Locked In with Ian Bick - Mastermind Behind a $200,000 College Book Scam Reveals All

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

Discover the shocking story behind a $200,000 college book scam as the mastermind reveals how he orchestrated this elaborate scheme. Learn about the methods, the risks, and the ultimate fallout in this eye-opening confession. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Kevin Lanning: https://www.instagram.com/kevin_lanning/ Listen & watch his podcast: https://linktr.ee/riseabovewithk Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - A Lucrative Textbook Scheme 00:04:11 - Unpredictable Behavior and Troubled Past 00:08:20 - The Pressure to Succeed in Sports 00:12:36 - Filling the Void through Validation and Addiction 00:17:12 - Losing Identity, Finding Validation through Sports 00:21:08 - Creativity in Finding Money 00:25:10 - Building a Book Selling Scheme 00:29:28 - Arrest and Bail Experience 00:33:21 - Dodging Consequences in Life 00:37:13 - The Coma Incident 00:41:24 - Financial Struggles 00:45:52 - Relapse Journey 00:50:07 - Spiraling out of Control 00:54:28 - Rock Bottom and Road to Recovery 00:59:00 - Finding Purpose 01:03:10 - The Power of Fellowship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My rate was whatever the textbook is, let's say it's a $300 textbook, pay me half cash, $150. That's it. You could still return it to the bookstore at the end of the semester. So I decide to do my first run with this guy. He leaves the off-site location book storage facility open. I had a Jeep at the time. I pull my Jeep around. I do 10 bucks.

I get 10 orders, you know, economic, statistics, textbooks. I go. I sell them. Like $100 a pop, I make $1,000. I split it 50-50 with them, $500 each. And I wanted to wait for the semester to end to see if they come back flagged when these student athletes return the books. Nothing comes back flagged.

It was clean. Make the $1,000, awesome. Okay, let's do next semester. Let's do 100 books. Let's see how that goes. We do it. $10,000. Now I tell him, I made $8,000.

I give him $4,000. I collect $6. Then we build this scheme up. Now we're doing not only semesters, we're doing quarter classes too. So there is halfway in between the semester. We're doing, you know, beginning of this semester, halfway through this semester, winter classes, spring semester, quarter classes and summer classes. We build this up to a six-figure operation, a little over $200,000 a year operation for college students. And this is cash.

Kevin, welcome to Lockton. Man, pleasure having you. You're here from Florida, but you grew up on Long Island. Is it in Long Island or on Long Island? Well, we say in Long Island, but it's properly said on Long Island. Okay. Yeah. So I'm from Long Island by way of New York.

I came down from Florida. I moved to Florida during COVID about three years ago, West Palm Beach area during COVID. And I was working from home. Went there on vacation with my ex-wife. I have a daughter. She's five now, so she was two at the time and never left. We were living in New York City at the time and went there on a two-week vacation. Never went back.

Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when I was working in Long Islander on whatever, I would always say whatever the incorrect way would be and everyone would always correct me. It's not this way. That's funny. So what town did you grow up? I grew up in Lindenhurst, Long Island, town of Babylon, near Far Island. That's a nice area.

It's decent, yeah, middle class, maybe upper middle class at best. Did you hear about the Long Island serial killer? Is that the one that just got busted? He just got busted over the summer. Yeah, it's a beach? So, Gilgo Beach. This guy was apparently, well, innocent until proven guilty, killing people. sex workers finding them on Craigslist in 2006 to 2008 I believe and burying the bodies in the brush right near the beach over there in Gilgo Beach so I grew up going to that beach holy cow there were 11 bodies he is being charged for three and he is a suspect in the fourth so you have seven bodies still that are unsolved mysteries right now but they found all those bodies they found them all

11 bodies. Over the course during that time period, they found them pretty quickly. They found them, I believe, in 2009, 2010, 2011. Yeah, a girl went missing in that area, and then they searched. But then I believe it was unrelated to the search. About a month after that, they were doing training, dog training. Wow. By the beach over there.

And then a dog came across one of the bodies, and then they started to search. Was it, like, buried or something? It was wrapped in burlap. It was not buried, and it was just thrown in the bird. rush. Wow. Didn't the wife or something say she knew all along or there was something, she did like an interview or something happened or the neighbors thought he was weird.

There would be like smoke burning. I was reading one in the articles. So I don't think anyone was on to what was actually going on. They said he was very weird. His neighbor said he was weird. His wife was suspect, but I think she may have thought he was cheating or something like that, not burying bodies and killing people. She would go on long vacations.

She would come back and things would be rearranged in the house and stuff like that. So she was on to something. I don't think she really knew the full magnitude of what was going on. That's crazy. And this all developed like last year, right? All developed last year right in my backyard where I grew up. And it blows my fucking mind. Now, when I was working on Long Island, what I've realized is that it's kind of boring during the winter there.

It's kind of like a summer area. Was that how it was growing up? Yeah, depressing. We all, well, I'm here to tell an addiction story, right? So I guess that speaks to how depressing and the lack of things to do during the winter. Yes, it's cold. It's, I feel like it's always overcast. And you're right on the water.

So it's, there's beach there, but it's cold out. Did you have siblings? I did. I had two older brothers. I was the youngest of three boys. All athletes. That's got to be competitive. Yeah, very competitive.

My father played semi-pro football growing up, and he wanted us all to play sports, and my parents were very supportive. My oldest brother, he was good. Not great. He was good. My middle brother was above average, and I felt like I had to be the best. And we all played football, lacrosse, and wrestled. and football in lacrosse in high school and then I went on to eventually play football in college.

I played Division I college football at a pretty high level. And yeah, so growing up, two brothers, we got into a lot of trouble. My older brother was the heartthrob. My middle brother was the one that your parents told you to stay away from growing up. And I was, you know, I was a hybrid.

I was a hybrid between getting into trouble, not getting into too much trouble, pushing my limits, seeing what I can get away with. But I feel like with myself, my parents had smartened up by the time I was growing up. And they were very strict with me. If your brothers were here right now, how would they describe you back then? Back then, they would describe me as rambunctious, very ballsy. And I feel like I was very ballsy at a young age because I knew I had older brothers there to pave the way for me and kind of back me. So it was, you know, in terms of, you know, how they would describe my character and whatnot, I was always pretty intelligent.

I was always willing to go for things and take risks. I was a go-getter at a very young age. Networker, wheeler and dealer, as I'm sure you can relate to. Yeah. And that perspective is fascinating because it's always those individuals who they would never expect to fall into addiction or go to prison. Like if you asked anyone I went to high school with, if they asked, do you think you would end up in federal prison? At that time, the answer would probably have been automatically no. I think I was voted like in the yearbook most likely to be famous or something silly, whatever that was.

So I'm sure that was kind of similar to you in that way. No one ever expected you to go down the path. you went down. Yeah, I did really well in school. Through elementary school, middle school, the beginning of high school, I did pretty well. I was a pretty intelligent kid. And then I just, I stopped applying myself because I was playing sports. I was involved with, you know, just, I loved going out and doing things.

And I loved the ego boost of, you know, being good at sports. And I never really applied myself in 10th grade on academically. And it's funny, addicts, alcoholics, you know, people with the bug, we're intelligent people. And we, I mean, you go to a self-help meeting, you know, whether it's A&A, there are a lot of talented people in there. A lot of people that just self-sabotaged themselves, whether it's. through some kind of deep-rooted, you know, fear or insecurity that they took on at a young age and some kind of experience that they had that resulted in, you know, fear or resentment. They, you know, eventually were sidetracked in their journey along the way.

And then, you know, they're in those rooms for a reason. But we're talented people and, you know, successful people and can go on to do some things. So it's an interesting, you know, trait that we embody. Yeah. When you're born into a competitive family like that where you have a figure, a parent figure that wants you to go a certain route, is there any choice for anything other, a different route? Or are you just so young where you never really get that choice

and that's all you know is sports or acting or these child singers or whatever your parents kind of shape you to be? That's the path you chose and that's all you know during those years. It's a great question. I had it in my head that there was no other way. It's funny, when I would go to football practice, my parents would drive me to football practice at a young age, and I would dread going to football practice.

This is like eight, nine, ten years old. And I felt like, you know, they signed me up. They paid to have me participate on a team for the season. I didn't want to let them down. I was so scared and in so, so much fear that I would let them down. And my father, my father played semi-pro football. I wanted to be that child he could brag about to his friends and be proud of.

And I took that on at a young age when there really was no pressure. My parents thought I genuinely loved playing sports. My parents were not, they were not shoving it down my throat. They were, they were great parents. My upbringing was a great upbringing. And, you know, I'm six and a half year sober now. And through the work, I've realized this was just something I created in my head and this pressure growing up that I had to do this. I had to do X.

I had to do Y. I had to do Z. When in fact, I really didn't have to do it. And it's funny, if I talked to my parents and said, listen, I don't like it. I don't want to do it. They probably would have been fully supportive of them. of it. And, you know, through high school, I started to get some recognition. I continued to play lacrosse and football through high school. And I did pretty well. I started to get some recognition,

went on to, you know, play football in college. And there was a high, it's funny, like I'm thinking about, I've thought about it every which way possible. Pain killers were my addiction. I had shoulder surgery in college, got hooked on opiate pain pills. But prior to that, I was introduced to pain pills, I believe in 10th grade. I'll never forget it. I was at a party. A few guys that were on the football team at the time were sniffing Vicodin. And I tried it.

I loved it. I fell in love with it. But it was almost like I made, I took a mental note of how that made me feel. and I never went, I didn't go back to that for another two or three years to the painkillers. And during, I always had the bug and alcoholism and drug addiction is a symptom. It wasn't the root of my problem. It was to fill the void. And I realized that before college, when I really got hooked on painkillers in high school,

I was filling the void through validation, you know, doing well in football, getting awards in football, getting recognition with lacrosse, and kind of that ego boosting validation that happened externally for me. So I went on through high school, got a scholarship to play Division I football.

I remember, I'll never forget it, showing up for Summerball. They gave me a workout program. And I am the king of half measures. I am the king of half measures. I always look for the easiest way to do something just enough to get by. And if I can manipulate the situation or this system in any way, I will take full advantage of that. And I remember they sent me the summer program, the workout program that we all had to follow prior to going to, you know, into freshman year. And I'll never forget it. It was like August 1st and I show up to training camp and the guys who were, you know, sophomore, junior and seniors were already there practicing. I think about a week prior. Freshman came week two. And I showed up

and these guys wore twice the size I was 10 times faster than I was. And I was. And, And I remember just looking at them and saying to myself, I want no part of this. If I am not the best at something, I don't want any part of it. And I knew that it would take hard work with a workout program, agility program. And I was not starting day one. And my ego walked in there. Like, don't they know who I am? Like, I'm Kevin Lannning from Lyndonhurst, Long Island.

and I am the best guy on my high school team. Why aren't I the best out here? I'm like, I'm the smallest. I'm the slowest. And I couldn't accept that. Acceptance for me at a young age was a problem. So I played my first year and I end up getting hurt. I blew my shoulder out.

I tore my rotator cuff. And I ended up eventually going in for surgery. I had the surgery, and this for me, after probably of 10 plus years of playing sports, was my ticket out of having to play sports. And I remember going to my father and saying, listen, like, I'm having, well, it was after I had the surgery that I had this conversation with him, that I was never going to go back and play football again. And during that time, I discovered, rediscovered pain pills. put me on Perkissette. And I didn't have to deal with showing up to, you know, 7 a.m. runs every morning, you know, during the springtime, spring ball, you know, two-a-day practices,

going to study hall. I had zero responsibility. And this was probably the end of my freshman year beginning of my sophomore year. And there was zero responsibility on my plate. And it was amazing. I was laying around. I wasn't going to call us class. I was doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

And it was constant, you know, Percocet, drinking, smoking weed. On the weekends, I was sniffing Coke. And just filling that void, that void of fear, that insecurity. I discovered that once I got hurt and I pulled away and I quit the football team, that was my core group of friends. and for me, my identity was compromised considerably because that core group of friends that I met when I went there freshman year,

they all played football. I didn't feel a part of them anymore because I was no longer on the football team. You know, they fully accepted me. I was still invited. I ended up living in the football house my junior year when I wasn't even on the team and I had it in my head.

I lost my identity and I didn't know. The GLP1 pill you've been waiting for is now on row. Yep, it's finally here with the same clinically proven ingredient. Now in a pill. And now on row. It's the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss. At the lowest price available, that's one daily GLP1 pill for big results. Now on row.

Go to row.com slash listen to see if you qualify. RX only go to row.com slash safety for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP1s. who I was. When a D1 athlete gets hurt, do you lose scholarship? So how does that work? Are you allowed to stay at the school? You're allowed to stay at the school and you keep scholarship, yes.

Okay. Only if you get hurt. You can't voluntarily leave or anything like that. You have to get hurt. Yeah. It's almost like, you know, with work, like getting hurt on the job, right? And then you get some kind of, you know, workers' compensation or something like that. It's same thing with school, with university.

And it's interesting also. You said you were sniffing Vicod in high school. school how much environment plays a factor because when I was in high school, none of us were like sniffing Vicodin or even doing cocaine. That would be like the town's over and the more richer areas like Richfield, the town were in now. That was like people with money's type of drugs. So we were all, you know, marijuana and things of that nature wasn't the heavy hardcore drugs. But when I interview some people, they're doing like heroin and cocaine and everything at such a young age. And it's so interesting how environment plays a factor.

And in your case, you were someone that had everything. You came from a good family. You weren't exposed to someone that was alcoholics or drug addicts. And because of an injury, it kind of unfolds that way, which is different than a lot of our guests. So it gives a different perspective that it really can happen to anyone. It can happen to anyone. And something I've learned with addiction and alcoholism. So I truly do believe it is a disease.

and, you know, hereditary. And I believe that I always had the bug in me. And what I was saying earlier about just, you know, the accolades and the recognition and the attention that came from playing sports and doing well and excelling, that's what I was using as external validation. and then that it came to a point where I didn't have that anymore. I wasn't, you know, I always had to have something to brag about, to, you know, to my parents, to my friends, to just people I was talking to when I met for the first time, I had to have an identity to those people because I had to look important because I was so insecure with who I really was and I hated who I was.

I didn't know who I was. And because I didn't have an identity, I needed an identity. So when I made the transition from the validation through sports and recognition to filling the void with painkillers, I didn't even care then. I didn't even need to brag to anyone because it made me feel I could do anything on Vicodin and Percocet and Oxies. I could do anything on opiates. I could have been the president of the United States on opiates. But I, there was, I didn't need the external validation because I filled the void with those opiates. And I feel like that bug was always with me.

It was just the different symptoms that came about in my life during that time that helped me fill that void. So. Do you think there's something that someone. could have said to you when you got injured and you stopped playing sports in that moment where you're most vulnerable to go down the path of addiction that could have prevented you from going down that path? Absolutely not. I'm a firm believer that I, most people, I can't speak for everyone, need to really go

experience it for themselves. You could have told me and you were blue in the face that, you know, you could have been 20 years down my path and came back to me and said, listen, don't do it. It's going to lead to this. It's going to lead. And I would have said it's not going to happen to me. I'm Kevin Lannning. I can get my, once it gets bad enough, I can stop myself. Once I start to hit a bottom, I can stop myself and pull myself back. And for the first time in my life, the painkillers, the opiates, I could not pull myself out of it. It was probably six months after my surgery freshman year going well the surgery was freshman year going into sophomore year um now we're

about six months after the surgery i had graduated to oxy cotton and this is when oxy cotton oxy 80s oxy 40s had become pretty big and they're expensive they're expensive for a college kid i did not have a job i was not working i had gotten into a car accident right before i went to college and I had a little NASDAG in the bank, and that was starting to dwindle. And my parents would check it, so I couldn't take too much out at one time, or they were questioning me,

where are you spending the money, et cetera, et cetera. So now I needed to, it's funny, I didn't even think I had a problem. And I said, well, this is just, you know, post-surgery. I'm going to pull myself out of it. However, I need to go to the black market to get oxies, and I need to find a way.

to make money to do this. My habit was probably a few hundred dollars a day. Wow. For a college kid, that's a lot of money. For anyone, that's a lot. No, it is, it is. But for a college kid, it's a lot of money. Yeah, that's even more money.

So I come up with an idea. I, well, it was the end of, I want to say sophomore year, winter classes, winter semester. I returned a book and I got $50 for it. And I was shocked. I think I paid $300 for it. I got $50 back. I mean, those bookstores, they make a ton of money off the students. The textbooks.

Oh, yeah. So I was at a bar one night. I was at the football bar. And I was just talking to this guy and he turned out to be the manager of our school bookstore. And I'm drunk. And I'm like, listen, I'm like, what's the deal with, you know, these, the price? Like, it's bullshit. The margins they're making on these books.

Like, how much do they pay for a $300 textbook? He's like, they pay like $30. It's ridiculous. I'm like, really, do you know the website that they're getting these books from? And he's like, fuck the website. He's like, what if I told you I know where they store these books? There's a shit ton of inventory. They don't take inventory.

And it's an off-site location. And I started to read between the lines. and long story short, him and I come up with this plan where I knew all the athletes. I was working out in the gym. I knew all the lacrosse players, you know, the women's and the men's team, basketball, women's and men's team, field hockey team, tennis, et cetera, et cetera. So I knew probably two to three thousand student athletes. And I started, you know, just reaching out.

to people who needs books. I'm only doing textbooks. And my rate was whatever the textbook is, let's say it's a $300 textbook, pay me half cash, $150. That's it. And it's returnable. You could still return it to the bookstore at the end of the semester. So I decide to do my first run with this guy. He leaves the off-site location, book storage facility, open. I had a Jeep at the time. I pull my Jeep around. I do 10 bucks. I get 10 orders, you know, economics, statistics, textbooks.

I go, I sell them like $100 a pop. I make $1,000 bucks. I split it 50-50 with them, $500 each. And I wanted to wait for the semester to end to see if they come back flagged when these student athletes return the books. Nothing comes back flagged. It was clean. Make the thousand bucks.

Awesome. Okay. Let's do next semester. Let's do 100 books. Let's see how that goes. We do it. 10,000 bucks. Now I tell him I made 8,000.

I give him 4,000. I collect 6. Then we build this scheme up. Now we're doing not only semesters. We're doing quarter classes too. So there is halfway in between a semester. We're doing, you know, beginning of this semester, halfway through this semester, winter classes, spring semester, quarter classes and summer classes. We build this up to a six-figure operation.

Not high, but probably a little over $200,000 a year operation for college students. And this is cash, cash money. I do it for, we do it for about two and a half years. I, one day, I go to the storage facility, business as usual, and I pull my truck around and, you know, I'm grabbing 10 books at a time. I grab the first 10, put them in the car, I go for the second 10, I turn around, and there is the GM of the school book store, standing there with two police. officers. And she's like, so this is where all of our inventory has been going for the last two years. And I was like, what? No, like, I didn't know what to say. And like, I just, I played a lot. I lied. I just said, no, like, I'm helping someone out here and I couldn't come up with a story.

I couldn't concoct a story fast enough. And then it just, it all came down. on me and the police officers arrested me. She's asking me questions and my father always told me never talk, never talk. Just get a lawyer if you ever get in trouble and I didn't say anything. I just said, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never done this before. I don't know what you're talking about. So I get handcuffed. I get brought to the precinct. They bring me into booking. They handcuffed me to, you know, the metal ring that's coming, you know, from the table there. They do my fingerprints, mugshot.

And I had an internship pending for that summer. And it was March and I still had to do a phone interview. And it was the last phone interview with human resources of that company. They wanted to do just like a follow-up after all the interviews I had done. And it was a pretty prestigious internship. I couldn't fuck it up. And a family member helped me get that internship. And he had said, do not miss this last call.

They just want to make sure that you have a pulse. Don't fuck it up. I'm like, okay. Well, I'm sitting in booking at the precinct. It's 1140 a.m. And noon is my call. I just have to answer the call. This lady's going to ask me a couple questions.

And that's it. I should be getting the internship. I manipulate the situation. with the police officers. I said, listen, like, I, you know, played football at Albany. I have a scholarship. Like, I'm really trying to get my life together and give these guys a sob story. And I win one of the police officers over.

To get my phone, he gets me my phone, it's 1155, he said, listen, I am going to help you here because I understand you're trying to better your life. Do not make me regret this decision. I'm going to handcuff one arm and I'll let you take the call, but you're not moving anywhere. You have to take the call right here from the middle of the precinct. Sorry, that's the way it's going to go. So, no problem, I'll do it.

So I take the call. I am handcuffed. This lady is asking me the dumbest fucking questions just to make sure, you know, just to go through the motions. She's like, so what do you like to do on the weekends? And I'm like, oh, I like to play sports. and people like criminals are fucking walking behind me as I'm sitting there giving this lady the rundown of what I like to do over the weekend.

I end up getting the internship. I do the internship during the summer and I ended up working there after college. I mean, I'll go to that in one second. But so I end up getting, you know, booked and whatnot. I had bail. I called my father. My father hung up on me with the first phone call. and he said, you know, on that call, he said,

we're not telling your fucking mother. Like, this stays here, but we need to get through this. We'll figure this all out. And if you needed fucking money, you could have called me. And I get bailed out by my father, and he ends up getting me an attorney. Two days after I was arrested, I get a letter from the university.

You've been kicked out of school. Your scholarship's been revoked. basically you can live on-premise until premises until the college semester's over and then after start the spring season off right with a new pair of Toccova's Western boots handcrafted and over 200 steps from genuine leather they're built to last and feel broken in the moment you put them on

from cowhide to exotic leathers Tocovas blends timeless style with all-day comfort pair them with premium denim western shirts and accessories for an effortless, polished look. Shop quality Western goods in store or online at Decovas.com. That's Ayanoa, you got to go. I end up going to see this lawyer about two weeks after I got arrested, and I show him the paperwork.

He's having me walk through the entire story, and he says to me, wait a minute, he said, they kicked you out of college before you even had your arraignment. You haven't even gone in for your arraignment. you haven't even gone in for your arraignment. You ever hear innocent until proving guilty? I was like, yeah, of course. He said, well, I have to look over your agreement that you signed with the college to see if they can act on just allegations.

Usually college students do not sign anything that says they are allowed to kick you out of school, even if it's just an allegation. You have to be proven guilty. I never signed anything that said any of that. so he said do you want me to try and call the dean and let them know that they fucked up and see if they can drop all the charges or do you want to go through with it and try to follow up with a lawsuit with the school said i don't even want to do a lawsuit i just want to move on with my life and act like this never happened he's like all right i'll call the dean calls the dean a couple days later in the mail i get a letter you're enrolled and back in

university and you are fully scholarship moving forward um they fucked up they fucked up they ended up they ended up dropping all charges against me i was facing felony charges uh i i still had to go to my arraignment the judge looked at everything and he was like listen i i see what happened here like you're you're you're good to go all charges have been dropped but you're not leaving You're not leaving college. You're not leaving my courthouse without any kind of repercussion. So you're going to do 100 hours of community service and stay out of trouble, the ACOD, and this will be wiped off your record.

So I end up having to go and do 100 hours of community service. I sign up with a church, walk in there, and the pastor of the church that morning is shooting, you know hoops in you know the playground in there and he's shooting around and I'm trying to manipulate the situation how can I cut my hours how can I you know do 20 hours instead of 100 so I start you know gassing them up a little bit hey dude like you got some fucking shot like good job you know and he's just like oh yeah thanks man I've been playing my whole life I said listen I'll make you a bet now I'm in prime sheet. I said, I'll play you to 11. If I beat you, you have to sign off on all 100 hours right now. If you beat me, I'll do 200 hours of community service for you. He's like, done. Let's do it.

Fucking smoked. I'm 11.0. He signs off on all my hours and I walk out of there scot-free. And I share that because this was the type of manipulation that was going on in my life and what I was doing. and I was constantly getting by. I was skating by. And I thought I was invincible. I thought I could do whatever I wanted. And I faced zero consequences. You know, Ian, you've done time in prison.

There are a lot of people that have done time, you know, things that I, doing exactly what I did. Maybe not books, but with cars or whatever it may be, robbing a bank. And I'm no different. I just dodged a couple bullets. You know, about a month after the whole book situation, I was home for Thanksgiving. I was in Long Island for Thanksgiving. I was at a bar with a couple of my buddies.

And of course, I'm drunk. I'm high. I'm on painkillers. I'm on oxies. And me and two of my buddies are walking down the street leaving the bar. One of my friends got into a fight with his girlfriend. And there's a middle. aged man in his 50s walking the other way and we're walking down the street he approaches us i mean very

weird hey guys you think you can get me some blow it's the night before thanksgiving the biggest party night of the year and we're like nah man like we're you know our boys like really fucking pissed off we're just talking to him like trying to calm him down a little bit sorry man we can he's like come on guys i know you can and he keeps trying and he keeps trying and then my buddy who is who was who was angry at the moment with his girlfriend turns around. He's like, you know what? You want some fucking blow? Blow on this, motherfucker. And the guy lost his shit.

And he went at my buddy and locked up with my friend who's not a fighter. Now, out of defense, now, yes, he put his hands on my friend. I punched him. I punched him in the side of the head as he was attacking my friend. And when I punched him, he locked up.

and he fell forward and when he fell forward he ate the curb and his face just bashed open on the curb and we're like fuck we got to get out of here we got to get out of here so me and my two buddies just start running down the street we get about a block away and we're like we got to go back too many people there were cars driving by we live in a small town and we're like we got to go back like that dude is not right right now like we have to go back so we end up going back we call an ambulance, you know, police come, and, you know, we give the story. It was a self-defense story. We were attacked. However, I was handcuffed. I was put in the back of the car and detained. I wasn't arrested because it was self-defense, but I was detained. I was put in the back of the cop car and eventually let go.

All of our stories were consistent with one another. Now, Thanksgiving comes and goes. I end up going back to college. I'm at college probably a week after the incident, a week after Thanksgiving. And I get a call from my father. And he calls me with an attorney on the phone. And he said, listen, a detective came to the house. The guy that you punched is in a coma.

He's bleeding from the brain. He's still in a coma from last week. And there is probably a 10% chance of him making it. I will never forget the feeling. And my world just stopped. And I just hung up the phone. I didn't even talk to the attorney because he wanted me to give my side of the story to the attorney. And I remember just praying that foxhold prayer.

Like, God, please just get me through this moment. I'll stop drinking. I will stop drugging. I will stop doing bad. I will stop everything. And three days later this guy ends up coming out of the coma

making a recovery and thank God and I share that I share the book story with you because these were instances in my life where I said like God please just get me through this moment and they were I was looking down the barrel of a gun and then God was coming in and saving me every single time

and then right when I would get saved, I would pull my will back and I would go back to doing exactly what I was doing and thinking I was untouchable. So I go on, I end up graduating college somehow, and I end up getting, they hired me full-time, the job that I did the internship with. And now I am living in the city, I am working for this company, and I have health insurance. You get health insurance when you're working full-time for a company. And I go doctor shopping.

I said, this is great. I don't even have to pay for my oxies anymore. I can go to, this is 08, 2009, 2010. I can go around from doctor to doctor. If I go to Dr. A, fill his prescription of oxies at CVS. Then I can go to Dr. B, fill his prescription of oxies at Walgreens. and then Dr. C. at mom and pop pharmacy, you know, downtown Manhattan. Then I can cross state lines.

I can go in a Jersey, right? It's a ferry ride away. And then I could start to fill prescriptions over there. So after doing this for about six months, now they were paper prescriptions back then. So there was a lag when they sent the paper prescriptions. The pharmacies had to send the paper prescriptions into D.C. and there was like a six-month lag. If someone was doctor shopping,

the FDA wouldn't find out about it until like six months later until they got all the prescriptions and they were able to piece everything together. I get a letter home with that gold stamp on it from the FDA, from the federal government. I wasn't living at home at the time.

My father opened up the mail and I got a phone call from him. He said, you have a letter here from the FDA says you filled over 3,000 oxies in the month of February. What the fuck is going on? You need to get home right now. So I end up going home and I make up this full elaborate story. Like, Dad, listen, like, I have health insurance.

I don't have to pay for my prescriptions or my doctor visits. And, you know, someone paid to use my identity to go see a doctor. And this has happened a bunch of times. I'll stop it. You know, they're paying me to do it, make money. Like, I'm not making that much money. It's my first year working at this company. I'm paying my dues.

Give him some fucking sob story. And I'm able to dodge that bullet, you know? So I know, I, doctor shopping now at this point is out of the question. And I start now having to come up with all these different types of ways to get money to now buy it on the black market. And my habit is probably up to anywhere between

$12 and $1,500 a day. Wow. I'm doing anywhere between 30 to 50 Roxy 30s, Roxy Blues a day. Were you making good money at your job? No, I was not making good money at my job. I mean, listen,

entry level position. Living in Manhattan, it wasn't very good money at all. Not enough to support a 50 oxy pill a day habit, you know, on top of a Manhattan apartment. So I'm coming up with all these different ways. I'm taking out lines of credit. I'm maxing out all of my credit cards, doing cash advances, you know, borrowing from this part. It was just complete on manageability.

So I, one of the first times I had gotten introduced to recovery was 2013. I walk into, my parents came into the city and from Long Island and they're downtown. Sorry, this is like kind of fucking with me. And they're downtown and they're like, meet us at this restaurant. you know, we'll have dinner. We haven't seen you in a few weeks or whatever. And my mom's like, listen, your father is doing business with, you know, this guy. Why don't you come by the office really quick and then we'll go to dinner after that.

So I walk in and the secretary is like, oh, are you Kevin? I was like, yeah. She goes, oh, your father's right down there, you know, third office to the right. I should have fucking knew then. I walk in there. It was an intervention. Yeah, it was a full intervention. And it was my parents and an interventionist.

And this guy, he knew, I mean, he was a recovering. I'm still friends with him to this day. Great guy. Old timer in sobriety. And, you know, they're just saying, listen, like, we love you. What's going on? We know something's going on. My father had my prescription history from those few years.

Like, you know, you have no money left. What's going on? And, you know, you don't show up anymore. You're just so distant. You look like shit. You know, I'm probably 210 pounds right now. I mean, I was probably 160 pounds soaking wet. Wow.

And so I'm starting off with the manipulation and the lying. And I go back to, no, I'm still, you know, I'm, it's a small habit. it's nothing bad it's really not that bad i have it under control and then you know i did do a little more doctor shopping after that you know they brought that to the surface and i said oh i was still you know giving someone my identity so that they could fill pills and i can make money and the gig was just up it was just getting old and and this guy knew everything i was trying to do and i for the first time in my life broke down and i i just had nothing like left and my I needed help so bad and my ego and pride wouldn't allow me to ask for help because I'm I'm

Kevin Lannning I'm you know a star football player I got this prestigious internship I got hired by that company I have a big time job in Manhattan like don't you know who I am and for the first time in my life, I had to admit I was defeated and that I was powerless over something. And I asked for help. They ended up sending me away. I went away to treatment. I went there for a month in Pennsylvania, came back, went into sober living for another six months after that in Manhattan, didn't go back to work during that time. I ended up going back to work after sober living. I transitioned. with another guy who was sober into an apartment in the city, lived with him for about a year. I ended up staying sober for about three and a half years.

And I'm going to meetings every day. I got a sponsor. I was doing step work. For my first two years, I was doing, I went through the steps twice. I went through the 12 steps twice. And I was sponsoring other guys, service commitments, a part of it. of, you know, an active member of recovery, helping others, and taking part in self-esteemable acts. So, fast forward, you know, three and a half years, I'm sober. I'm working out in the gym.

And at first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a fly. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our sin. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary.

Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. I'm bench pressing. I blow my left shoulder out. Same shoulder, same injury. And I go to a doctor. doctor, I see him, he said, you tore your rotator cuff again. You have to go in for emergency surgery or it's going to start to heal back the wrong way. So I go into surgery. Now, during this three and a half years, my life has improved significantly. I'd gotten married. I didn't have any

kid yet. Well, I only have a kid, but I didn't have my child yet. You know, I got married. I got a new job, a better job, paying better. I was active in sobriety. But I was, I wasn't continuing the step work. I was helping others, but I wasn't looking at myself anymore. The first two years of that sobriety stint, I was really working on myself and helping others. Year three, and then that last half a year, I wasn't looking at myself anymore. I was just helping others and filling the void with, you know, I'm doing enough by helping others but not doing the maintenance on myself.

And I wasn't spiritually fit going into that surgery. And he said, it's a reconstructive shoulder surgery. You are going to need painkillers. I don't know what to tell you. You're going to need them. And I was fully upfront with him. I said, I'm sober, you know, three and a half years from painkillers. And he said, okay, well, you know, I spoke with my sponsor at the time.

And he said, give him to your wife. Let your wife hold them. My wife had no fucking idea. Once that beast was out, I was off to the races and the manipulation was on. And I control, I make the decision whether or not I'm going to have the first one. After I have that first one, I'm no longer in control. And once I had that first painkiller right after shoulder surgery, I had that opiate high. I melted into the fucking couch.

And spiritually, I was bankrupt. I wasn't making amends to people in the steps, as the steps are designed to do. I wasn't working on myself. I wasn't taking inventory on myself. My behavior was just, I was gambling in sobriety. I was partaking in other, you know, symptoms. As I was referring to my drug use as just a symptom, I was partaking in other types of symptoms. I was, you know, filling the void with something.

else. And gambling was a huge one in sobriety. And I ended up going on a full-blown relapse. And that relapse lasted about a year to a year and a half. And during that time, it was 10 times worse than any of the usage prior to getting sober before that three and a half years of sobriety. And things went right back to the way they were, even after three and a half years of not doing anything within a week. I was full-blown, you know, five oxies a day to 10 to, you know, 30 a day, 40 a day, 40 a day, pretty fast. And things spiraled out of control. Now, to fast forward through that time, I tried going into meetings. I could not get back into sobriety. I would string maybe five days

and then the thought would pop into my head and then I would go use I would act on that thought right away that impulsive thought I would say oh well I only have five days I could just start again tomorrow and then once I started the first one I could I would go on a bender for like 30 days

and it would be a month later then I would string two days together then I would go back out and this went on the misery of the back and forth the insanity of back and forth, not knowing whether I'm going to stay sober or I'm going to use or if you told me every night before I went to bed, if you hooked me up to a lie detector and said, Kevin, are you quitting tomorrow? I would pass that lie detector and say, yes, I am quitting tomorrow because I really wanted to quit. And then I would wake up the next morning and have no

choice. So this goes on for a year and a half. My bottom during this time, I, wake up one morning and my wife at the time is on a business trip. I'm home alone on the upper east side of Manhattan. I rent a car. I didn't have a car in the city. So I rented one. I needed pain pills. And the guy I was going to was out. He knew a guy up in the Bronx. And he said, I don't deal with this guy a lot. Be careful. You're going into the jungle. Be careful. I was like, okay, cool. I got it, you know. So I link up with this guy.

I go, I meet him, and I got, I want to say like 50 oxies, you know, a couple hundred dollars I take out of the bank, go up there with cash. I meet this guy. It's, I am on a sketchy-ass fucking street on his block. And there's a lot going on on the block. And, you know, so he claimed my car when I was pulling up. so no one fucked with me, you know. He's like, you know, he's with me. And I pull up this little fucking white kid, you know,

the place where he should not be. And, you know, get the pills. I buggy out of there. I'm driving on the east side highway, going back to the Upper East Side. And I take a few of the pills. I was hurting so bad. I was starting to detox. And I just threw them down the hatch.

I didn't even have time to break them up. or do whatever. Like, I just threw them down the hatch just to feel a little better instantly. And I'll never forget these blue pills, these roxy blues, they were supposed to be roxy blues. They just dissolved right when they got into my mouth.

And that never happens. A pill doesn't just dissolve. And I just remember saying these are not roxies, but I don't give a fuck because I don't want to feel like this anymore. And I just drank the water. It was fentanyl. Holy shit.

So I don't remember what happened after that. I remember maybe like a couple minutes after taking the pills, after they dissolved driving southbound on the East Side Highway. Next thing I remember, I wake up the next day in my bed. My wife is on a work trip. I am sleeping alone in my apartment in my bed with a pocketful of cash and no pills. So I'm like, what the fuck?

I look at my phone. I had so many fucking miss calls, texts, that drug dealer, he texted me a bunch. Don't you ever fucking come on this block again. Don't ever reach out to me ever again. The guy, the middleman, my original dealer, dude, what the fuck happened with him? What the fuck did you do? So I realized that they were fentanyl pills. I was on the east side highway.

I got off the exit, went back up to the Bronx. I don't remember any of this. I went on his block. I was calling him. He wasn't answering me. I went in front of his place. I just sat there and laid on the fucking horn until he came out. It was a couple minutes.

And he ends up coming out. I lose my shit. And I'm making all this fucking noise on the, the block and like people are coming out and like the block is hot you know like it was not a good situation the guy ends up he's like listen you know so and so i ended up calling him and found out later what exactly happened and you know he's like thank god you know so and so or else this would be a much bigger fucking problem he's like give me the fucking pills that i gave you he gives me my cash back i leave as i'm leaving i'm going second i'm going second

Now again on the east side highway, I hit another car. I total my car. I total their car. Now, it was a couple. Thank God they were fine. Nothing ended up happening. Their car was totaled, but they, you know, there was no, they didn't have to leave in an ambulance or anything. I get out of the car.

Now, on the east side highway in Manhattan, there are 20 to 30 feet walls. You can't just get out of your car, hop a median, and then just like go off. into civilization. On the East Side Highway, you need to, if you're on foot, you have to go to an exit and run off or walk off the exit. I ran a mile. I'll never forget, to exit 61, I believe it was. Yeah.

And I got off and I ran out of there. I went home. I went home to my apartment. And I'm not going to get into the specifics, but someone I know. ended up going there, back there for me and claimed that, you know, I had a mental breakdown and the cops, they ended up filling out the report because those guys never got the couple in the other car never got hurt or left in an ambulance. There was never a warrant out for my arrest. They acted as if I was there, filled out the report. I had to pay for my totaled car, their totaled car,

which was a very light consequence for what had happened. Holy cow. So I then had to answer to my wife the very next day I was interventioned again by my family. And I'm back where I was, you know, in 2013 when I was first intervention. And now it's my whole family. And I had hit rock bottom. I just knew I was going to die. I knew my luck was going to run out, and I had to make a change.

And I like to stay in the solution, and I know I went through a lot of war stories. And I actually have, I started my own podcast, Rise Above with Kevin Lannning. That is solution-based and solution-oriented. And for me, I had to get into the solution. and I had to admit defeat. I had to admit I was powerless over drugs and alcohol. And I ended up going to a meeting the very next day, which was February 19th, 2018, and I am sober to this day.

That was my last go-round with drugs and alcohol. I did a 90-90. I had known people from sobriety from that first three and a half years I was sober I got into step work immediately I went through my 12 steps in the first six months of sobriety I started sponsoring people

I chaired a meeting within my first year I had to change my life and you know for me that was every day admitting that I was powerless and that I had to let that ego go. I had a very fucking big ego for a very long time. I thought I was untouchable.

I thought I was the greatest. I thought, you know, I was the best at everything. And if I wasn't the best at it, I want to know part in it. Like, I'm good. I'm done. I'm a quitter. I was that guy, yes, I'm getting into, I actually did this in sobriety.

I'm getting into pickleball. I'll get the best fucking pickleball racket there is and all the gear. and then I'll play one time. I'm not good at it. I'm like, fuck that. Like, I'm good. I'm not even, I'm out of here, you know. Complete extreme.

So, yeah, so today I am, you know, sober six and a half years. And I ended up getting a divorce. You know, my ex-wife is actually amazing. I have a daughter. She's five. We got a divorce about three years ago, and we are best of friends today. That's great. We live 15 minutes from one another.

I'm in Jupiter, Florida, she's in West Palm Beach. And, I mean, there's living amends. And, you know, one of the things that I truly believe that I severely lacked my first go-around with sobriety was the spirituality aspect. And for me, what I discovered is being spiritually fit is not only helping others, but constantly being in touch with yourself and having that awareness and taking inventory on yourself

and taking accountability. And I constantly lacked the taking accountability aspect of things. And that was a common denominator in my life even before sobriety, even before I was aware of it. Even for me, being a young child, I would just take part in actions and, you know, didn't think there were any kind of repercussions to any of those actions.

So, you know, today I have, you know, a spiritual, you know, I'm spiritually fit on a daily basis. That's through prayer, through meditation. I believe in God today. You know, it's, I truly believe in God's will, not my will. Because when I start to implement my will, my life starts to get on manager. again and things tend to go off the deep end. Do you think you made it through all of those scenarios that you told us about today because you have a higher purpose?

Because a lot of people don't make it through those things and they end up dying from addiction or anything could happen along the way. Do you feel like you owe it to the universe to pursue and help others? Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobil, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. please for the level, everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Seeful terms at mintmobile.com. Because you lived through that and survived it and came out successful at the end of it. Yeah, absolutely. I do believe, I mean, there were, I mean, I just rattled off four different scenarios where I should have either died, been arrested, or faced serious charges that would have affected the trajectory of my life. And I'm here today telling my story and helping others. And I do believe that there was a power greater than myself that helped get me through those situations so that I can help others.

and, you know, as I was mentioning before, can I plug the podcast? Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, so Rise Above with Kevin Lannning is a podcast. I feel like during, you know, when I lost my identity and through the drug usage and alcoholism, I felt like I was alone. I felt like I was alone for a very long time,

that I was the only one who felt the way I had. did who felt less than who I felt like there was some kind of spiritual malady going on within you know myself and the goal of my podcast is to not only educate people on you know mental health but also let people know that they're not alone and for me I really started to get better and improve as a person when I started to feel a part of. And that was a group of other people who found sobriety, who had stories that were maybe not necessarily the same, but maybe feelings within those stories

that were the same as mine that I could relate to. And then I'm not the first one to go through this, right? I then, once people build that credibility with me, who can basically tell a story, story that I can relate to the feelings, I am able to follow that direction. One of the most profound things, this is so, this is, it sounds so basic, but it was so profound for me. I had 20 days sober, this time sober, and I was about to leave my apartment.

I was with my wife at the time. I was in Manhattan. I had a sponsor from the meetings. I had known this guy from day one of sobriety, 20 days, maybe three weeks. And I got the desire to pick up drugs out of nowhere, that 20th day that night. And I say to my wife, listen, I don't want to go outside right now. The obsession just kicked in. I don't know what to do.

I shouldn't have fucking told my wife. She goes, oh, my God, what do we do? what do they cheat you in meetings? Like what do we go? So I call my sponsor. I said, listen, man, I want to pick up. I want to get high right now. And he was like, where are you?

I said, my apartment. He goes, there's a Starbucks right down the street. I'm going to meet you there in 10 minutes. Now it was 8 o'clock on a Sunday night. He was having dinner with his family. He has two kids at home. And he met me there in 10, 15 minutes. He relieved my wife.

He said, go, go home, go relax. I got him from here. This guy sat with me from 8, 8.30 p.m. until 1 a.m. in the morning until that desire passed. He drove me and walked me to my apartment. I slept. He went home. He met me at a meeting the next day and went to a meeting with me every day that week. Encouraged me to put my hand up, never left my side. and that experience was so powerful

that another person who has the same struggle at one point that I had was able to help me and be so kind to just give away what was so freely given to him and the desire to use drugs and drink never came back ever again after that feeling after 20 days of being sober

and for me that was one of the most powerful things that I had experienced that I don't have to act on a thought that pops right into my head because for so long that impulsive thought I had to act on it to relieve it that thought can be relieved with time time can pass and you can move on and the obsession can be lifted. And you could find a new way to live. And you don't have to act on that decision. Rise above podcast. Rise above podcast.

And to think you thought you weren't going to have any good stories for us. I know, right? I mean, we all say that. I have nothing to offer anyone, right? Yeah, you're like, you text me. You're like, well, I haven't really been to prison or anything. But I got a couple jail stories. Little did we know you're going to put us on an adventure.

Yeah. Incredible, man. But Kevin, thank you so much for coming today on the podcast. It was an honor to have you. We'll put your description to your links to the podcast where people could find you in the description of this episode. And we'll plug it in my intro when I introduce the show as well. Awesome. But yeah, it's been a pleasure getting to know you.

Pleasure to have you on the show and I'm glad we got to do this. Awesome. Thanks for having me.