Locked In with Ian Bick - Inside the Life of a Kentucky Drug Trafficking Family | Johnny

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Johnny grew up in rural Kentucky surrounded by a world most people only see on TV. His family was deep in the drug trade, with his own mother moving product for the cartel. Johnny shares how he went from a childhood surrounded by drug dealing to cooking meth, battling years of addiction, and spending time in and out of jail. #DrugTrafficking #CartelStories #PrisonInterviews #TrueCrimePodcast #AddictionRecovery #MethAddiction #RedemptionStory #lockedinpodcast Thank you to BLUCHEW & EXPRESSVPN for sponsoring this episode: BlueChew: Visit https://bluechew.com/ and use promo code LOCKEDIN at checkout to get your first month of BlueChew FREE & pay five bucks for shipping. ExpressVPN: Secure your online data TODAY by visiting https://www.expressvpn.com/lockedin to find out how you can get up to four extra months. Connect with Johnny: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jc_kicks84/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Use code LOCKEDIN for 20% OFF Wooooo Energy Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Johnny: From Cartel Family to Redemption03:00 Growing Up in Kentucky: Chaos, Drugs & Early Struggles08:40 Family Turmoil: Addiction & Violence at Home14:10 Mom Joins the Cartel: The Start of the Family Drug Empire21:00 How Johnny’s Mom Met the Cartel & Moved Product24:55 Crime, Robberies & Drug Running Across Kentucky34:00 Cooking Meth & Law Enforcement Raids on the Family42:00 Life in Jail: Violence, Fights & Survival Stories51:00 Addiction Spiral: Counterfeit Money & Rock Bottom01:00:00 Facing Prison Time, Close Calls & Getting Clean01:07:00 Early Sobriety Struggles & Family Challenges01:14:00 Regaining Custody & Trying to Rebuild Life01:19:00 Rehab, Relapse & Powerful Redemption Story01:26:00 Finding His Biological Father & Family Roots01:31:00 Reflections on Forgiveness, Faith & Moving Forward01:36:00 Closing Thoughts: Choosing Kindness & Staying Clean Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak. Got that right. We start fighting. I hear that hot pot sizzling. I grab it. And at the time, you know, my thought is to douse him in the face with bull in hot water. How does a Kentucky woman like your mom form a relationship with the cartel? You know, end up stabbing one of them pretty good, cut him up pretty good. So you and your friend have this great idea to shoot each other with bulletproof vests on.

Johnny Ellington grew up in Kentucky surrounded by drugs. His mom was moving product for the cartel. He eventually got involved himself in cooking meth, battling years of addiction, and going in and out of jail before spending years behind bars. In this episode, Johnny shares how he broke free from that life and turned everything around. Johnny, welcome to Lockton. This is our second redo because I unfortunately messed up. The audio files didn't seem properly when you were here in February or January? January. January.

Yeah, when your wife came out here and I met you guys. It was incredible interview. but the audio wasn't there. And I feel so bad because I'd let, like when I was editing all the, the episodes before I left for Beast back in February, like 2 o'clock in the morning. And I realized I didn't have the audio. So we had a scrap and I left them a note. You've got to reach out to Johnny Ellington. Let him know what happened so he doesn't think I, like, canned his episode or something.

So now here we are months later. And so happy you could be here. And you got to meet our new studio pup, Bella, who we just adopted today. Yeah, no, she's amazing. Yeah, the audience will already see her on Instagram by the time this episode comes out. We got her at Dawes and Bethel today. That's where I got my first dog, Boone, when I got out of prison back in 2019. But she's so sweet.

She doesn't bark. Hasn't barked one time, not even once in a whole hour or longer I've been here. She's happy meeting everyone. We got her a bunch of toys, got her a little bed and stuff. So she's so cute. She's four years old. She's a Jack Russell Terrier. No, she's amazing.

She's beautiful. She's sweet. It's made my wife super happy to give somebody. or a dog out there to play with while we're here and while we're doing this. So it's been amazing for sure. Definitely. We're super happy to come back.

Yeah, you guys are good people. I want you to tell the audience, the podcast you guys started since we've met. So it's called Shut Up Amanda. It's just me and my wife. I'm talking about everyday life, marriage, redemption, sobriety, you know, the backstory of how we met. That's going to be our first episode is where and how we met

and what the very early days of kind of like two people early in sobriety meeting and what that was like and how the world told us it would never work because, you know, two drug addicts, you know, early in sobriety meeting generally doesn't work. But I always say we're the, you know, we're the exception to that. And other people can too if you do what's right and you work hard at your relationship. And then also just, you know, you had him work and kids and just life in general and, you know, just showing the, fun and funny side of what it's like to work together. We're together 24-7. Every day we ride to work together.

We're never a part. And so just showing the world that people can do that. I would say 99% of people, you know, say I could never work with my wife or I could never work with my husband and be with them all the time. But, you know, some of us enjoy that. And yeah, so that's what we're going to do. Just talk about life and have a good time while doing it. And it gives us something to do.

And, you know, when you don't have any kids at home anymore, you use their, bedroom is a podcast studio. So that's what we did. Where do you grow up, Johnny? I say Waco, Kentucky. My wife says Richmond. They're both in the same county. It's Madison County. Richmond's a smaller town of about 40,000 people. Waco is, it's a guess a sub-community of Richmond. I don't even know. There may be a thousand people there. But Waco has a fire department, a post office, and a zip code. So therefore, it's a city. It's its own place. And so I always say that, but even people from Kentucky 30 minutes down the road where I'm from will say, where are you from? I say Waco, where they think Texas? Or if I say Waco, Kentucky, even they're like, oh, I've never heard of it.

And I like, it's 30 minutes down the road. So my wife just says, just say Richmond. People know where that's at. They know what it is. Just say Richmond. And I refuse to say it. But still, yeah. What was your upbringing like? Um, well, that's a, um, there was a lot of variables, a lot of changes. Um, so I'm the oldest, you know, I have a, I have a younger brother that's four years younger than me. Um, when I was born, uh, had a completely different last name than I have now. And then when I was, uh, about five, my, my mom had got remarried, and they changed my name to Ellington. So then I had a stepdad, but also thought this other guy who was my original last name was my real dad. And, you know, we lived, you know, my mom was always a stay-at-home mom from the time I was probably four or five. And my stepdad worked, you know, just normal life.

You know, I thought life was pretty good. I remember a lot of partying at different times. I remember certain smells that I thought people were smoking cigarettes when I was a kid and never put those together. You know, I come from a really big family, my great grandparents, who raised my mom a lot of the time, too. They had 10 kids, and then, you know, those kids have. So I've got tons of cousins, you know, tons. But my mom actually has, you know, one sister and two brothers. My mom was also the oldest. And then so just always around family. A lot of my family, I would probably say most of them are, you know, either partied or partake in some type of illegal drugs or something. But then I've got a lot of other family cousins, my aunt that's successful, and I've got cousins that are, you know,

a judge. And, you know, so there's some really successful people in part of my family that have never done anything wrong. And then there's the complete opposite. So I would be around and see completely different ends of the spectrum growing up, depending on kind of who I was around. But then when I was about eight years old in third grade, my dad got a stepdad got a better job and we moved into a bigger house. And life was still just pretty normal. My mom started going to church at that time. And so was really, life became like pretty strict of every night there was a church open. We were going, which caused me to kind of resent religion in general because as a, you know,

know, nine, ten, eleven-year-old kid, I didn't want to be at church six nights a week, you know. But then I think around seventh grade, sixth-seventh grade, my aunt, my mom's aunt, had got sick, and passed away. I remember that happening. And then my mom just kind of spiraling because of that started drinking, just staying gone for days at a time. And it was just really a lot of chaos. and then me and my friends started drinking in like seventh grade and my mom just didn't say nothing about it.

You know, she would find the alcohol. And, you know, we had a party in eighth grade. And, you know, we were all drunk. You know, my mom's there. You know, she had just kind of completely broken down. And back then I thought, my friends thought I had the coolest mom in the world, you know, because we could do whatever we wanted at my house. And there's a lot of times I resented my mom because I'm like,

you're drunk like you're acting like a fool and I was being embarrassed of her even though my friends thought she was super cool um so I started drinking I guess that around 11 or 12 um and then still just kind of progressed into that you know just going to school I was still making good grade still showing up to school and then when I was 14 um I started smoking weed for the first time smoked it by myself, got it off a friend's brother, went to out back of a house all by myself and smoked it. I just wanted to finally try it because a lot of my friends have already been trying it and I just kept saying, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Finally, I just tried it and I liked it.

And so I kept doing that. But when I was 14 or 15, went on vacation with my best friend to Panama City. And when we come back, my mom was gone and she took everything out of the house. and so she had left my stepdad at the time who I called my dad, I had his last name, you know. And when she left, she took it all. And then I found out, I called, try to get a hold of her. I find her and she's with this new guy who only had one leg.

I called him Peg Leg Greg. And then I started finding out after being around him that he was super abusive to my mom, like, just would just beat her up all the time. I mean, held her hand to a hot stove one day. time and burn her hand and was just super violent. And at the time, I couldn't understand. I'm like, mom, he's got one leg. Just knock his leg out. Like, boom. Like, you know, he's going to fall over. He can't walk, you know. But my mom was so, and I'd never seen my mom scared of anybody. Like, I've seen my mom in so many fights with women. Like, she was always, like, this super badass to me

because she really was. And then I seen this man just abusing her, like, she was nothing who only had one leg so I couldn't understand it. And I don't know if she had just been so broken down. And then, you know, like, I don't know what happened there. But so we spent about it that year, you know, even once he pulled into my, my granny's driveway, my great-granny, and my mom's mom walked out with a baseball bat while he was sitting in the car and beat every window, every headlight, tell light out of that car, why he was sitting in it.

And then he finally left. But my mom still kept going back. And I just couldn't understand it. I don't know if it was because he got good pain pills. from his only having one leg or like it was just a really weird situation of why she would be with this guy considering how big of a piece of crap he was next year i go to panama city again come back she dumped gregg and she was with the new guy ben and he was actually really nice in the beginning and really he always treated me good um he's just a you know a really country redneck guy that you know just

was good to my mom at the time, you know. And then not long after that, my mom's divorce was finalizing from my stepdad. And then I think she got around $300, $350,000 from that divorce. And so during that time, they had made a connection to somebody within like the cartel in Mexico. So we were already starting to, mom had already started to kind of build this drug business. And it was kind of, I don't know, better way to, a family business kind of, you know, like my mom, my stepdad and me, a lot of my cousins would be involved. You know, one of my uncles, like I said, I had two uncles and one aunt that were direct siblings of my mom. my aunt never done anything wrong with her life retired from Walmart after 30-something years just amazing person and then one of my other uncles who passed away recently you know owned his own

business worked hard his whole life drank a whole lot but never really done drugs another uncle who's like the male version of my mom those two were been in and out of jail and he's actually doing really good right now too and has been sober for you know I think six months now. But he was always involved too as, you know, as my mom's brother. But when she got the divorce money, they found a connection, went to down to like Brownsaville, Texas, like El Paso, I think, Meta Morris, all down through the Texas border of Mexico. And they started dealing with the cartel down there, bringing back, like Xanax's, oxies, and a little bit of everything that they could get down there. And so that happened for a little bit. I got sent.

off to a boys home when I was 17 and spent a little bit of time at a at a female not a female a female a female and male uh juvenile prison in uh Kentucky and you know it was essentially what it was a juvenile prison you know and so spent a couple months there went to the boys home graduated high school everything was you know like I was just kind of trying to get through you know I knew when I was 18 that I was going to come home so I graduated high school, did that there. I knew this whole time while I was there that my mom and them was hitting Mexico hard making these trips, you know, and I was, my mom was open with me, you know, telling me what they're doing, you know, yeah, we're going to Mexico, we're doing this,

we're doing that. And so, you know, I feel like I'm missing out on everything, right? At the time, instead of thinking like a clear person of like, oh, I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I'm not around that. I'm wishing like, oh my God, I'm missing all the action, right? Like, and so it's The day I come home, which was the day before my 18th birthday, my best friends waiting there on me, Nick, who's also passed away. And my mom had the idea then that, you know, I wasn't, she wasn't going to allow me to get high or do any drugs. So I just give him my money, had him go buy it from my mom. We'd done the oxy. And obviously my mom knew I was high because I hadn't done anything in 10 months.

And, you know, the next day was back to normal, like, you know, she realized, like, if I want to do something, she can't control me. I'm 18 now and so, you know, and through all this, I always felt like my mom just kind of did the best she could. She did what, you know, what she just either was kind of coerced, not coerced, but like talked into, like she was easily manipulated. My mom's the person that has a new best friend every day. She's walking through the dollar store and she drops an ink pen and you pick it up. Well, you're her new best friend. You're going to save the world and she would trust you with her life because you give her her little ink pen back. So she has, has always had a new people. She always knew best friend, and she always sees the best in everybody.

You could be the homeless person. You could be a bank robber, and she's going to find something good in you that she can talk good about you, which are good traits to have to see good in people, but my mom does it to an extreme extent to where she brings those people around the family all the time, you know, her kids and whoever. And I'd be like, mom, that's not a good person. They did this, this and this. Yeah, but they did this for me, so they're good. But we just kept going down those lines. Mom had turned, you know, through the trips to Mexico. I never went to Mexico with them.

My little brother did go with them. And, you know, they turned that money that she got from the divorce settlement into probably a little over a million dollars. And, you know, that was selling, you know, just a little bit of everything. But then, you know, people started robbing us, you know, my mom and stepdad, would be up on meth for days and would pass out on one occasion. They were passed out. My stepdad's sitting in a chair like I am with a gun under his hand.

My mom has a mattress in the floor. And then my mom would keep all of her daily supply in a big tackle box like that fishermen would use. And then she would keep everything else like locked up. And she had to put all of her jewelry in that box. Somebody walks in. Somebody, we know now who it is, but they come in to, I think, make a place. purchase to do something. Well, it was like an opportunity presented itself. They come in the front

door, obviously didn't knock because nobody ever knocked on our doors where I'm from. You just nobody knocks. Like you just walk in. If it's somebody's house, you're welcome in. So I think they just walk in. They may have even tried to wake them up. Mom and stepdad been up so long. They were just not being woke up. And so I think they seen the opportunity. They knew what was in that tackle box. And they took it. You know, that was $50, $60,000 there. They were going to casino boats, gambling all the time, losing money there, you know, then just getting ripped off. And then they got busted in Brownsville, Texas with about 50,000 Xanaxes and some other stuff. The feds picked them up, lets him go on bond.

My stepdad's out. He was the one that took the blame for everything. He gets out on bond, and then they end up raiding our house again. They were raiding my mom all the time. They would catch him at the casino boat. and just shake them down. And at this point, nobody had anything on them because we knew what was going on, right? So it was a lot of kind of cat and mouse at the time.

I remember even putting everything in garbage bags and climbing pine trees and hiding garbage bags way up in a pine tree just in case the police came, you know, at night and just always paranoid, you know. And at this time, I just had the plan when my mom would say, you know, what are you going to do with your life? You know, you're 18, I'd be like, what do you mean? What am I doing? This is the family business, you know, we're open 24-7, like, and it was, you know, mom and them would work one shift. I would work the next shift, you know, because a lot of dealers, they sleep, you know, like you can only go, you know, until they're in bed at night.

But us, you could come anytime day or night, you know, whether if you wanted something like meth that was going to keep you up all night, we'd have that. But if you wanted something that's going to, a narcotic that's an opiate that you're going to sleep at night, then, you know, we have that. Like, it was just, it really was a family business. You know, as an 18, 19 year old. And then I have a 15-year-old brother at the time that's seeing all this, too, you know.

I didn't see anything wrong with it. Like, generally, I just thought this is where my life ended up. And, you know, I seen so much money being exchanged and made that, you know, it was just like, it was like watching Scarface or the Goodfellas or, you know, the godfather. And it's aspiring, oh, that's what I wish I could have been, you know. It was kind of like that, but not at that level, but still of like, oh, this is. where I'm at, this is what we're doing. You know, I had tons of friends. I had tons of girls that wanted me because my mom, you know,

had all the supply of any drug you wanted. So, you know, it was just like that feeling of, you know, my mom would call people and be like, she never left to the grocery store because she would just call people, hey, go to the grocery and get me this, this, this, this, and this. And then she would just exchange it for appeal, you know, like, we never had to do anything. Somebody always did it for us, you know, like,

even before she left my stepdad, We had a girl my mom raised that lived at our house that pretty much done everything. She drove us to school. She cleaned our house. She cooked for us. She did everything for us. And my mom raised her. So just always having somebody do something for you, you know.

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And big thanks to Bluu for sponsoring the podcast. How does a Kentucky woman like your mom, in the kind of like the sticks, I guess you could say, form a relationship with the cartel? So that's, it's funny. My mom's been able to do that. She's done it in Dayton, Ohio, with a gang up there. And my mom is very country from the sticks,

redneck white woman. and I remember once she went up to Dayton, Ohio, and was able to meet a huge dealer up there, not just a low-level, like, corner street dealer, but a dealer that could supply her kilos of cocaine. And she does that just, she has this way about her. Like, for one, she's not scared to approach people. She doesn't have that fear in her of, like, what are they going to say? What are they going to think?

Are they going to think I'm the police or any of this? Like, she just goes about it. She goes about it. She knows how to talk to people. She's professional. With the cartel, a guy she knew told her where to go. And I'm trying to get the story right. Told her where to go is to a park and told her to go there and ask for a specific person.

When she goes there, she asks for this person's name. And the guy there told her he didn't know he was talking about. I guess I don't know if he was like security at this park or if he was, I'm not sure, but this guy around there. and she calls the guy back in Kentucky and was like this, I asked this guy, he's like, just keep going back. And so my mom went back there for like two or three days and kept asking for this same guy's name.

And finally, on the second or third day, the guy was like, follow me. And then ended up taking mom to meet the actual two guys, which their names was Omar and Oscar. And they had pet tigers. They had somebody that put their coats over them,

like fur coats. They had somebody that lit their cigars that, you know, like my brother when he went was like, you walk in the bathroom. They have somebody spraying cologne on you. He was like it was real life like walking into an episode of the godfather or something. He was like, it was insane. Like they ran this whole area like, you know, and I don't know how high up they were in the cartel. But they at least had enough power where they had, you know, big cats as animals and had somebody. putting their code over them and had assistance or security.

And then my mom took a couple people with them once who were acting crazy. And they told my mom, like, take Tarzan back to the jungle or you see him no more. A cab driver ripped my mom off one time because that's the way we would get everything across from Mexico to America was through cab drivers. And we would pay them $500. And whatever you wanted, they would bring across. And then everything went good for a couple years at that point. And then a cab driver ripped them off and didn't deliver.

And mom calls them, tells them what happened. And then went back the next time. And mom was telling me that one of the brothers put a pair of old beat-up shoes on the table. And she was like, what are these? Like confused. And he was like, cab driver, you see him no more. And so, like, obviously you only have one assumption of what maybe happened to the cab driver, you know, you know, and who knows, maybe he was just saying that to strike some fear, to gain some

respect from my mom. I don't, you know, nobody really knows, but that, we know the message he was trying to send, you know, of, we took care of him, you know. So, you know, but my mom just never had no fear. Like, there was never, like, she was there for a purpose and she had a mission, and she was going to accomplish that regardless of whether she's down in Mexico and there's these, you know, huge cartels and drug dealers, or if she's up in Dayton, Ohio, and it's street gangs up there. Wherever she's at, she's always been able to meet the biggest drug dealers

that can supply the most amount of drugs. And I don't know. Like, seriously, like, I don't know how. Like, I've been in that game too. Like, and it would take me much longer always to meet, you know, the kingpins than my mom. She can somehow meet them and seems like walking to a random place and know them within 30 seconds, like,

and point them out, oh, he's the guy. Like, she just had that now. act for. Was your mom the only one in your area that was dealing with people like the cartel? No, maybe at certain times, possibly, but there's other times. There was, you know, another guy that that was dealing traditionally all meth and was dealing with the cartel. He got robbed. My cousin went to prison for robbing him for, I think it was like 10 pounds of meth. And people's houses were getting shot up over that. Like there was a lot of, you know, one of my friend's grandma, I heard got tied up, thinking that, thinking my friend had something to do with it.

Like, there was a lot of violence going on over that one, too. And then there's a few others, mostly meth, though. I don't know many others that were tied in with the opiate and Xanax side of it. And then there for a while, like, weed was, we were doing that, getting that through some different people, but it was coming from Mexico, too. So it would kind of evolve, too. And like, that's the thing with my mom at the time is like, we would sell whatever there was demand for. Like if, if meth was what was really booming, that's what we would start getting, you know. And, you know, they would always do the opiates and the Xanaxes, but sometimes it would go from like cocaine.

And then we would start getting that or Xanax or meth and we would start buying a bunch of that. You know, it was whatever we had people asking for was what we would try to get, right? You know, like you want to be able to supply the demand. So we would do that. And then, you know, when I was 18 or 19, the feds came back, arrested my stepdad. Once he was like, I think when he was indicted, they re-arrested him. And so it was just me and my brother and my mom. And things started going downhill from, like I said, getting robbed.

We were blowing money like it was never going to end. At that point, they weren't going back to Mexico anymore. There for a little bit. I think they were having a little bit of it delivered and having it shipped, but that only lasted so long. Money was draining, you know, and with them, they will, like, front so much stuff and give you so much on credit. But my mom was also smart enough to not get in that predicament because that's one group of people you don't want to rip off and not pay, right? So my mom had some sense to not do that. but then we just kept blowing money and this after that happened into where we were broke within like a year.

My stepdad's in prison. We were completely broke living in a little bitty apartment. And then I had my two sons, biological mom. We didn't have any kids yet, but she was living with us one night. We went, me and her got into a big fight and I was trying to run up the stairs to get away from her. She was a little crazy. And she slipped going up the stairs. When she did, she kind of fell, and her eye hit the corner of the stairs.

It was carpet, but it still hurt, and it left a little black mark on her eye. And we went to a pool room that night where her mom and her mom's boyfriend stayed at all the time. And we would go there quite often, too. I would trade pocket knives up there with old men, so I would carry two or three with me and go up there and just, you know, like a, just like trading them, you know, for other knives. With a friend of mine that night, we're up there playing pool. I go up to the snack machine, and next day I know I've got two people with their hands. hands around my neck, bending me over a bar stool kind of backwards, and they're yelling in my face, they're just going nuts, you know, teach you to hit a girl. And I'm like, what are you

talking about? Well, they had assumed that since she had a black eye, that I give her the black eye. And I was like, yes, we were fighting. No, I did not hit her. She literally was running up the stairs chasing me and hit her eye on the corner of the stairs. Well, they're going off and they're threatening me and all this. So I called my mom, and I was like, mom, I need you to come and get me before I do something. I'm a regret or things get out of hand here. So my mom comes, she brings my granny with her. My granny is equally as crazy as my mom, just not into the selling drugs and all that.

And they both show up with my little brother, who this is when I'm 18, I think. And I'm walking out of the pool room and then the two guys, which one was my kid's mom's stepdad and another friend of his. and they kind of, I go on out to the car, and I was like, let's go. My mom and granny are like, nope, they get out, walk inside the pool room. And as far as I know, the first thing my granny says is like, you know, where's the son of a bitch here that's mistreating my grandson? Well, they all stand up and we're like, well, we're right here, you know.

And then I see, I know I see my mom and granny kind of walking out of the pool room, kind of slowly backing up. They're kind of getting surrounded. A bunch of people are there. They're screaming going on, yelling going on. at that moment I was just like thinking like my mom and my grandma you know my grandma's 85 today this was 20 years ago so you have think she's still in her 60s at this moment you know and so I grabbed my knife I open it up I go up there and the two guys like let's get it on and so the two guys that had that were holding me down and choking me over the bar stool um you know I end up stabbing one of them pretty good cut him up pretty good and the other one all I remember is he had my brother in the corner of the front door of the van and my brother had a hammer in his hand and I'm telling him like hit him and but he got cut a few times too and I don't even know how and at this point I'm just losing my mind like I'm just going nuts this is right next to the jail the courthouse

the police station like it's right downtown where I'm from like there's all the city offices right there and so the police end up coming they obviously arrest me you know and I'm staying there I'm thinking call the police. This was self-defense, in my opinion, because they were, you know, I didn't know when they were going to attack my mom and granny. They take me to the station. They're telling me that, you know, you're going to be charged with attempted murder, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, this isn't good. They end up waiting for the one guy to go to the hospital and see how much damage was done, like, was his life really threatened?

And they end up charged me with first-degree assault, which is still a Class B felony in Kentucky. It's still a 10 to 20-year charge. and then the other guy they charged me with second degree assault which is five to ten but i didn't even like i said he had some cuts on his arms and stuff and i didn't even know he was cut um so i go to jail my great-grannie bonds me out and we're waiting for court we have court one day i go hire a good lawyer we go into court my lawyer walks up to me and uh i actually seen this lawyer at my restaurant a few weeks ago and i asked him if he remembered it all and he was like yeah i couldn't believe it he was like i thought you you know killed this guy

He walks up to me. He's like, I need to talk to you right now. And so I get out of the pew at court and walk over there to him. He's like, you need to be honest with me and tell me right now the truth about what happened to the guy you stabbed. And I was like, what are you talking about? He was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, no way. He was like, yes, he was. And you need to tell me, like, did you have something to do with this? I was like, absolutely not. I don't even know what you're talking about. So evidently, the guy who I had cut pretty bad had been carrying a gun after that. A lot of people said he had had put. He had planned on doing something to me with it. But the gun failed. Somehow the gun went off, accidentally discharged. The gun goes off, goes up through his growing, and then kills him. So he does die. We go up in front of the court and the other guy there was like, I just want, I just want to be done with this. And so they dismissed all the charges. The judge was like, there's no victim in this case. Like, there's no victim that's, there's no case, right? The guy is deceased. So in a lot of my story, you'll be telling how, like, what? you believe in God or a higher power, Ian, it's that I've been fortunate, lucky, whatever you want to

call it, blessed to be sitting here today when there's so many things that I've been through or charges that I've been charged with that should have had me in prison forever, right? So that's why I believe in second chances and believe in, you know, a higher power of some sort that that led me to be able to even be sitting in this chair today. But so I get by with that. It wasn't long after that uh end up getting my first felony charge though um i got caught with some i was high i got caught with some methadone walking down the street a cop didn't find them on me at first i had them in my pocket and then when i was handcuffed i was able to get them out and then with my hand handcuffed behind me when the cops get me out of the car at the jail i'm trying to throw them up from behind my hands

and catch them on my tongue hoping they would stick to it and they just fall on the floor look like a big idiot and so i got charged with that they ended up giving me one year on it probation that was a in like 2004. And then at this time, my oldest son's born. He was born in November 2003. Still didn't change the way, like, you know, did anything. Matter of fact, right before he was born, I started shooting up, I started using a needle. I did it a few times before that, but never nothing consistently.

Why do you think you turned to that? Well, the first time I ever did it, it was because I was broke, didn't have any drugs. The guy that did have them that I was hanging out with was like, like, yeah, I'll share with you, but you're going to do it the way I do it. And he had needles. And so I was always scared to death of needles. I would pass out just from getting a shot when I was a kid. But at that moment, when you're an addict and, you know, you want to get high, you know.

And he was like, yeah, if you want to take a shot, then you can, you know, you can get high for free, essentially, right? But you're going to do it this way. And I was just like, sure, you know. And so that was the first time I ever did it. And then didn't really do it consistently. And then, like I said, when I was about 18 or 19, my son was born. And then I actually got on it a little heavier, just, you know, moving from place to place, living with my great-granny. She always gave me a place to stay when she was alive.

My grandpa had died when I was 18, so it was just her there. And so, you know, life just wasn't good, wasn't doing anything productive, you know. And then that year, my stepdad had got out of prison. and no, no, no, he got, you know, he went to prison that year. He got out a few years later. He went to prison in 2001, early 2002. He got out in like 2004. That was when I was like 20 maybe.

But anyways, so, yeah, 2003, my son was born, would go back and forth with my granny or wherever we could find a go. And then 2004, we had moved to with my stepdad where he'd, from Jackson County, Kentucky, which is way up in the mountains, like one stoplight in the whole county, like nothing there. And I was on probation from the meth on charge. And so I moved up there with them. My stepdad was working at some factory, you know, just, him and my mom were trying to just kind of live somewhat normal. And so, but then they run across a few people here, a few people there. Well, boom, we're making meth now, you know. And we had been making it like the year before that,

or a couple years before that at one point we had got into making meth because that was when the cartel stuff stopped and we were still trying to get high and I met this one guy named Charles Kane who everybody was like nervous around he was like older like in his 50s at the time and everybody was super nervous around him I noticed

like when I'd see him somewhere and I was like why is everybody nervous around him? People are like he's a murder like he was on death row and everything and I'm like what? So I started looking up and sure enough Yeah, I think it was People magazine or Time magazine, did an article on him, called him the Walking Art Gallery because he was covered in tattoos.

And he did commit a murder like in the 1960s and was on death row, was sentenced to death. And before he could be sentenced to death, Kentucky abolished the death penalty. And so they had to give him a life sentence. It changed his death row sentence to a life sentence. So he spent four years on death row. But when I met him, he just really liked me. And so he moved me and my son's mom in with him. And then my mom and my stepdad followed along.

This was right before my son was born. And we were living. We were making meth out and out building, not in the house around my kid's mom, but it was in another building on the property. And like we had a guy one time tried to steal it and we caught him. He was a friend. And Charles was just like, I'll just take him back to the barn out there and get rid of him. And he would say it was such just conviction and nonchalantly.

Like him killing some. somebody for stealing from him, you could see that that was just, didn't think twice about it. It was just like, yeah, we'll just go get rid of him. And I'm just like, no, he's a friend. Like, he did something real stupid, but we're not going to kill him for it, you know. But he loved me so much. Like, and I never asked him really why, like, why he took up with me. I was an 18, 19 year old kid, but he just was so good to me.

And the police come one night. I see him. I run, run like miles. I literally, I'm so high on meth, I go into this big thorn bush, and I lick my hands and get my face and everything wet. And then I'm scooping dirt all over me, try to blend in like I'm from the, in the movie The Predator, you know, like, and I stay there till morning, and then I get up and I go find a phone, knock on a random person's door. They had to look at me like, what is going on? And I called the house, and they're like, yeah, his girlfriend was like, he went to jail. I was like, well, I'll be back there in a minute.

I walk in the door, and I tell her, I'm like, I'll go up there and say it's mine. like, you know, this cook wasn't actually his. It was his house, but the meth was mine. And she was like, he said, absolutely, don't you dare think about doing that. And I was like, okay. So a few months later, I went to jail for something small. I got put in the cell with him. And I thought he'd be mad at me. And, you know, he gave me a big hug. And I was like, why did you do that? Like, why did you say that was all yours? Because they said when the police pulled up, he walked straight downstairs, walked out to him and said everything you find here's mine. And he said, I've spent my whole life in prison. Like, there's just,

nothing new for me. You've got a kid on the way. All I want you to do is go be a good dad to that boy. And I was like, wow. Like, yes, he killed somebody. Yeah, he went on death row. Yeah, he spent his whole life pretty much in prison, but he still had empathy and care for me as a person and wanted me just to be a good dad. And he ended up getting out of, he took a six-year sentence for that. And where he was on lifetime parole, he had to do every day of it. So he had to spend full six years of that and did it when he could have easily been like, yeah, it was he is or yeah, it was he is, you know, but he stood on that code of, you know, you don't tell on people. Just like predators in the wild go after the slowest prey, hackers go after the people with the

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We were always still like hustling just doing, you know, trying to make a dollar to get high, you know, or trying to make a dollar to just come up to pay bills, whatever. It just wasn't on the level that it was. When you were a kid growing up. Right. It wasn't on that level. We were just, you know, and so we just kind of met him through it. And then, you know, he had a, he lived way out in the middle of nowhere.

So we kind of seen that also, oh, this is a good place to make meth. He likes me. You know, I felt safe because then I found out his backstories. I'm like, oh, this guy likes me. Like, you know, this is cool. You know, like people aren't messing with him, right? How did you guys learn how to make math? People, you know, hanging out with this guy, he'd heard some stuff about it.

And this is way before, like, smartphones, right? Like, then this guy heard a little bit about it. And then, you know, we would, like, research what we could, talk to different people. And a lot of it, like, once I heard, like, oh, this, you know, you got to go up to Indiana and still in hydrosimonia out of, you know, from the cornfields up there and learned how to do that. And then you got to get pseudofed, learned how to do that, you know. And, you know, lithium batteries. You learn all the different ingredients.

And then, you know, you would take what people were telling you as a recipe. And it was kind of trial and error, you know, like I messed a lot up before I realized like, oh, if I do it this way, my yield is going to be way more than if I do it this way, you know. And so just we did that off and on, you know, for that time, went to jail. 2004 rose around. We moved up to Jackson County. my stepdad's aunt had been busted in a big raid. And up in this county, imagine like boss hog from Duke's a hazard.

You got the good old boy system. You know, that judge up there ended up getting a 35-year prison sentence as a circuit judge. Like it was so crooked. You could pay your way onto house arrest. You could pay your way out of anything, $10,000 and you were scot-free. So my stepdad's aunt paid. She had to leave the county for five years. That was her punishment.

And she got caught with a large amount of drugs. So she offered us to go take care of her house. Brand new house. She had a pay lake on it, 100 acres. So we went up there, started living in the house, started making meth in the house. She had a bait shop, which it was just an old trailer that she used for her bait shop. And we were down there making meth. And this is in the middle of winter 2004.

Well, not the middle winter. Probably October. It was starting to get cold out. And down there, we had a propane tank. and we had a heater in the room. Well, the heater, when it turned on, that propane was on, it caused it to kind of explode, started a fire. So it was me and one other guy in there.

I run and grab all the other supplies, Sudafed and stuff we had. I run out. He gets the fire out, but at that point it had already started to burn this little old trailer. So we walked out and we just watched this trailer burn to the ground. It was so far away from everything, the fire department never come.

Nobody ever showed up for an entire trailer. are burning to the ground. And so we just let it burn and then obviously didn't call and tell nobody. So we're doing that. I end up moving at this time my son was born.

I end up moving a few houses down with the girl me and my kids' mom had met and was trying to get away from the making meth. And I was trying to, but I just didn't know what to do. Like, I'm in Jackson County, Kentucky. There's nothing here.

And so when I do that, my mom and my stepdad owed me some money for something at the time. So I go up there one day and we're sitting there and I look out the window and I see cops coming. The driveway was a half mile long. If it had been today, you'd have been able to see them because you'd have a camera up at the end of your driveway. Back then there wasn't driveway cameras. I see them. My mom runs upstairs, which was where the meth cook was going on. And there was a big door up there that opened up to what would be like a deck or a balcony, but they hadn't built it yet. So it was just a door open.

up to nothing. And she starts taking the meth cooks and just throwing them out that door and trying to bust them all. And I just, the cops get in the door. And I tried to run for the back door. And the back door only had, you could only use a key to unlock it from the inside. So there wasn't a twisty knob. You actually had to have a key to unlock it. So I didn't have a key. So I was stuck there. So the cops came in. There were seven of us there. They arrested all seven of us for manufacturing meth. And my mom had stood up because they seen her up there with a green shirt on throwing the meth out the cooks out so when they got us down there she told them everything's mine i'll take the blame for it all and they still arrested all of us this is

november 22nd 2004 it was really cold this night and they um brought a hazmat truck and made us all get naked in the middle this is 10 o'clock at night and take an ice cold shower for decontamination under this truck and then put on like a tivek suit so it was embarrassing because your mom's there. Other people are there, you know, and I'm like, shit, this isn't good. So they take us the jail. Me and my stepdad, the jail they had there at the time, it held 35 people. It looked like Andy Griffith jail. It was real bar, skeleton key, open the door. The jailer, it was him, his wife, his two sons, his mother-in-law. Literally, it was a family owned and run jail, not owned, but ran. And so I get put in there. I don't know anybody. I'm not from there. My stepdad is,

So me and him are in the same cell. I start kind of getting, no, in the jailer and his family. My mom's in a cell downstairs. My stepdad's dad then gets put in there, who was an old man. He got put in there for something totally different. But so it's my stepdad, his dad, and me in one cell with, you know, seven other people or something. And so we're just up there, you know, and I did have so many good memories in there with my stepdad and his dad, like so many times just laughing and having a good time. but, you know, my mom's downstairs,

and the jailer would bring us three out every weekend and let us visit. And then my kid's mom was pregnant again at this time. So three weeks into being in jail, she has my second son, my youngest son. And she brought him to visit on the weekends. You know, you could sit there and hold him to, you know, it was not like a window visit. And, you know, like it sucked. And after, I don't know, a couple months,

I call home, talk to her. She had this time and moved away from Jackson County and was living with my cousin back in Richmond. And, which I felt comfortable with because I had family around my kids then. But then I get a call a couple months later. It was like, yeah, she got married, you know, she ditched you and she's married to a new guy.

So I'm like, what? So I start calling, new guy answers the phone. Yeah, you're nothing. You're in jail. I'm the daddy now. I'm, you know, all this. I'm like, like, obviously doesn't make your time in jail easy, right? and, you know, I would have piles of ashes this big under me just sitting there chain smoking while trying to dial the same number a thousand times a day and nobody answer, right?

It's not a good feeling. Then they offered me house arrest. I'm in there on a $50,000 cash bond for manufacturing meth, and the judge is like, yeah, we'll give you house arrest. No bond, you don't pay a dollar, you just pay house arrest. Sign your OR, you know, signature, you know, own recognizance essentially. I'm like, where does this happen at? We're come to find out the judge owned the house arrest. company. So of course he was giving everybody house arrest because he could charge you $300 a month

and he had three or four hundred people on it at a time. So he would give every time as soon as you was indicted on a felony, he would raise your, re-arrest you, raise your bond to $50,000 cash or let you sign yourself out and have house arrest. What do you think people are going to do? They're going to do house arrest, right? Like they don't have $50,000 cash. So that was his racket was raising your bond of 50,000 cash or house arrest and you sign your name, an OR bond, you know. And so everybody was doing it. Well, he ended up getting caught with that, I think, along with some other, like, voter registration, you know, fraud and going to prison himself. You know, I had my own skeleton key to that jail because I ended up becoming the trustee. They only had needed one. And it was me. And so I would go and deliver all the food. I did the laundry. But I remember sitting in court one day at a court date and the jailer didn't have a

his key to go get more inmates out to let them out. And he had to come up to me in the middle of court and ask me for his key to the jail. So I had to pull it out of my pocket and be like, yeah, here you go. And it was one of those big, like, bronze skeleton looking keys like this big. And, yeah, I always thought that was so funny that, you know, the jailer didn't have a key to his own jail and had to come and get it for me. But that's just how trusting they were and how, like, you know, just different it was there. It was like going back in time 50 years, you know, like Andy Griffith given, you know, the drunk of the town is key, you know, like. So, yeah, so that, um, spent a year there.

The jailer and his sons did make some phone calls to some people there to help me out. Like I told you, it was very, you know, you could get help there. I didn't have any money, but they made some phone calls and said, look, we'd like for, you know, to help him out. And so they offered me a drug to plead guilty to drug paraphernalia, which is a misdemeanour. probation officer told me if you plead out to a misdemeanor, I won't violate you. So when we go to court, my lawyer's like, some, I don't know what you did or what happened, but they're offering you a misdemeanor.

And I just kept my mouth shut and was like, all right. So I pled out. I get out that day. My mom got five years. She goes to prison. My stepdad goes back to prison. And I go back home. That's the end, October of 2005 is when I come back home.

And I go right back to doing, you know, what I knew, you know, living with my granny, trying to see my kids at this time. I'm fighting there. Every time I go around, the new, the new guys cussing me, threatening me, end up getting a fight with him, beat him up once, and then he starts making more threats. So then I get a gun, and I told him, you know, like, I don't care that you're with her, but you're going to quit saying you're my kid's dad. Like, that's what was really eating at me. I'm saying, I'm their dad now. I see him pulling into this neighborhood as a trailer park down the road from where I lived, and I just pulled the gun out.

He backed up tore his passenger door off because it hit a fence post. Well, he goes and calls the police. When the police come, I obviously had no gun on me because I was a felon. And they take me to court and the judge was like, you was in his territory. I know that he don't own that, but you know where he lives. Quit going where he lives. And there's no proof of a gun. So I didn't do that for that.

But it just kept going back and forth. that is uh then 2006 comes around i'm getting high i'm doing some i'm working for my cousin doing construction doing some some xes it's january friday the 13th 2006 i'm looking i'm like well something bad's going to happen today right you automatically think that on friday the 13th and then i'm eating zanaxes i'm drinking go to the next my next door neighbor's house and we're all there just partying like we did all the time well we got the idea to put on a bulletproof vest and and early I got the bright idea. Let me put on this vest and let you shoot me.

So there's some girls around. I'm sure I was wanting to impress them too. So I put on the vest and my cousin was there. And so I was like, only he can shoot me. And so he's standing point blank, right, six inches from the vest because these vests had metal plates on them too. And he shoot me with a 22 revolver pistol. And so he shot me four or five times.

and you don't feel nothing because the plates are stopping you, but it's just an adrenaline rush like no other, right? Somebody holding a gun, six inches from your chest and shooting, you know, it's pretty crazy. So I take the vest, we go do some other drugs down the street, and at this point I'd put on a hooded sweatshirt over the vest and come back. There's some different girls there. Well, the guy who lived there who owned the vest, asked him to shoot me.

Well, at this point, he's laying down in his bed that he has in the living room, drunk. And he's pointing up at me. And so when I asked him, I was like, show him on bulletproof. Well, these two girls there had no idea. So he just shoots me once, fine. Second time he shoots me. I felt it that time. I was like, oh, that one, that hurt.

I didn't know what was up at the time. So I sit down and at this point I'm thinking, you know, like this is, this is off, something's off here. And the girls are freaking out already kind of like, what is going on? I take the hooded sweatshirt off. Well, they can see a vest. So they're like, oh, okay. And then I pull the vest off.

And when I did, I could just instantly start seeing like blood kind of coming out my chest. That pressure was holding it in. I should have, you know, it would have been better if I'd have left the vest on. But as I do that on, I had a, I'll never forget, I had an ACDC T-shirt on. And the bullet had happened, had went right through Angus Young's head on the shirt. And I was like, oh, my God, you killed Angus. And I took my shirt off, blood's coming out. They're all freaking out.

They're like, let's get him out of here. And one of my friends there who has been sober today. He's been sober several years too. But even then, he had the sense to be like, tell this girl there, you're taking him to the hospital now. And so this girl did take me to the hospital. She kind of just dumped me out when she got me there. And so I was able to go in. And they're, you know, I told him, I got a shot in the chest.

You know, it's literally right here, right next. I still got the scar, you know, right next to my heart. And they asked me what happened. And I tell them a couple people tried to rob me. And I wouldn't give them my money. And so they shot me. So I don't think at the time. the repercussions of that statement because then the state police have helicopters and search dogs

and a whole SWAT team looking for, you know, attempted murderers, right? So they're looking, looking, well, my mom and my family start to show up and they're talking about it. They're like, duck shot Johnny. It was an accident, blah, blah, blah. Cop overhears them. I was like, now what? Comes to me, Johnny, you got to tell me the truth.

Was this an accident? And I said, I'll tell you if you promise that nobody gets in any trouble, I'll tell you the truth. And he was like, okay. And I knew this cop. He used to be a guard at the jail. Um, you know, uh, and not to back up, but just like the, the, the first time I ever went to jail, I was 14 in high school and I got in a fight and got a second degree assault charge as a, as a juvenile, you know, and that's what kind of led down my whole road of, you know, that's when my mom had left my dad and and me just like not caring about anything. Like, you know, from doing everything kind of good and to, I'm going to go get in a fight in the lunchroom at school.

and it, you know, end up breaking a boy's jaw and done damage to him, you know, and to just, you know. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them.

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Wayfair, every style, every home. This whole path of destruction, really. So this incident happened after your mom got out of prison? Because you said your mom showed up. Yes, yes. So my mom had got my mom, yes. Because she got a five years. Yes, she had got out on house arrest. Okay.

Yes. So that was in 2004 is when we got arrested at the meth lab. My mom got five years and this happened in early 2006. So my mom, I think, had just got on house arrest at that point of like early release or something. But my mom was definitely out. We got arrested November 22nd, 2004 for making meth. She got a five-year sentence. And then January the 13th of 2006.

So what's that a year in three months or something? Or she made parole. That's what it was. You only do 20% in Kentucky. So in five years, you only have to do 12 months and you can get parole. So you and your friend have this great idea to shoot each other with bulletproof vests on. How did he even get through the vest? So, yeah, so that's what I was going to say.

So the metal plates right here, the way he was shooting, what was around it wasn't full Kevlar, from what I understand now. You know, Kevlar is still bulletproof. This was more just a vest with the metal plates to protect your area here. And so when he was shooting at that weird angle, it hit the edge of the plate. And where it hit the corner of the plate, it caused it to go like this and then ricocheted into my chest. And so once the bullet hit the plate, ricocheted into my chest, went through my lung, collapsed my lung, and stuck in my back. And they never, the bullet's still in my back today. They never did take it out. But you could walk fine and everything.

Yeah, everything's fine. I went to the hospital after that, after the cops found out. that nobody was in danger and that there wasn't some wannabe robbers out there. I was in the hospital for, you know, three or four or five days, something like that. The first couple of days I could only like use like a sponge on a popsicle stick in water. And then they had to fix my punctured lung. But yeah, after that, I was fine. I had some trouble breathing for a while there.

I had to build my lungs back up. But I was fine. I come home, continued doing craziness. So he kept his word and you didn't get in trouble for that. Nobody got in trouble. That's what I kept going on. A few months later, I went to the friend's house that next door that shot me. I go in.

And he's like, I got something to show you. He pulls up the vest and the gun. The cops give him both of them back, the vest and the gun. Only in Kentucky. Right. He had them both back. Yeah. And so, yeah, delivered both his vest and gun back.

He gave me a few pain pills, you know, at that moment to kind of celebrate the moment of him getting his gun and vest back. And so that day, I was probably broke and was having. Happy to get a few free pain pills for doing nothing except let him shoot me a few months before that. When your mom went to prison, did you feel kind of lost? Because I was your first time where you didn't have her as like the matriarch of the family running things. Oh, 100%. When I got out of jail and she was still locked up, it was really different. You know, I didn't have a person I could, you know, my mom, like I said, she's, I feel like she's always done her best.

My mom's, there's nothing I could never do to ask her for, like no matter. what and she would be there even though sometimes people would disagree with maybe her parenting style or the way you know she interacted with this drug business with me and and that's obviously not right but not having that one person there that I could count on no matter what was definitely weird and uh you know I would obviously still talk to her and stuff like that but it was different you know and I didn't have somebody out there to you know guide me or make money I was having to do it all of my own then, you know. And so, but I got home that was in 2006, April, I ended up violating probation, go back to jail. October of 2006, I get in a fight in jail over the TV, of all

things, like, you know, like that's something new. But yeah, I was wanting to watch a TV show, new guy comes in, and I tell him, turn the TV back to what I'm watching. He says, no, I said, well, it was a UFC fight. And he said, if you don't, showed up. There's going to be a UFC fighting here and I said, well, let's do it. And I'm sure you've seen hot pots in jail like plastic hot pots that have a cord on them that you heat your water with. We start fighting. I hear that hot pot sizzling. I grab it. And at the time, you know, my thought is to douse him in the face with bull and hot water. And as I went to hit him with throw the water in his face, the cord hung in the wall and jerked to the wall. When it did, it came back

and hit me. So a whole pot of bull and water hit me from my shoulder all the way down my arm here. Obviously, it's burning, it's bull in water, right? It's not a good feeling. We're doing this. As soon as that happened, I almost like just seized up, but we keep fighting. He gets me in a headlock, and I'm sitting there, and surprisingly, I stay calm. Three of my good friends in that sale was like, I was like, guys, I'm burnt, I'm hurt really bad. And he's just got me in a headlock, just punching the top of my head. And I'm talking like this. I was like, I'm hurt.

And they're like, well, you want us to jump in? I was like, no, but what do I do? And one of my friends said, you got teeth, don't you? And so I was able to pull my mouth back enough over his arm, and I just bit his arm hard as I could. And if you've ever been bit before you know that there's no pain like it, and he just buckled, his knees just gave out. And when he did, he fell in front of me kind of between my legs.

And so I was able to put him in a rear naked choke. and because I couldn't move this arm, my left arm, because it was burnt. And so I put him in a rear naked choke and I just choked him until I knew he was unconscious because I knew I couldn't fight anymore after that. And when I got up, I pulled my shirt off and all the skin from my arm. It looked like dried candle wax with the shirt. I had handprints on this part of my arm from that choke where I'd squeeze so hard. And the skin had dried up with my hand around it.

So I had a big handprint right there. At this point, they're beating on the windows. Guards are coming. They see how damaged I am. They take me to the hospital. I was in a burn unit for a couple of days on morphine. Got back to jail. They gave me a prescription of lor tabs.

So they kept me in, I was in the hole for like 10 days because they didn't want me in a cell getting narcotics. And so, but every time I would walk through the whole jail would erupt. Like, it was nuts. I can't believe you started a fight. over a TV show. Over a TV show, right. Like, you know, and it's like,

I wasn't wanting to fight. I remember, like, I remember, like this day, I was playing cards, watching the show. I'd been waiting on this fight

and I had bets on this fight all night, you know, like all week. And so this brand new guy comes in and was like, you're playing cards. You don't get to have two things at once. You can either play cards

or you can watch TV. I was like, well, I'm doing both. I can see the TV from this table. I'm doing both, you know? And,

you know, a lot of it had, you know, was probably me, my ego with saying, you know, I have seniority. I've been here longer, you know, you just got here like yesterday, who are you, you know. And then, you know, you obviously just can't let somebody punk you in jail. Like that never goes good, you know, just being like, oh, I'm sorry, you couldn't have it your way. Like that wasn't going to happen, you know, like.

And then that one, you know, end up with bad burns from it. And the yards and everybody thought he poured it on me, you know. And I never did tell him, you know, that he didn't do it. it or that I did it. I just would, you know, I would just be like, no, it didn't happen that way. It just got knocked into us, you know. But yeah, it was, it was bad. I had to, you know, even when I got back to the jail, they had to put this burn cream on me every day. It was crazy. But then I end up getting out right after that, getting out of jail like a month later, I think, serving that one out. 2007, I was dating a girl, smoked crack all year, just was shooting up,

ripping people off. My stepdad at the time, my mom had got remarried again this time, and he was making counterfeit money, buying like five pounds of weed, 10 pounds of weed at a time with counterfeit money. But he would always get somebody else to do it, right? You always get like a flunky or a fall guy that's willing to do it, you know, usually a drug addict that is willing to take the risk, right? you know, hey, I'll split this with you, you know, take this, you know, $10,000 and go buy as much

weed as you can or as much coke as you can, you know. And it would always work, though, like, the bigger drug dealers were, were dumber. They, they would never check it or nothing. They would just, oh, here you go. It was crazy. But I was so just sick that year of just, that I don't even know how to describe it. I was just, You know, like I said, smoking crack. I was shooting up every day that year. Like, I mean, just doing the worst I could do. It was not a good year.

Not seeing my kids at all. Hadn't seen them and who knows how long, you know, wasn't being a good dad, wasn't being a good anything to anybody. Really, I was literally, I was sleeping on the side of the interstate in Richmond where I'm from because I, you know, it was too far walked to my granny's house to get anywhere. Nobody I knew was willing to come and give me a ride because nobody was. wanted to be around me. So it was just literally I would, you know, for like a week or two, I would sleep in the, in the bushes on the side of the road. And then just, it was just,

it was a really, really bad time. I think my mom may have been violated her pro, her parole and may have went back to prison during that time for a short time. Pretty sure she did. And then at the end of 2007, I'd went to bingo with my granny, you know, where you just play bingo, B-I-N-G-G-O. My granny played it every night. And I went and I won the big game they have. It's called the cover all, and I won $1,000. And the girl I was dating at the time,

I went to her mom's house. And I remember like, I'd already bought us a little bit of drugs. And, you know, like, it was good night. And I remember going outside and they locked the door on me. And we're like, you're not coming back in. They thought I'd had my money inside the house and they were going to take my money.

And so I'd get back inside the house. and when I get back inside, the door was already kind of messed up because they lived in a really bad neighborhood anyways. The door was already kind of messed up. I get back in. I grabbed the rest of my stuff I had there and I leave. Well, they call the police and they say I kicked the door off the hinges and all this stuff, right? Well, the girl was dating. She had bought me.

It was right before Christmas. It was December 11th. She had bought me a hunting knife that day and I'd put it on my belt loop. And so it was on my side. Well, when you enter a residence not wanted and you have a weapon on you, it's first-degree burglary. So that's a 10 to 20-year charge. Well, when they arrested me, they enhanced it with a PFO persistent felony offender. So that makes it a Class A felony.

So they arrested me on Christmas Eve at my brother's house. And front page of the paper, Richmond Man faces a life sentence. So because of the charges, I was facing a life sentence, never touched anybody, didn't steal anything. that just my money that I won. That was it. And that's all they would claim. So I go to jail. I'm sitting in jail facing a life sentence.

They come to me and offer me 20 years. I say no, absolutely not. A few months later, the girl I was dating at the time because the night the police comes, she hid in a closet because she had a warrant for her.

So she didn't even give a statement to the police, only her mom did. And so she gets put in jail. We start writing each other. And I was like, hey, like, I need you. you to, can you sign an affidavit for me saying that I did not pull a knife on nobody? It was just on my side and that I did not, that I was invited there that day and that I did not kick the door in. So she does this, willing to testify, saying she's willing to testify, and the prosecution

sees it. They come back and offer me one year, time served. And so I say yes, of course, I'd already served the one year. Time served. And so I take the one year, time served, from, Facing life sentence to one year. You know, another blessing, right, luck, whatever you want to call it. Good fortune. Get out. That was in 2008, close to the end of 2008. My mom was in prison during that year or two, because I remember writing her while I was in prison.

And, or while I was in jail and she was in prison. End up getting out. 2009, I started changing things around a little bit, getting on Suboxin, trying to live a sober life, end up meeting another girl that I'd been, that I'd known when I was a kid. We end up dating for a while. We end up getting married in 2009, started seeing my kids again. So life's starting to take a little bit of a change for me. Early 2010, I get pulled over on my way home from work. And then I see another cop car pull up and then another one and then another one.

And I'm like, oh, that's never good. they come finally pull me out of the car arrest me. I'm like, what are you arresting me for? They're like, we have, you know, indictments on you for traffic and cocaine. I was like, what? So I go to jail for the weekend. I bond out. My stepdad gets me out on a property bond and come to find out they had a couple of indictments on me from 2007. It had been three years. They had literally lost the case file. It had literally slipped through the cracks. and this was from 2007 where I had sold cocaine, and it was trafficking cocaine and seller transfer of a simulated substance to undercover informants. And I knew exactly when they told me who it was, right?

Like, I knew the first time sold them several ounces of Coke, and they kept asking for names. When I pulled up with the guy I was getting it from, they're like, is that him? and they knew his name. Oh, how do we meet him? And they were asking all these weird questions that a five-year-old could have suspected they were cops, right? I'm like, these were really weird.

So the next time they called, like a few days later, I told the girl I was dating. I was like, yeah, tell him I got it. Well, I just went to my closet at my granny's house and busted out a bunch of drywall, tore the brown off of it, put it in a bag, put it in a paper towel like it was when the other dude brought it to me. And then they walked up and I handed it to them, you know. Then they pulled up. And they didn't do anything. They didn't.

So I knew right then they've busted me already probably the first time. But this time they're not, you know, like if the police is the one paying for it, why am I going to give them real, real Coke? I'd rather just give them dry while and take their money. So, and, you know, if they wasn't, and I was doing it, that would have been wrong. But I was right about it. And they were cops. And they did.

That is also a crime sale or transfer of a simulated substance. If you're passing off a fake substance as real, it's still a crime. I think it's a misdemeanor. It's not a felony, but it's still a crime. They can still arrest you over it, which is crazy. Like, you ask me for Coke and I sell you sugar and then I'm still, you know, it's still a crime. But anyway, so they arrest me for it. I get out on Bond. At this point, like I said, I was doing pretty good in life, you know. But where I was out on Bond and I had no money for a lawyer, I start going down to Florida to the pill mills down there, hitting those up, getting the oxies. And I wasn't doing them. I wasn't using any of this time. I just needed a lot. I just needed a lot. I just needed a lot. I just needed a lot. lawyer and I needed money quick. Well, I resorted back to the one thing I know of how to get money fast and that's the drug business. And so started going down to Florida, hitting as many as I could up within like that three or four month period. Got a chunk of money up, paid the lawyer, took the rest of the money and went to, went some vacations, took my kids to Hershey Park. I remember to Myrtle Beach. Just went on some stuff like that. And then

come time for sentencing, the judge was like, you know, we asked for probation. You know, this is my third felony, right, of involving drugs, too. And the judge was like, yeah, but prison is to rehabilitate somebody. He's already doing good. He's already got a job. He's, you know, stable. And it's not his fault that we lost his file for three years.

He should have been arrested for this three years ago. That's not his fault. I'm giving him probation. Five years, sentence for five years probation. That's 2010. A few months later, my, I get. my kids for a weekend, my youngest son, who thankfully, he was four years old at the time, had snow white hair, snow white. So I could see right through and he had a big gash on the top of

his head about an inch long. And I'm like, Christopher, what happened to your hair? And I'd already been fighting to try to get custody of them and stuff because they'd already told me, like, that they had maggots in their refrigerator. They were living without water and electric part of the time. They, you know, just not good living conditions for kids. But then every time we would get in front the social worker and I'd just be like, tell her what you're telling me. The social worker would be like, you're coaching them, you're telling them what to say. I'm like, no, I'm just telling them to tell you as a stranger because you're a random person to tell you what they had told me. And so anyways, it made me look like the bad guy, right? So then when I see the gash on his head and I was like,

what happened? He said that his stepdad named Chris was hit him in the head with a remote control and busted his head open. And so as much at the time, I wanted to, he said, he said, This is the same guy I pulled the gun on. This is the same guy I'd already fought. This is the same guy that was telling me he was my kid's dad. And this just almost sent me over the edge, right? Like, I really just wanted to end it for him then. But I didn't.

I said, let me put my faith in the justice system one last time. So I go to the, take him to the hospital and get it documented from a doctor. And then I go file an EPO on him at the police station. that immediately gave me rights to the kids immediate protection from him. They couldn't be in his vicinity, so that gives me temporary custody of them. We go to court, and their real mom stands up and kind of tries to take up for her husband. He would never do this. And then the husband stands up and says, those are my kids.

And he starts just acting belligerent. And the judge is like, you're proven, like, I definitely think you did this. And let me be clear, they're not your kids, they're his. And I was like, finally. And the judge gave me a custody of them at that moment with her having visitations. She showed up to a couple of visitations, and then we never seen her again for years, years. And so I raised those boys myself. That was 2010.

Got divorced in like 2012. Nothing really bad, really just like she wasn't a bad person. I wasn't. We just really went our separate ways. We just weren't good together. I'm still kind of being sober. I'm starting to get into the car business, and I was doing really good there. I'm trying to make something out of my life as a single dad, you know.

My mom and my stepdad still over here just, you know, my stepdad at the time she has then, they're over here dealing and selling stuff. And he got a big retirement from the military, so they were living comfortable either way. But I'm just trying to make it. And then when I did get the divorce, I moved in with them with the two sons. And then there was some drama there. My stepdad's sister kicked us out of the house. And so me and my two sons slept in my truck for, you know, a few days there, just us.

And I look back on these times now and I just smile because, you know, those were the hardships that formed who my kids and I am today. We slept in my truck. We end up getting an apartment through some help of like a charity agency. and we had our little apartment. And then come 2014, February day after Valentine's Day, I just get the hair that I want to get high today. Like, no reason. I just want to get high today.

Worked at the car lot all day. So I go get some heroin. I go grab a needle, shoot up, overdose right then. I'm sure it probably had fentanyl in it. And I had been messing with the fentanyl back in 2007 before anybody knew what it was. I remember getting a hold of some, and I knew it was dangerous. So when I got high again back on this time, I was reluctant. I even did a small amount, but it overdosed me.

And they had to drag me into the snow and try to put snow on me and called the ambulance, had to have a couple shots of Narcan. I'm still on probation from the one charge. So my probation officer finds out, she says you're going to rehab. I said, no, I'm not. I relapsed one time after years of being on Suboxone. And like, I'm not going to rehab. And she's like, yes, you are.

And then she ends up saying, you need to go to jail or rehab. Well, I chose rehab. The night before I was supposed to go turn myself into the rehab, I go and trip ass it all night and then don't show up to rehab because I'm still tripping. And so then I was like, I'll go tomorrow. And there was a bunch of, it had snowed like 14 inches. And so the rehab had even told me like, hey, if you can't make it, we understand. So I was able to use that as an excuse of, well, I couldn't make it because of the snow.

But then she puts me in jail for a couple weeks. And then I end up going, I was in rehab for three weeks. I get a call my best friend Nick had overdosed and died. I asked the PO down there, hey, can I go to his funeral? She's like, yeah, you got to fill out some travel paperwork, this or that. Well, I took that as men as a yes. So on the day of his funeral, I signed myself out, go to his funeral. I speak at his funeral.

And a few days later, I tell the director of the rehab, hey, thank you for letting me go to his funeral. He's like, what? You didn't get permission to go to his funeral? I said, yes, I did. He said, no, you didn't. You didn't sign a travel permit or nothing. I was like, oh, he calls the PO. She was like, well, you're on property restriction for a month. I was like, okay, I didn't know I did anything wrong. Well, we're there. I start going through the rehab. I'm there for four or five months, and then I still don't learn my lesson. One of my friends is about to sit down. I pull a chair out from under him. Director walks in and sees it.

That's horse play. That's a critical violation. And they kick me out of rehab. been sober at this point five months. No suboxin, no nothing, completely sober. I call the probation officer at home. She hated me for some reason. Hey, I got kicked out of rehab. They said I could come back in a week or two weeks. You know, what do you want me to do? Go home. I'll see you Monday. I'm like, okay, well, surely she's not going to arrest me for horse playing, right? Go home that weekend. Monday, go to him. She handcuffs me immediately. You're going to jail. Puts me in jail. She lets me sit in there two months, two months for getting kicked out of rehab. While I was in there, I was on the top bunk and I set up for chow one day real fast. And when I set up and threw my legs off the edge of

the bunk, I fainted. And so I face planted, I've got a big scar somewhere right up here from it, face planted from a top bunk face passed out onto the concrete floor. Like nobody tried to catch me or nothing, they just let me fall from it. Like, it was a wild scene. I remember seeing it on cameras. But I just remember waking up to my face hitting the floor, blood everywhere. The guards thought somebody had pushed me at first, you know, and then we watched the camera. And yeah.

So I had to go get stitches for that while I'm in jail for this two months for doing nothing but horse plan. I go back to rehab. This is in 2015 or 14. I, um, they start fast-tracking me. December of then. I meet my now wife at an AA meeting. She was getting sober to. We met.

We just kind of was like, hey, you know, blah, blah, what's your name? And then she gives me a number. It was like, hey, if you ever need a ride or anything. Because the meeting place from the rehab was several miles away. And most of the time, if you didn't know somebody there, you had to walk. And every five weeks, you would have to have clients, like lower people in the program. You would have to take them to a meeting for five straight days. And there would be three or four of them.

So it was hard to even get in a car. But that week I did. So I called her like the next day. I was like, hey, would you care to give us a ride to a meeting? She's like, sure. So she gave us a ride to the meeting. And, you know, me and her just started hanging out. And she became like my best friend.

She was somebody that I could hang out with. I could talk to that wasn't a guy from the rehab and somebody that could just, you know, understand where I was coming from also, you know. But I went back and I told the director, hey, I know you know who this girl is. I've been talking to her. And he was like, worst mistake of your life. Get away from her. She's trouble.

She's going to get you in trouble. Your relapse next. Everybody was telling me that you all can't make it. And I was like, okay, whatever. Like, we're just friends. I'm just letting you all know. And we would hang out. The probation officers would see us and be like, you all can't be together.

And I'm like, yes, we can. And it was just people tried to make it tough on us. And but I always thought I was just moving back home and that would be it. I really thought that like, okay. And then at come time, you know, I did move back home. And I was back home for a little bit. And then finally, you know, I was like, hey, what would you think about moving to Richmond? And she was like, she was in drug court at the time.

And she's like, let me ask drug court. And they were all for it. They're like, yeah, absolutely. We'd love for you to, you know, move to Richmond and start a new life somewhere. So she did. And, you know, ever since then, she's been up here. We've been like a team. We started working together.

And, you know, we've done a lot of speaking, you know, to kids and, you know, to kids in high school and just wherever we can get the message out about, you know, she come from a total of different background than I did and she was a teacher, you know, she has a master's degree and, you know, totally different to me who's just lived on the street my whole life, you know, to that you can do whatever you want to do in life if you just, you know, start making the right decisions, you know, just doing the next right thing. It don't have to be, you know, the greatest thing every day, just doing the next right thing. And, you know, once I got back from the rehab, I got my kids when I went to rehab, my grandmother and my mom took care of when my mom was out during this time.

They were technically living with my grandmother, but my mom lived there and down the street too, so they would kind of bounce around. And I hated that, that my kids are still kind of bouncing around, but I knew they were at least loved and they were taking care of. You know, because regardless of what my mom may or made it not do, she was still going to love them take care of. Amazon Presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's Verdei, Roha or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk.

Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Make sure they were fad, had what they wanted, all of that. And so, um, so yeah, You know, my great-grandmother that helped raise me, she had ended up dying in 2011. So that kind of, that's really, too, was my enabler. She's the one that made sure I had money and I always had to go to if things were looking down. And so her dying, then going to rehab and just happened to do it on my own. There is nobody to get money from. There's nobody to help.

There's nothing. When I came home for rehab, I had literally nothing, the clothes on my back. And I'd saved a few dollars and was able to get a little bitty apartment, not much bigger than this room. and, you know, saved enough money to get a little bigger apartment and got my kids back. And the two boys first were sharing a little bedroom and then ended up getting a bigger one. They both had their own room. And then me and my wife got a job at the place right now and, you know, started making really good money there. And I started saving money, started investing money.

I started learning about the stock market and making money that way and having different ventures and different avenues to make money. And, you know, then COVID happened and we had two boys in high school, you know, at home every day. And we did that. And then after COVID, we, you know, got the kids through high school. The oldest one went to the Air Force. You know, he's on his first deployment now. And I'm super proud of him. And the youngest one is, you know, still trying to figure out life. And, you know, who knows where they'll both end up, you know, like two years ago. Then I get a call saying, oh, your mom somebody's wore, you know, had an inside source that somebody wore a wire on my mom. And so I'm freak out there.

I was like, I need to meet you. My mom meets me at a gas station. I knew my mom had overdosed a few times over the last few years and was partying all the time at her apartment that I got her. And her apartment was in my name. And, you know, so I would go in every now and then and be like, everybody needs to leave, you know. But I never knew really. But then they're like, yeah, so my mom meets me. And she's like, yeah, I've got like $35,000 cash on me.

just bought a new Harley and, yeah, would you create a hold all of it for me? And I'm like, no, no, where did the, like, I was totally clueless at this point. Like, and a lot of it was because I wasn't going and visiting my mom enough and staying as close to her as I should have been. And I think some of it was just denial that I didn't want to see it. If it was out of sight, it was out of mind. Um, but I should have known when she wasn't asking me for money all the time, you know, like, or she wasn't needing a pack of cigarettes or anything. But, but yeah, they had, again, she had found a huge meth dealer and was selling meth and somebody had wore a wire on her. And, you know, and so they, we heard first it was the new guy she was dating because now the one,

her ex-husband that we got the manufacturing meth charge, he ended up dying a few years ago. And then her next husband ended up going to prison for selling pills in the last, whenever that was. And he ended up dying a few years ago, too, in prison. So both of my mom's last two or three relationships, they're all dead now. And so then my mom meets this other guy who the first time I met him at her apartment, I told him to get his shit and leave. You're out of here. This apartment's in my name and I want you out of here.

But then I put a camera up in her apartment to where I could see it from my phone. And I would see them like kids. You would see her open the door and you could see at top of his head where he would be crawl and army style to get into our apartment under the camera. And I'm like, what are they doing? Like, they're acting like teenagers, you know? And it was the only thing I knew to do. And finally I just took the camera out and was like, fuck it.

Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, he's going to keep coming back every day if she wants him there, right? This is my mom who's 63 years old almost. Like, this is, you know, she was 60 acting like this. But, you know, I just always have taken care of her when she couldn't take care of me. And, but they did end up arresting her. She was horrible. The day she went to court from being arrested, she couldn't even walk into the courtroom.

She was that bad. from withdrawals. But from that day, she turned it around. She started going to AA. The judge let her out. She started working a program. She started just doing everything she could to be better. And I think my mom's been sober two and a half years now probably.

She's in prison down in Texas. A few months ago, she almost died. She aspirated in her sleep and went without oxygen for a long time. They called me, didn't know if she was going to live or not. They had her on life support. But she made it through that. And hopefully, you know, in the next few months or years, she'll get to come home and continue, you know,

being an amazing person. I'm happy for her that she's sober. And I really think that she's going to make it this time. And, you know, there's still so many of my family members out there. I've lost, you know, so many of my best friends from overdosing or whatever else. And I got so many family members still out there, you know, getting high and living this life. And so hopefully that through seeing this,

they can see that, you know, if I can make it out and I can do anything productive in this world, if I can meet a good wife and, you know, I own a new vehicle and a new house, and those aren't things that defy me at all. Like, those are the least things I feel like define who I am today is the fact that I can buy a new house and a truck and material things. But it's the things that I do for other people and the things I do to try to help others and just be a kind human and stand for what's right and have the courage to, to stand up for what's wrong because a lot of people can stand up for what's right but they don't have the courage to stand up against what's wrong but to be a good dad today and then even uh not long ago

i guess it's been a year or so ago now like i had told you in the beginning i always thought the person's name i was born with was my real dad i did a dna test through 23 of me about two years ago thinking my wife had i bought her one for christmas and so um so i essentially grew up without a dad my whole life bought my wife one, bought myself one, I'd do it. A few months later, we're on the way to work. Results come back and she's like, oh, you've got a brother. I was like, what? She's like, yeah, his name's Charles.

You got a brother. I was like, oh. So I'm thinking the guy who I thought was my real dad had had another son somewhere that I didn't know about or whatever. And I'm like, well, that's weird. And it's like, yeah, and it says you have a niece too. And I was like, what? I was like, this can't be. Well, something's up.

So I message them, and my niece messages me back and was like, hey, I think you should talk to my mom. I don't want to get into this. And I'm like, okay, whatever. Her mom messages me. Her name's Carrie. And she was like, hey, the Charles, that's your brother, that's my brother. And your niece, that's my daughter, so that I'm your sister. And we have the same dad, and his name's Gary.

And I was like, what? And so come to find out I found out who my real dad was after 40 years He did live in Richmond and he did know my mom For a short period of time Before he but he ended up graduating college and took a job out in California And so I have two other brothers And two other sisters

That are out Colorado and St. Louis I've got a sister that's 45 and I've got a brother that's 21 So that's huge age gap right But I've I've have a I've met, I've not met my dad in person yet. I have met one of my sisters in person, but I've met, I've talked to my dad on the phone a bunch of times right after I found out, and he found out about me. He never knew about me. So that was always like, did he know about me? But my mom confirmed too, he didn't know about you right after we got together. He left. I never seen him again.

So I wasn't able to tell him about you either. But, but yeah, he never knew, never knew anything about me and then when he did find out, he called me and we've built a relationship that's super awesome today. And I do plan on going out there really soon to meet him and continue building a relationship with him because after, you know, 40 years without a dad and, you know, having that, you know, trying to be the best dad I can be, but having that one thing that you really are always missing in life and that was a dad for me. And so I found it, you know, and I feel like that was because I was doing the right thing. I was trying to be a better person. If I was out here shooting, shooting up opiates and cocaine, what's the chance I would have went and bought a 23

and me DNA test to send that in, right? Ian, like, pretty rare, right? And so, so yeah, I found that and I found a dad, and he's amazing. He's, he's there for advice. He's there when I need him. He's there for whatever I need. And, you know, it feels really good to have that and to have amazing wife who I get to work with every day and we get you know I get to laugh with her we get to come on trips and just do live life and you know we don't have to be millionaires um to just be good people and live life and uh you know I really appreciate you having me on to you know just to try to spread the message really that that kindness and just uh being kind to other people will get you farther than life I feel like than almost anything as long as you put a little bit of effort

little bit of work behind that. And who knows, if you're out there without a dad, you might find yours too, you know. Do you hold resentment towards your mom for your upbringing? Because I feel like you could have avoided so much pain and suffering. Oh, 100%. I could have, you know, if my mom would have been different, I could have avoided probably a lot of it, you know.

I used to. I used to blame her for a lot of it. You know, if you didn't do this, if you wasn't this kind of mom, you know, if you was a normal mom, then, you know, I wouldn't have had to deal with, you know, a lot of this stuff. But now I don't really. It's like when I found out who my dad was, you know, do I blame my mom? Did my mom know who my real dad was this whole time, 40 years?

And she never thought to speak up and be like, hey, just so you know, I should be honest with you now. Let me be honest with you and tell you who your dad is, right? Like, but I don't know even if she knew at the time she was 20, one, you know, like, I'm not sure if she was scared. And I just look at, like, people act differently in those in fearful situations. And so today I don't hold any resentment. I love her. And I'm just, you know, she's always been like my best friend. And today I'm just glad that, you know, I can be there for her and that, uh, I feel like she done her best with what she had and what she felt like was her best. You know, I felt like, yeah, that, that she made a lot of mistakes along the way.

but I don't think of it, any of it was really with any ill intent or to try to hurt me. I think it was more of just along the lot of the line was I wanted to get high. I wanted to, you know, use her for her money and her drugs and she just enabled that. Not saying it's right, but, you know, a lot of the time I would have stole from her, which I did many times. The amount of times I would go while she was asleep and reach in her pillowcase and steal her pills out, because she would have to hide them from me so I wouldn't steal them. And I would still, I would even steal them, even though she was hiding them under her head in a pillowcase. And, you know, it was either me go steal from her and get them or me go out and steal from somebody else and get them.

So I figure like she just thought that her giving it to me or giving me the money or the drugs was just the safer option rather than me out here stealing from God knows who and possibly getting killed. So I feel like even though it doesn't make it right that she always had a, uh, a justification there that in some weird way made sense to her and so i don't hold any resentment for her today like you know her getting sober over the last couple years was everything i could have ever asked for and more you know like that's knowing that she may have more time to live and be a grandma to my kids and maybe even see one of them have kids and to my brother's kids like that's you know that's all i could asked for from her like her just uh not show up at my house at three o'clock in the morning beating on my windows yelling you know stealing money from me or you know needing money for drugs like if she can just

not do that anymore i'll be perfectly happy with how she finishes her life out you know and and uh yeah and she you know and for her to hopefully have a good relationship you know she's still got another brother and sister here that love her and my granny's still alive and you know i just want her to come home and continue working on the relationships with those people and the people that love her and show them that she's changed and that she can be a good sister and a good person, you know, and that all happens through action. I feel like, you know, we can all say whatever we want, but, you know, we prove things with actions. You know, that's why they say action speaks louder than words, you know. That's just the way life is. People want to see you do it, walk to walk, not talk

to talk. So, so, yeah, I don't, I don't resent. her. I love her too much now. And she's too, she is too good of a person to, to be mad at her for things that, you know, she could or couldn't control. To me, it's irrelevant at this point. Awesome. Well, Johnny, I appreciate you coming back out here a second time and sit down with me and do this. No, man, it's my pleasure. I'm just thankful that you were willing to have somebody like me come on, man. Of course. Well, I knew you were a great storyteller the first time you're even better the second time. Oh, well, I appreciate it. I've been nervous all week thinking about how you could even tell Joddy. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, you do amazing job here. So just being able to come on

and tell my story, it means everything. And you got to experience a new lighting in the room. For sure. Yeah, get to see it on new. We're messing around with it. You were a guinea pig. Right. Try to, you know, like, improve the show in any which way impossible, in every which way possible, you know. Right. And it's little tweaks here and there, just little things, you know, like it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to go buy a million dollar studio and go from this to that. It can be little things and gradual steps along the way. So that's what they say, you know, the tortoise wins the race. He's just slowly growing, slowly getting along to the finish line.

You know, you don't have to go from start to finish in one step. Yeah. You know. I think you got to take your own advice, though. Remember, you're right? No, I've got, yeah, 100%. I feel like I need to be at the finish line in one step. And that's, you know, sometimes you got to say things out loud to others before you can, you know,

like you said, take your own advice. That's why I've got to do that. I'm the same way, Jody. Don't worry. And if anything's wrong along the way, you feel like a failure, you know. And that fear of failure always tell people is one of my biggest fears, fear of confrontation, fear of failure, you know, fear of change, you know. And you don't have to learn to not, those don't never have to not be a fear at all,

but you still have to learn to get through them when it does arise. So it's something I continue to work on. Absolutely. Yeah.