, playing sports. Even after schools in the evenings, we went and played street basketball down the street at the elementary school. And it was just what I did.

I was always very active. And then once I got into, my whole family smoked weed. All of them smoked weed. My brothers smoked and sisters smoked with my father, my uncles. ants every time there was a family gathering people were smoking weed um so i thought that was normal saw it from a young age um and then at 11 was the first time that i had you know i'd watched my parents roll joints i've you know i'd seen it done before so i learned through watching and i that was the first time i tried smoking my my first joint it was at 11 years old me and my nephew was he's a year

younger than me my sister's oldest son and uh i wouldn't say that was the first time like where it took off from but that was like the opening ceremony for me it was like you know like i definitely felt something off of it and it it got me out of myself so it was something that you know was like the the first time using drugs um but so i stayed away from it for years you know i ended up getting into high school played all the uh was on the wrestling team i was on the baseball team i played on i was varsity football my freshman year um and sports kept my grades up that was the only reason that I had good grades because I had to play sports. And then I also hung out in the bathroom that the kids that smoked cigarettes and sold

Nick bags out of my shoe. So I was, you know, I was an entrepreneur from a young age. But I would say about 11th grade is where I started going out and partying after the football games on Friday nights. And, you know, for me, alcohol was kind of. that was that was the the gateway drug for me because i told myself i'd never do hard drugs i'd never do cocaine i never do heroin i never do any of that but i remember i don't remember because but i was drunk one time and i was the first time i did cocaine and somebody told me that and they're

like oh yeah you did coke like last week and i'm like really i'm like i don't remember that and then uh and so like i was like well if i did it last week i'll try it this week you know and it was like that was that was my thing like i had ad i grew up taking riddlin and all these add medications and like cocaine made me feel normal i didn't do what it did to other people like you know i was i just felt like focused and i wanted to like draw and color and do stuff whenever i was on cocaine and and uh so that was kind of where i started going south you know it was high school all the other kids like they drink it you know go to parties and drink and like at the end of the night we're like oh yeah we're going to denny's and i'm like what do you mean like the party's not over

let's keep drinking it's like i felt like i was i was a little different and that it was you know i wanted to keep partying all the time um so i ended up dropping out the end of my 11th grade year as a result of drug and alcohol use i was working i got found a job i was making good money and so i was my habit, which was at the time was pot and, you know, I thought that I was a drug dealer, so I'd make money. And I, you know, Friday just I would go buy a quarter pound of weed and some cocaine and I was selling it out of my mom's house. But a monkey can't sell bananas. So I was probably using more of my own product than I was selling and, you know, working to maintain that habit. And I pretty much dragged across bottom for those two to three years after I dropped out of

high school. I did end up getting my GED, which was a, you know, a good thing. But I would say from from about 17 to 21, you know, I had a few jobs here and there. But just my drug use just continued to get worse. You know, I was doing opiates at the time. There was pills, XNX. And, you know, it got to the point where I didn't care what it was, you know, as long as it would make me feel different, I would do it. I was waking up the next day with like money in my pockets and I was robbing people when I was taking Xanax and I didn't even know it. Like I'd wake up. They say three things happen to you when you take Xanax and you drink. You wake up rich as fuck. You wake up broke as fuck or you wake up in jail. And I woke up two of the three. I didn't

wake up in jail yet. But there was a time that, you know, cops showed up and they were asking me questions and stuff. And for whatever reason, man, I think God spared me from the very beginning. beginning because there's things that I've done in my past that that I shouldn't be here for. I should be in prison. And I don't know how I got out of it other than God. I remember at 20, I wasn't even 21 yet. I was dating a girl. We were drinking Yeagermeister. She told me she was going, and I was like blackout drunk at this point. I didn't remember anything. I guess she said she was going to the strip club or something. And I got my truck and tried to follow her because she already left. At the time, I didn't have a license. And a brand new Dodge,500. And I ended up

tearing the whole rear end out of this thing. I hit a guardrail, ripped the whole rear end out of it, did a 360 on the side of the road. And the only thing I remember is the lady came up behind me after I had crashed my truck. And she said, she's like, are you okay? And I was like, did you see that fucking raccoon run across the road? Which was like an excuse that just came out out of the blue of why I crashed the truck. And I didn't even get a DUI that night. Like, I didn't even know where I was until, like, I hit the guardrail.

My mom said, I did go to jail for driving on suspended license. And my mom said she bailed me out, like, two hours later. She said I smelled like a walking Yeager bottle when I left the jail. So why I didn't get a DUI that night? I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand some of the things. but when I got to be about 21 that was the point where I'll go to my last part with my addiction at 21

the first time experience I had with God was I was sitting in my house I had a bunch of money I was on unemployment and they gave me like a lump sum check it was like five six thousand dollars and I had ran through this money in a matter of a week just using drugs and partying I got to the point where, like, you know, I wasn't going to be able to pay my rent or anything. I got to the point where I was down to my last little bit of drugs. And my dad, my dad, he was in recovery at this point because he used drugs for 45 years after Vietnam. But he got into recovery. And he was about three years clean and sober at this moment in time in my life.

And he used to call me. Like, literally, I would be getting ready to do like a line of cocaine. And my phone would ring. And he'd be like, Johnny, how are you? And I'll be like, what are you watching me? Like, is it just crazy how things happened? But so anyway, I was, I'm in my bedroom, this last night of drug use or, you know, the last little bit of drugs that I had. And he, I was in tears.

I didn't have any money left. It was down to the last little bit of drugs. And I truly got on my knees and I prayed to God that night. And I was never really religious or I never went to church growing up, but I believed in God. And I was on my knees in my bedroom and tears. And I prayed to God that I told him I didn't want to live that way anymore. It was the first time I truly felt a presence in that room with me. You call it goosebumps.

You call it hand on your shoulder, you know, just a feeling of a presence there in that room. And, you know, I'd ended up going to sleep. the next morning my dad shows up this is two hours away from where he lives he just shows up at my house out of the blue you know i'm sitting laying in bed he's standing next to the bed and he's like johnny do you want to come home and i'm like yeah yeah i do and you know obviously i wasn't gonna be able to pay my rent anymore so we just left the house and and and he took me home and i remember i didn't know what detoxing was but i i slept on the couch for three days basically just sick you know i it was detoxing

I know that now, but, and then I went to my first NA meeting with him at 21 years old. And I've stayed clean from, I was in Narcotics Anonymous from the age of 21 to 27. Worked the 12 steps with a sponsor. Worked best seven years of my life, six years of my life, five and a half, whatever you. And got a relationship with my dad. Me and him used to go to meetings together. We used to go bring a message into the county jail. and him together. We used to go to detox facilities, me and him together. And so I built a

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Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause Itchy allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Hatteray. Padiday. Bring it on. Got to have and worked the 12 steps with a bunch of other guys. There's some guys that are still clean today from, you know, from me being their sponsor. And, you know, obviously they did the work and they are where they are because they continue to do well. but became a firefighter paramedic.

I started my own business in that same time frame. I had a lawn business. And so I was a firefighter paramedic for probably three or four of those years of being clean. And then around 27, you know, I was into my firefighter career. Hanging out with firefighters, man. It's hard because I think in, in that field or it's hard to express how you truly feel.

It's like, hey, we just had a cardiac arrest of an 18-month-old baby and we go back to the station, like, kind of laugh and not laugh about the situation, but just continue to joke around instead of like, hey, can we just process what just happened? Like, we just did CPR and this baby and like we didn't get them back. So anybody else think that, you know, like you almost become desensitized to death or, you know, like we do CPR and old people that were, you know, probably lived a long life and there was their time to go. But, you know, death was all around you. And, you know, there's a, the way that I think most of the people in that field dealt with it was to drink, drink for their two days off and come back in

and, you know, detox for the one day they're back at work. And so I kind of, I started drinking again as a firefighter. And, uh, didn't take me long before. I was doing cocaine again. It was a good six, eight months maybe before I was drinking and wanting to do cocaine with it and still maintaining my career. But then I ended up getting into the opiates and at that time it was fentanyl and fentanyl was fentanyl was the thing that took me to the bottom quicker. Like some people drink like, you know, they take some 20 years to realize they got a drinking problem like once their liver goes bad or, you know, some people are overweight and obese and then you know once their cholesterol gets high then they're like hey

I need to do something about it but drugs and alcohol it just takes you to your bottom quicker if you're if you're an alcoholic or an addict and so fentanyl for me took me to a point where I was taking a Suboxone which is a drug that kind of mellows out your your your detox effects and it keeps you from being able to continue to get high if you are to take the drugs it blocks the receptors. So like I was taking this drug whenever I was going to work so that I wouldn't feel sick. But then on my two days off, I was still getting high. And then I got to the point where like I was taking, you know, grandma would be on the

floor with a broken hip. And I'm a paramedic. So I had all the narcotics. I had the key to the narcotics on the ambulance. And so I'd give grandma just, she didn't need the whole bottle of fentanyl. I'd give her enough to where she was good. And then I'd take the rest and I'd squirt it. my mouth, you know, on the way to the hospital. And I was just to feel normal. That wasn't even,

like, to feel high or anything. Like, it got to that point where, you know, I had, my tolerance was so high that it didn't even touch me. This is medical grade fentanyl. Like, that wasn't, you know, even doing anything for me anymore. And so my career got cut short. I ended up, uh, I didn't lose my job for drug use or anything like that, but this is where I think God came in and kind of spared me again because, you know, I went to the gas station one morning to fill up the ambulance and I accidentally put gas in the diesel. And at the time, I was on probation at another fire department because I had switched departments to be closer to my father who had cancer at the time. And so they came to me. They were like, hey, you're on probation. You know, they want to terminate you

because they tried to run a call and the ambulance wouldn't start. So they were like, you can either resign or they're going to terminate you. So I ended up resigning. And, you know, that was the end of my firefighting career. Why do you think you risked your sobriety to begin with after that long stretch of being sober to go into such a traumatic field? Honestly, I don't think it was even like a risk. I had separated myself from my support group. I moved two hours away from where I was going to meetings and my foundation was in my recovery

and thought that I would be told myself I was going to get reconnected and have another support system over there. But I just over a period of time, I think it was like a year that I maintained abstinence after I left. But one day I just walked into a gas station and I saw, I was walking, I was going fishing, walked out, looked over at the beer cooler, and it just was a good idea. for me to go buy a six-pack of beer. And for, like, some people don't understand, like, I could drink today.

You know, I haven't drank in eight, nine years almost. It's coming up on eight years. And I could probably be okay. Like, I would be fine today. It would be no problem. But then next week, I'd be like, oh, I'm just going to drink on Wednesdays. And then next thing, you know, I tell people it's like my dope man's phone numbers in the bottom of my beer.

So, and it doesn't matter where I'm at. Like, I could be in a different state. I could be in a different country. I'm going to find what I want to find if I want it. You know what I mean? I'd be in bars. I'd ask people like, yo,

where's the Coke? And I would find it. Like, it was always, you know, I knew the people. Like, I knew who to ask.

Like, and so that's where it goes for me. So like, I already know how that tape's going to play through. But it wasn't even like a good idea for me, I guess at that point. It was just like, I looked over,

saw it. And then, you know, obviously being able to hang out and with the firefighting crew was that was my support group now, right? So and none of them really knew that I was in recovery either because I never told them. You know, I didn't tell them I had problems before with drugs or alcohol. So now I tell everybody everything.

Like it's all it's on my LinkedIn. It's like, hey, I used to smoke crack and shoot heroin. And people like respect me for that too. And I think now like my foundation of men that I have in my life, it would be imposterous. for me to go back to the old way of living now. People would be beaten on my door, like, wondering where I'm at. And, like, just because I've built, you know, I wouldn't say I built it, but I'm in the middle of the boat.

Let's just put it that way. You know, it would be hard for me to fall out. People, people care about me enough to where they track me down. Now, when you're using fentanyl as a paramedic, aren't you witnessing other people overdose and pass away from the same drug? How do you as a human beings witness that and then still use it yourself? So at that point where I was at my addiction, like I've never been a suicidal person. I never was like, oh, I want to kill myself.

But subconsciously, every single time I use drugs, I put so much in my body that I think it was a cry for help. I think I was subconsciously trying to kill myself every time I used because I would start like a bender. I'd be like, yeah, I'm only going to do like a bump of coke. Next thing, you know, I'm at the dope man's house getting an eight ball. And I don't want to, and I started smoking crack. I never smoked crack unless I had heroin. That was just the way my mind functioned. I wanted to speedball.

And so, like, I remember taking a crack and, like, vomiting out the window of the truck. And, like, and saying, this is awesome. Like, that's the insanity that I was living in. And that's the point of my, where I was at in my addiction. I remember overdosing. I had, it was blues, they were, they're fake blues, they're roxies, but they were fentanyl. They pressed them to make fentanyl pills, and I used to smoke them. And I had tried these blues.

I've stopped using drugs for a while, and I used to, you know, do a bunch of them to just to feel normal. So this one time, I'm like, oh, I'm only going to do just one, like thinking it wasn't a whole lot. I remember overdosing on it. And I got taken to the hospital and an ambulance and they hit me with Narcan. And I'm in the hospital room at the hospital. And I'm like, I know I got three more of them pills in my pocket. So the nurse walks out of the room. I'm crushing up these pills on the table in the hospital room after just getting hit with Narcan, snorting pills in the hospital room.

Like that's because your mind thinks like that. Your mind's like, man, that's some good dope. Like I want some more of it. even though it just killed me. So that's the insanity of addiction. And you don't see normally. Like your mind is clouded. What about that concept of saving other people when you couldn't even save yourself?

That was even like weirder for me because like, I mean, it got to a point where it was a job, right? Like when I first started on that career path, it was because I wanted to help people. and there is that feeling of fulfillment from being able to do CPR on somebody and see them two months later and say, hey, thank you for saving my life. But I think when you get so caught up, like I said, you become desensitized. These guys are, you know, walking around. I was walking around as a paramedic just desensitized to normal feelings because of being a firefighter paramedic. And I guess it comes with the territory.

like you just it's an unwritten or unspoken rule that like you don't talk about it and i think that stigma's changing you know i think this era that's in now and and even whenever i was getting out of the firefighting like i think it was more of a old school method of like the the the tough guy mentality of we just don't talk about that you know we brush it off and we just keep moving instead of like processing it and saying, hey, this is, this makes me feel upset that we just lost this person, even though we tried for 45 minutes to save them. And I'm a little hurt over it and, you know, actually expressing how you feel. I think they're, they're in that realm now. I think it's, it's definitely a more open spot to express yourself and speak freely without being ridiculed

by the older members. Do you have a call that you're always going to remember? I would say the baby one, the 18-month-old baby one, I was a lead medic on that one. And I had, we had just had a seven-story high-rise fire on the beach. It was in Pinellas County, which is St. Pete. So we had, you know, we were sweating. We were just, you know, just left this call. Didn't even get back to the station yet.

We got a call for pediatric cardiac arrest. We go in. There's an 18-month-old baby that just had a heart transplant. So it was maybe six months prior. This baby had a new heart put in. And you still saw the zipper scar on the baby. And so I'm the first one in there. So I'm starting CPR.

I transfer care to Sunstar was another, you know, the transporting paramedic company. Transfer care to them. And at this point, I'm the lead medic in the back of the ambulance. We're working this baby. And I did, like, I intubated this baby. I did everything and um up to and and not including getting pulses back right uh but just little details of that call I always remember like I don't remember the family like being upset like I don't

remember I remember like clearly like it was yesterday I remember seeing like the you know the throat as I got the intubation uh you know tool in there to intubate this baby and then I afterwards I had nightmares because I had a son, young son that was around the same age. So I was having nightmares of this baby, my son's face on this baby, not being able to save him. So that one hit a lot. I wouldn't say that was why I used, but definitely wanted to remember. Did you have your child while you were under addiction or were you sober? Yes. Yeah. So I met his mother in recovery. So we had my son when I was 21. And I'd say the first five years of his life, man, he had it made.

But the last couple, because him and his mom and I were using together. And that wasn't a good mix because we just went to the bottom quick together. And lost my house, lost everything, my business, sold every piece of equipment for drugs. This is after I had resigned from the fire. department and then, you know, uh, just slowly, just little pieces started just, I just started slowly giving them away until I was sleeping on my mom's couch, didn't have anything. And that's when I started, uh, that's when I started getting in trouble by stealing to get, to get, to fulfill my addiction. So now you were able to build the business after the paramedics while in addiction?

I had the business before I became a paramedic. So I was a, I was, I started about 17. I had the lawn business and it was lawn and landscape most firefighters do that they have like a lawn business on the side or something and it was like handyman and kind of what i do now like i was doing dirt work jobs on the side i was doing hard skate projects for doing papers and stuff like that um but with being a firefighter you work 24 hours and you're off for 48 so you had that two days off that to to and i was a hustler so i wanted to make money i always had that mindset mentality of you know if there's time time to be making money. It's not time to be sitting on your on your butt. So the business was already established at that point. But after I lost my job at the fire department, that was my only

way of income, which was, it was paying the bill. So, you know, I was doing well, but not when I had to feed a $500 a day drug habit as well. So just little by little, man, it got to the point where I gave everything away. I was doing fraudulent things to try to, you know, maintain my habit. Once again, I think spared, truly spared, because some of the stuff I was doing through like bank stuff that, you know, I don't know what the statute of limitations is, but, you know, I was, I didn't get in trouble for it. Let's put it that way.

And I should have gotten trouble for some of the stuff that I did. But I think the straw that broke the camel's back was, you know, whenever I did get arrested the first time. I was arrested as a juvenile for possession of ecstasy, possession of cocaine. I was dating a Colombian girl when we got pulled over. I had all these, you know, stuffed all the drugs in the seat next to me. And of course, I told the cops it wasn't mine. And they charged me with it, you know, because I was the closest one to it. I had this backpack full of, I had like a bong in there, a bottle of vodka. ecstasy, weed, cocaine.

And they charged me with, at the time, ecstasy was, they were charging people with manslaughter who had it. So I'm under age and I went to go to court for it. And my arresting officer was in Iraq. That was when the Iraq thing was going on. So they dropped all my charges. So there, you know, should have been, should have been a convicted felon over that.

or at least, you know, gotten in some sort of trouble for it, and I ended up getting spared from it. So another time where I think God was there, like protecting me from having a record for some reason. I don't know. So when I got older, like I said, I was 30 years old was the first time I ever got arrested as an adult. I was living like I was telling you.

I was sleeping on my mom's couch. I didn't have anything to my name. I was just trying to figure out on it, you know, I didn't have a job or anything. I was slowly got rid of my business. So I was at the point now where I was like taking my little brother's Xbox and trying to sell it for drugs. You know what I mean?

And I had made some money working for the hurricane cleanup. And I gave it to my mom. So mom hold my money so I don't spend it on drugs. And she's like, okay. And so I went out on this bender one night. And the next morning I'm like, mom, I want to. give me my money you know like she's like no i'm not giving you money like you're going to go spend it on drugs so i went into her room i grabbed her checkbook and went to go leave to go get

write a fraudulent check and get the money that was my money it was just in her bank account and uh she was standing in the doorway and i went to go brush past her and long story short she called the cops uh so at this time i was doing everything right i'm doing x heroin I just was up all night smoking crack. And, you know, I was at the bank where they pulled me over. And, you know, she told them that I pushed her. So I got battery on a, on, she was over 55. So they said, senior.

And so fraud, fraudulent use of checks. I tried to pass the check. And then they found some weed on the floor in the car. So I got possession of marijuana. But obviously at this time, like I'm doing all these other things. Like I should have gotten in trouble for way more than what I gotten in trouble for that day. So I ended up getting arrested. I got took to jail.

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So I was laying on the floor with like 15 other people that are detoxing. Anybody that knows anything about heroin detox or opiate detoxes, they're just shitting your brains out for a week straight. So I'm 10 feet away from this toilet as every single person in this room is taking turn, just destroying it. I just remember like, you know, five, six days in, like my mind's clear. up and I'm like, man, this is the worst possible thing I could ever think of. And like, I remember being in jail, like, just the way everybody got treated. I'm like, man, this isn't where I belong.

Like, I'm not supposed to be here. And, and just like, and I'm sure a lot of people think that too, right? I'm supposed to be in this spot. But it was, when my mind started to clear, it was like, this ain't for me. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be a drug addict. I'm not supposed to be doing what I'm doing. And I couldn't talk to my mom. So she was like the only person I had left. All my other family members had given up on me. And this is the last lady that was going to probably put some money on my canteen or, or do anything. Like, I legally couldn't talk to her because of the courts. And so I'm in it, man. Like, there's nothing I can do. I'm stuck there. Nobody's bailing me out. And so I stayed. I was in the felony dorm.

Um, and, uh, I ended up, I think I spent like six months in there because you put public defenders and waiting on, on court dates and stuff was like six months before I even got to, to see a lawyer. And I took what they, they wanted to give me probation. I took the probation. Um, long story, or the going back into that, too, when I was in the felony dorm, obviously there's, you know, it was a closed room. So you'd go in the closed cell. There was like six of us in a cell. You had a door at the front. And then you had the day room. And so, like, we're in the room in there. And I'm in here with some people who haven't done the greatest things in life, right?

And so I remember there was some talk about, like, I had a little bit of canteen. I had my coffee. And this kid was, like, talking about it was going to take my coffee. I'm like, nah, this ain't going to fly. Like, and I had a top bunk. So he grabbed my stash and like I went to go jump off the bunk to to go like defend myself and get my get my shit back. No sooner did my feet hit the floor did he clocked me. I still got the scar right here where he split me open.

And I'll never forget that because like I didn't even get a chance to like square up with the dude. Like he was waiting for like as soon as I hit the floor like he hit me. And of course I went to the, you know, the med ward. they stitched me up. I ended up going to the medical dorm after that. And, and, uh, but, you know, that was like almost God kind of knocking sense into me too, in my opinion. Like, yo, you don't belong here. Like, let's go. Get, get your shit together. And, uh, but. So I ended up getting out, took probation, uh, did well. I got my family didn't want anything to do with me at this point. I ended up going to a prison ministry. Um,

and it was a TRC prison ministry. So they take you off out of jail. You go there. They give you a job. Whoever's the other guys that were in there had jobs and you could go work with wherever they were at. So I started working with one of the guys that like weed eating, you know. And I just remember when I got out, like, I didn't want to live the life that I'd lived anymore. I remember like they were all wanting to go hang out outside and stuff and like smoke.

cigarettes and like I didn't even when I got out of jail that time like I didn't even want to start smoking again I'm like how I don't even have a job yet why am I going to get out and go get this $10 a day habit and when I haven't smoked for the last six months like why would I do that and so like my mind was kind of like different than all the other guys that were hanging like well as soon as I get out I'm going to smoke a bunch of weed and smoke cigarettes and I'm like I'm not like I'm going to not do anything to end up back in here again so uh I ended up going to this ministry and all these kids are doing what they're doing. I'm like, I'm in the room reading my Bible, reading self-help books.

I remember like the second week in, I'm like, man, I can't do this weed eating thing anymore. And I had went, you know, and put my resume on Indeed and got a job as a foreman. And I had a company truck in the driveway at this halfway house. Like all these other guys are like riding bikes and walking. And like I just not, I'm not better than anybody, right? but I'm better, you know, I'm trying to be better than I was yesterday. And that's how I was thinking at this point in time. And so I got, you know, I was performing for this concrete cut in company,

had a company truck in the driveway. And, of course, you know, my pride and ego crept back in. Like, I'm, you know, I just thought I was better. I thought I had it figured out. And it didn't take long for me. to I drank again. After I drank, I ended up doing drugs again.

Actually, probably even like the same week. I was looking for drugs. So, long story short, ended up violating probation. This last time I ended up back at my mom's house. And my brother, they called a probation officer on me because they all knew I was getting high. Probation violated me.

And so they sent the U.S. marshals to come get me and just so happened when they came to my house i was out getting crack and so when i seen them at the house when i got back and they saw me and i ran like i had some drugs in the car with me and i had like a pipe and so i took off and they followed me fucking lights and sirens and i remember i threw the drugs out at least they got rid of the drugs and i ended up pulling back into my mom and dad's house they ripped me out of the car they beat the shit out of me i remember like one of my mug shots you can see this giant like egg on the side of my head where they were kicking me and uh and my family was sitting there watching them do it and like my brother they were happy like they were

happy to see me get the shit kicked out of me because of like the scumbag piece of shit person that and it's so crazy like from going from thinking that i don't want to live that way and truly believing it to just using one more time and like i'm back in the same grips of it just like i never left so And not caring what anybody else around me thought. The only thing I cared about was myself. And we think that too, and we're in our addiction. We're thinking like, oh, it's just, I'm only hurting me, but you're not. You're hurting everybody around you.

And it takes a toll because I've seen it from the other side, too, with family members that are stuck in addiction. So I ended up back in there violating probation. So you don't get a bond. You don't get anything. And this is the time that I went into the spiritual dorm, which is in, you know, The county jail, they have a drug dorm and a spiritual dorm. And so I went into the spiritual dorm and, you know, this is the, this is where I found God truly. First time I ever found God.

They had a group of men that would come in from the outside. They'd bring a message every single day that were coming from churches that were all over the community. And I paid attention, man, because I truly, this time I was like, man, I'm done. I don't want to live the way that I was living anymore. And, you know, I took this for what it was. jails and prisons are what they're rehabilitation centers they're there to rehabilitate folks you know criminals people that have done things in their past they're not proud of and rehabilitate them to be able to go back into society and live a normal life so i took that opportunity and i you know i didn't

have i didn't have rent to pay i had three meals a day coming to me i didn't have the distraction of a cell phone to scroll on. Like, I had, you know, everything I needed. And so I dove in to every little piece of paper that these guys brought in there. I jumped into God's word. And still to this day, I don't claim to be like a preacher or anything like that. I can't quote scripture. But, you know, I learn it, understand, it, absorb it for what it is. And, you know, I took that time and did that. And I got out, went back to that same prison ministry. And, uh, I remember telling the pastor, I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, man, I really just want, I want a good Christian woman.

And he's like, all right, well, you need to be a good Christian man first. So that's when I really started to like, like realize it, like, time to get out of this life that I was living, find a wife, settle down, have kids or have my son or whatever, get my son back. Because while I was locked up, I gave custody of my son up. I signed custody of him over. He was adopted. I was unfit to be a parent. So he was adopted by his grandma while I was locked up the last time. And he saw me at my worst.

Let's just put it that way. So I get out this last time. I'm in the prison ministry. And I ended up meeting on Snapchat. chat. I met, you know, my wife now, she was my, at the time, that's where I ended up meeting her. And we started chatting, uh, texting back and forth. I used to post pictures of me working out in the gym and she says she didn't put the heart symbol first or the fire symbol. And, but I don't, I don't remember who it was, but long story short, there were some fire symbols

going back and forth, the, you know, like hot like, like, because I seen pictures of her on there. And I was like, hey, what's up? How are you? You know? and she was a good good good Christian girl she was singing in the church when I met her she's Brazilian so first date we ever went on you know I'm talking and just chatting away and and and I'm like you don't understand anything I'm saying do you and she's like and so there was the little hurdle of the communication barrier so most of the time we were texting anyway and so she was using the translator at but you know once i ended up getting kicked out of the prison ministry because i wasn't i wasn't allowed to have a girlfriend and so i ended up moving in with her and uh she learned

she learned english quick you know she learned english pretty quick um and that was the beginning of of i ended up messing up again i like to say that i got out of jail everything was good um and uh we lived happily ever after but that's not what happened. So she, uh, I ended up using again when I was with her. I started drinking and it didn't take long before I was, you know, hitting the dope man up again. And I would come home on Fridays, um, leave. I wouldn't come back to home until Sunday because I'd spent, I'd spent all the money on drugs. And, uh, and she started, she's the first woman in my life I couldn't manipulate. I would weasel my way back in like the first couple times with like after the third and fourth time she'd throw my shit out by the road and uh she wouldn't put

up with it. So I ended up, uh, I ended up, same exact thing I was, I was doing before. I, you know, smoking crack, drinking. And, uh, and we got to the point where, you know, we had the cops called a couple times on us. We never like got in a fight or anything, but it was just verbal disagreements. And, and, uh, one of the days, that same deal. Like she had some of my money. I get this bright idea. Like, here, hold my money. And then later on when I want drugs, like, give me my money back. And she wasn't giving me my money back. So I called the cops. And she's, uh, she's like, I can't believe you called the cops on me. And she's an immigrant woman, too. So she's scared. Anything, any interaction with the police is, is, is scary.

for someone who's here, you know, trying to become an American citizen. And so for me, I was just selfish at the time. I wondered what I wanted when I wanted it. And she was really like through my interactions with her, that was the first, you know, time that I was able to see what I was doing, you know, because she made me think, see what I was, you know, she made me think about it. She's like, hey, do you want that life or do you want me? And I truly didn't want to live that way anymore.

Like it was, it's tiring. It's difficult. It's, I'm 33 or 34 at this point in my life. And it's like, do I just want to keep dragging across the bottom and end up killing myself? You know, and, and so I really internalized what she said. She kicked me out. I wasn't living with her at the time. But I internalized what she said and I did it for myself, right?

So I ended up going to detox. At this, she didn't, she didn't want to talk to me anymore. So we weren't even conversating at this point in time. And I was living in a halfway house. and she and and and I told her I wanted her back. You know, I did everything in my power to do the right thing. You know, I remember, I'll never forget there was this last day where I had money. And she handed me the money back that, you know, I had given her.

It's like, here, here you go. And I'm like, I'm faced with the decision. Do I go buy drugs or do I do the right thing? And I want, as much as I wanted to go buy drugs, and just use whatever little bit of money I had left over up in drugs. Like, I ended up going to the halfway house instead. And I gave them my money.

And I said, here, you guys take me in. And I would say a good month later, like, I paid my first month of rent at the halfway house. And she's like, okay. She's like, if you want to move back in with me, you got to marry me. I'm like, okay. And I went to the pastor of our church, the Brazilian pastor. and he's like, do you love her? I'm like, yeah, I love her, you know.

He's like, marry her. And at that point in time, obviously, we were broke anyway. Like, I was barely making $500, $600 a week. She was maybe making that much too cleaning houses. And, you know, our efficiency apartment was like $7.50 a month. And so, like, we were barely making it anyway. And I remember going to the pastor, I'm like, man, I can't even afford the certificate to go get married.

And he's like, you know what? That's our gift from the church. We'll get the certificate. So like we couldn't even afford our rings. We went to Walmart, bought $11 rings, and went to the courthouse and got married. And then I ended up moving back in with her. And it has been happily ever after since then. That was this year in October, October will be married seven years. And we built everything. together. I didn't end up going back to jail. I finished my probation like I was supposed to.

I ended up getting custody, not custody of my son, but he ended up starting to come over more and more to the point where up until about three or four months ago, he was living with me almost full time. Now he's spending a little bit more time with his mom, which is fine. But, you know, to have my son back in my life was a big deal from signing custody over to. to him while I was locked up. My wife helping her build her business, she started a cleaning company. You know, when we first got back and got married, and it's flourishing. You know, she's got a very successful cleaning business doing Airbnbs, and she's got

residential cleaning business. And I was, I started out when I got out of jail that last time running a bulldozer and slowly just worked my way up. Like, I wanted to be a foreman, ended up moving into the foreman position, wanted to be a superintendent. This structured my life to where like, I swear, every single motivational tape or video there is on YouTube, I've heard it. I've listened to all of them to the point where like, I push play on one now and I'm like, I heard this one. Like, unless there's new ones since like I stopped listening to them. But I mean, that's like the drive that I would get in the morning's like,

I am good. I'm going to overcome this. I will be a superintendent. I will be a project manager. and like speaking life over myself to discipline myself to move in the direction that I wanted to move in. And God, of course, you know, was there the whole time. Like I said, he's kind of just directing my path. Every time I would get to the next spot, like I would see where he conditioned me at my previous job to like be ready for this one. Like I'd learn how to use an iPad here. So on this job, like, oh, well, now I'm using iPads for this one. It's like it's almost like he just, it was already planned.

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Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free. The truth is our city. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 N-EX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials, no credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Every step of this whole walk that I've been on.

And, you know, today I've kind of gotten to a position where, like, I'm leading a company. I got to move up pretty quickly in. And I'm just super humble. I don't want to say like it's me all the time. I'm like, it's not me because it's the people who are in my life who help me get to that point. You know, I surround myself with good men in this journey and this walk that I'm in. Like I said before, the reason why I think I went back out and used is because I lost that foundation of people that were around me. Like, it's a we thing.

It's not I. Like, even I can't do anything on my own. My best thinking got me into the worst possible places that I've ever been in my life. So I want to be around people like my wife who are helping me and supporting me and telling me she'll be there for me. through anything. I want to be around men in my life that are saying, Johnny, you know what? We're going to get through this. Don't worry about it. I want to be able to say, like, guys, pray for my mother-in-law. She's in the hospital right now. And I have that. And that's what has helped me to move to where I'm at today. I get to go in to bring the same jail cell that I sat in seven years

ago, I get to bring a message in there once a month. I get to bring, we do men's retreats once a year now. One of the, one of the, I got a brotherhood of guys that we started a business together. It's called Braveheart inspired. We do men's retreats once a year. We have a free Christian concert we put on once a year. We go to boys and girls clubs. We've got a group of us. We've painted two boys and girls clubs in our area. And just community outreach, giving back to the community that we grew up in. never would have thought that I'd be in the position that I'm in today. Never. Could you tell me that I would even want to do the stuff I'm doing today?

And it's been a journey, man. It's been a path to even like a year ago starting the podcast. You know, it started with someone asking me to be a guest. And I was a guest on a podcast. And I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool. Like, I get to share my story. and it's helping people. The feedback that you get from it is like, man, this is pretty cool.

I mean, it's not like the look at me kind of thing, but it's the when you see people at the Wind Dixie and they're like, man, your story helped me change and transform my life. Thank you for sharing it. That's what makes you want to keep doing it. It's not to like the look at me aspect or the, you know, it's the true impact that you leave on people's lives and to inspire other people to do the same thing.

You know, everybody has a story. I think everybody should share it in some way, shape, or fashion, even if it's on a one-on-one kind of spot. But that's kind of it in a nutshell for me, man. I mean, I don't, I'm super grateful for everything that I have in my life. I'm a grandpa. Like me and my wife have everything that you can think of, everything that you need.

Like there's, I don't want for nothing. She asked me what I want for my birthday. I don't want nothing. I just want you. I want it. Let's go out to dinner. Like, I don't need anything. I might get a pair of shoes or something every once in a while, but I don't need it for my birthday.

I'll just go get a pair of shoes when I want a pair of shoes, you know. Why do you think alcohol kept bringing you back to drugs? It seemed like throughout your story every time you went back to alcohol, which led to the drug use. That's just the gateway for me. For me, like anything can make, people have. asked me what my drug of choice was, my drug of choice is more. So whatever made me feel better or whatever made me feel good, I wanted more of it. Sex, drugs, making money, spending money. And alcohol, like I said before, is just something that helps you get to your bottom quicker.

It makes you make, for me, like, I was the guy that, like, I couldn't drink two beers. So by the time I'm on number six, I'm making stupid decisions. And I've just never been that person that could like day drink and drink three or four beers and stop for the rest of the day. Like when I started, I didn't start, finish until I was either passed out or found some cocaine to help me come down off of my alcohol buzz, you know? And, uh, and then it got to the, you know, alcohol was just the gateway for me. It was what started it all again. Do you try to stick away from alcohol environments now? Not really. To me, like today, like I don't, it doesn't buy.

bother me. I truly believe that, you know, I go, like, we have to live in the world. So I'm not going to like, I don't go hang out at bars and stuff all the time. But if I'm there, it's not a big deal. Like, I go hang out with my friends sometimes. We'll go watch a fight. Like, it's not, I'm not going to start drinking because that my wife drinks. She has a glass of wine every once in a while. She's, you know, just because she's drinking doesn't mean that makes me want to drink, you know. I just know where it takes me. So I already, you know, it's not, plus it, look at all the, it's poison. Like, your body wants it out of you as soon as you put it in you. Like, there's just, I, I get to experience life today. Every part of my life I get to experience it. And I wasn't able to do

that when I was drinking. It's crazy to think what it takes to get to that point of being able to say no to and be able to be around to it. You know, so many years of abuse and just neglect and everything you've gone through. It makes you wonder why people can't do that from the start. I think all of us got that hardheadedness in us, right? A little bit of it. And to think, it's insanity. I mean, it truly is to think you can get to get away with it. For me, was like, that's what I kept lying to myself and telling myself. And I truly believe I don't call my addiction addiction. I don't call myself an addict anymore. I don't call myself an alcoholic, because I truly believe I'm a new man.

And I think that holds you in a box. Like if I wake up every day and be like, I'm an addict. Like, I'm always going to be that. I'm not an addict today. Like, I'm a new man. That's the old me. And I speak life over my situations in life. And I don't think of myself as, like, I just tell people, like, they ask me if I want to drink.

I said, brother, I was like, I'm allergic to alcohol. Like, I break out in handcuffs. Or I tell, I'm like, you don't have enough here for me. Like, that's, that bar out there. That's just a good start for me, man. They say one is too many, a thousand's never enough. One is too many in the thousands. Just a good start for me.

Have you had a conversation with your son about addiction? I have. He saw me, you know, going through it. He was maybe five at the oldest, I want to say, like five at the end of it. But he saw me and his mom getting into it. He saw, like I remember coming home when I was working at the fire department. And she was out all night the night before drinking or whatever she was doing. And he's out in the kitchen, two slices of bread on the floor, on the kitchen floor, squirting ketchup on it.

When I walk in, coming home from work at the fire department, and I'm like, man, this is what we're doing, huh? like this kid's hungry and his mom's passed out on the couch and like you know so that was kind of a reality shock for me I was clean at that point in time his mom wasn't and uh you know that sometimes you just don't see it when you're caught up in it or you see it and you like I remember going to get drugs before and I like I would look at my had this cross hanging from my from my mirror and I would look over at it and then like look away real quick because it was it would give you that sense of like don't do it but i wanted to do it more than i didn't want to do it like i think you you you actually give in to the action long before you even take it i think it's

mental they say like you relapse before you even pick up the drug and uh a relapse is a relapse and behavior so uh yeah so i just try to take those thoughts captive but it never today like it doesn't it's not even like a good idea for me or do I, nor do I think that like drinking would be an option just because my life is where it is. Those moments you are just describing with your son, how do you redeem yourself from that or make up for that? Honestly, I mean, I believe he forgives me, but at the end of the day, like, you know, when I, when it's the end of my time, it's me and God at the Perling Gates. my son is my son i love them to death but i didn't stop using for him you know i stopped using because for me and not in a selfish way but you know i i have a priority list of like god then me then my

family because if i don't have me how can i even be there for anybody else so i have cleaned up my side of the street whether he's going to take to his grave with him like you know some sort of regret or the fact that he may still be upset with me over what I did in my past, I can't do nothing about that. And I don't think he does. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think. I cleaned up my side of the street. I've done my part, I think.

What advice would you give dear younger self before you ever turned to liquor or drugs or went through any of the trauma you ended up going through? I would say that, I mean, I wouldn't change anything. I wouldn't tell myself not to do it because I truly don't think that I would be who I am today had I not gone through everything that I went through exactly how I went through it. But what I would tell myself is to not beat myself up because a lot of the times it was the unsaid or unwritten shame and guilt that was on my heart that I would never, you know, that was the reason why I did what I did was to try to cover that. up right the reason why i used was try to numb that pain or cover that feeling up but there's always a temporary solution to an ongoing problem but i would tell myself not to not to beat myself up as much well johnny i appreciate you coming on the show today man and i look forward to doing your podcast

definitely