Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Underground Drug Market of Hospitals | ICU Nurse Dealer

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

The Underground Drug Market of Hospitals | ICU Nurse Dealer

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I get there, I'd be like, this patient doesn't need three hour. I can get away with taking a couple. Every time I sold an ounce, I would pocket $400 profit. Born in Tahoe, my parents were around. They were both very attentive and loving, flawed people as we all are. But definitely, definitely I grew up in a good environment. There was no, there were no drugs. They weren't drug users.

They didn't, they didn't use. They didn't have it around me. They drank sometimes, but they didn't have it around me all the time or anything like that. I kind of just started on my own in high school with drugs, as most people do. I was, I think it was a summer before my senior year of high school. When I first drank, I was working at the Chevron station. And my friend and I decided.

we were going to take turns watching the front while we went in the back cooler and drank and smearing off ice right that's the first time first time i drank started smoking weed in high school a little bit and uh that yeah that was about it for high school when i really started trying drugs it was like an issue or just like normal it was kind of it was just normal i actually didn't you i didn't most people most kids that i was in high school with were using stuff before i was even So I was just, and I kind of like didn't want to, didn't want to, but then around senior year high school, I kind of started drinking a little bit. And then when I smoked weed, I was really interested in it.

And I was like, this is cool. And I wanted to keep trying it again and again in different scenarios. I thought it was super interesting. Yeah, I moved out after high school. I moved to Santa Barbara. It was like this little two mile square neighborhood right next to UCSB, which was. just a party central. And it was there that I kind of started experimenting with more stuff. I tried LSD mushrooms, just a bunch of different things. But while I was there, two things kind of stuck with me

in a way that the other drugs didn't. I tried Adderall, which I had this really boring paper that I was writing about cows in grasslands or something. And I just, I remember being like, oh man procrastinating somebody's like hey try this try this tried their prescription to adderol and immediately i was like this is a solution to my problems you know this is this is this is solution to all my problems uh and if i could only have this forever then then i would be like superman or whatever uh and so the same kind of reaction in a different way happened with opiates as well somebody shared with me some pain pill i don't remember exactly what it was probably an oxy, cut up an oxy or something, and just felt like this warm, you know, hug kind of

feeling. I just felt comfortable for the first time in my life. One thing I kind of missed is that when I was growing up, just the way I was raised, my parents were very, my dad particularly was very concerned about how I appeared, you know, me and my sister appeared to other people, right? It was like very well behaved, very, you know, very make sure you're, you don't do anything wrong. like you just everybody needs to like you so i kind of always had this social social anxiety around that uh and these drugs just sort of like i never even realized that was humming on the hard drive in the background and these drugs kind of just eliminated that for me in a way that felt like a total solution to to any kind of psychological issue that i had um so anyway move

forward. When I was in Isla Vista, though, I never had any kind of drug dependency or any kind of withdrawal or anything like that. I had never experienced anything like that. I was just kind of dabbling and doing stuff. When I moved back to Tahoe after a couple of years down there, I experienced my first opiate withdrawal because I started continuously taking stuff. I was working for this construction company. It was really just this guy who had this construction company, but he was kind of semi-retired and he just did these odd projects. And he always had opiates.

And so I started taking these opiates from him. And I remember the first time I actually had a withdrawal. I had gotten back together with my high school sweetheart, she was my girlfriend now. And we had planned this trip to Thailand. And I was, you know, working with Ed, the construction guy, taking all these opiates, not realizing what I was doing. And then it was the first time I'd ever been on a plane to a foreign country, went down to get ready to get on this plane, started just feeling like insanely uncomfortable and like, man, I'm sick. I feel really tired.

What's going on? And the couple more hours would go by, a couple more hours would go by. and I was getting worse and worse, so antsy, like these feeling like bugs are crawling under your skin or like you're being tickled from the inside with, but not the fun kind of tickled. It's like, it's really uncomfortable, but it never stops. And I was just, and then it dawned on me, oh, this is because I was taking all those opiates. And so that was my first experience with an opiate withdrawal is flying to Thailand and spending the first couple of days there and not telling my, you know, my girlfriend about it,

trying to hide it because I didn't want her to know what was going on going on. So I just said I was sick or whatever. Yeah. So that was the first time that happened. After I got off of it in Thailand, we came back. We ended up moving to San Francisco. There I discover this is the first time I became like physically dependent on a substance like continuously was when I was in San Francisco. I was hung over one day and I was wandering around the hate Ashbury area.

and wandered into this head shop and I was just kind of like looking for something to, you know, that's kind of what I did. I was always sort of thinking about change in my head space, getting high. I just, I was very attracted to not being sober, I guess. Right. I don't know what it was.

It was just always, like always interested in finding something to get high on. And there was this stuff that they had there. And I was like, what's this? the girl was like, I don't even know what this is. We just got this in. It's called Kratum. I don't know. Have you ever heard of Kratum?

Yeah. Okay, yeah. So this was way, this was years ago. So, I mean, I'd never heard of it. She'd never heard of it. She called the number on the package. It was like, hey, we're a shop down here and we just got this in. What is this stuff?

And they said, it's basically functions like an opiate. And I was like, there's no way that that's true. But I'm going to, you know, I'll buy this over the counter. Yeah, I know exactly. And so I was like, I'll take some. And I bought it. And I remember going back to my apartment and it was a powder. You're supposed to make tea out.

If I made tea out of it, drank it about 30 minutes later, sure enough, full on opiate high. And I was like, awesome. I can buy this over the counter, you know, not even over the counter, just at a shop. Like it's not even a drugstore thing. It's like I get ordered online. It's totally legal. And from that day forward, I don't think. ever a day went by when I wasn't on that, unless I was on something else, like some harder

thing. I was always on that consistently with very few exceptions. How old were you? At this point, I was about probably 21, 21, 22. Yeah, and that's when that first day, that first time I took that. It was every day after that. There were a couple times when I tried to stop so that I could get off of it because I realized I was addicted. So there were those attempts. And then there was this one time that I'll talk about when I went to rehab, I was dragged off to rehab that I was off of it. And then when I was doing the harder stuff, I was off of it. But other than that, you know, that was my mainstay for years. Does your girlfriend realize this is becoming an issue at all? She, I think I told her about the cratom, but nobody knew what it was. And I was like, oh, I just

found the stuff. It makes me feel good. And she wasn't on, she didn't understand yet that there was a real issue. And that was kind of a mission of mine, honestly. I was very dishonest with her about any kind of drug use I was doing. I mean, we would do drugs together. She was in, she was, she would like, you know, we'd go out and she'd have, we, we'd trip on, you know, or something together or like have a, have an experience where it was like a one time thing with some friends or whatever. But it wasn't she wasn't like a drug person she would dabble with me but as far as me having a problem she had no idea okay at this he was just doing it recreationally and it wasn't an issue yeah she wasn't even like she wasn't even recreational like the average person is she didn't go drink much

she didn't do anything like that but once in a while there was like an experience to be had like oh we're going to go out and hike up this mountain and take mushrooms or something she you know once in a while kind of thing like that she would she would do that at this point we're living in San Francisco and her and I are getting a little more we're getting serious we've been together a couple of years now and we're thinking about our future and we decide kind of mutually she kind of had the idea first and I was sort of more reluctant but ended up hopping on board with it that it would be a good idea to you know become if we both became nurses we you know we like to travel we like to do we like to be flexible and kind of remote

And if we both became nurses, we'd be able to make nursing income, which is a decent income, both of us be making it. So that doubles that. And then we would also be able to do these travel nursing assignments so we could go to any town. You know, there's hospitals everywhere. There's always work for nurses. We can go to anywhere we want to work. We can do these short-term assignments where you just sign up for these three-month contracts you get involved in. And then you can extend them if you want to stay in a place longer. if you don't want to you can go somewhere else in between the contracts you can take as much time off as you want you know it just seemed like if we were both doing this it would be good not only that but when you're a travel nurse they give you a living stipend yeah it's extremely lucrative

i have a friend who's a travel nurse and she she makes amazing money way better than just a regular yeah nurse working in a hospital like it's it's wild and the thing is when if we were both on contract they would give us both a living stipend and so we'd collect both of those even though we only needed one you know they're giving you money to pay for your rent or whatever and you're but we are only living in one place both collecting the living stipend it was it was very uh luc that was the idea we're like this is going to be something that'll set us up for our life um and you know we were thinking oh we'll probably get married at some point so decided to go to nursing school in we we started prerequisites at in Tahoe at the community college.

And there were about a year, a year, two years of prerequisites that we did. As soon as I started the prerequisites, my first thought was, I don't, you know, I was, I've never been a real like test taking academic kind of school guy. I like learning, but just kind of on my own. And I was thinking, I need to get a prescription to that Adderall that I tried down And, you know, that stuff was just made it so easy to do this. So I went to a doctor with the intention of getting a prescription to Adderall. So I basically went in there and kind of came up with all the things that I thought he wanted to hear to give me this prescription.

And it worked and I got this prescription. I immediately started taking it, you know, not as prescribed. I was taking way more than I was supposed to. out really quickly. Also on the cratum, again, this whole time. So cratum and Adderall, all through prerequisites, got into nursing school and down in Reno. All through nursing school, taking the Adderall and the cratom, I would, so I would have a month supply at a time of this Adderall, and I would take it so much that I would get through the whole prescription in like maybe a week and a week, week and a half. And then I would be out of it. And I would, and I don't know how I found

this stuff, but I somehow was like looking like, how can I get like an adderol, you know, amphetamine high without, you know, just over the counter or something. I was trying to find something. I found this stuff called benzidrex. And it was, it's something you could still buy at CBS. It's like a nasal inhaler. And you, so it's, it's, it's. It's, And it's in this little tube and you're supposed to just use it. And it has this drug in it called propyl hexadrine, I think it is. Inside this little tube, if you break it open, there's this cotton, this piece of cotton and it's soaked in this propyl hexadrine.

And so if you take that cotton out and put it in some liquid so it can diffuse in the liquid, and then you drink it. It's the most foul tasting stuff I've ever experienced in my life. It's just talking about it right now, I can taste it in the back of my throat. It's so disgusting. I started taking this and that kind of gave me this dirty amphetamine high. It was just not good, but like something. And it resembled the Adderall a little bit. Later on, I'd realize it kind of more resembled than Adderall. It was kind of cracky like that. But I would do this in nursing school as well when I'd run out of the Adderall prescription.

after nursing school started working as a nurse got hired on telemetry initially a telemetry unit but because my clinical instructor was also supervisor of the trauma ICU unit I there was a small group of us that just got transferred and hired directly onto trauma ICU so I was right out at school working in trauma ICU. It wasn't long until, I mean, I think I got comfortable. I probably was working the job for a couple, you know, a few months at least kind of, at first, when you first start working, it's sort of like you're in school again. You actually like learn how to be a nurse when you're on the floor, not when you're in school. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. I think it's most things, right? That's right. Wally different than the stuff they teach you going to be.

to be a licensed mortgage broker like i don't use any of this stuff so nobody's ever asked me how long is an f h a roof supposed to last like doesn't come up yeah i say i mean there's so much stuff like that it's the same it's same thing um yeah so i was uh working in this trauma ICU unit A lot of pain meds in the trauma I see you, obviously. At some point it happened where, you know, that we were, you have meds that are these PRN meds they're called, which means as needed. So you'll have medications that the doctor has ordered that are scheduled for patients so that they're scheduled to get these.

There's also PRN medications, which means that they are. prescribed, but only to be given as needed. And that's where like the pain meds are. So sometimes you pull a PRN med and you'll give, you know, the vial will be, say, 10 milligrams and the patient's orders for five milligrams. So you give them five and then you're supposed to waste the rest of it, waste it, which means throw it away. But when you do that, you have to sign off with another nurse, right? So that in the computer, so you could both say, we both witnessed this go in the trash. But, you nurses are busy and at some point I had the opportunity to somebody signed off and took off and I was like trash or pocket and I just put in my pocket it was morphine the first time I did

this and I remember having this in my pocket and I and I before I went home that day I kind of collected some IV supplies there's you know IV supply the the medications are very regulated You have to get them out of the PIX, a machine that dispenses them, and it's all counted. As far as the IV supplies, they're just kind of sitting around, like, sort of like napkins. They're in these big bins, and people just kind of keep filling them up, and you can use them as you need. So I grabbed some of these IV supplies and went home. It was the morning after a shift. I had done a night shift, and my girlfriend at the time, still same person, is going to bed.

inside the house it's like 8 a.m. at this point and I just start an IV on myself and shoot up this morphine and just yeah like I'm like right away like this is the best you know this is the best and so I I remember just feeling so I called my dad and I was just like it's such a good mood and I was like and I never you know call him in a good mood like I just I was just excited to be on the phone, I remember, which is not usual for me. Anyway, this continued, and I kept finding, you know, there are other opportunities to get meds. And I would notice that other nurses were taking meds as well at times. It was kind of, it was obvious sometimes because the PRN medication, like, will be, it'll be ordered as to be given every hour.

or every 30 minutes, right, to say 100 micrograms of can be given every hour for this patient if needed. So if you give them at once, you can't give him again for another hour. I'd come in on shift sometimes and I would see,

I would be getting report from the other, the nurse that just worked the shift and I was taking over for them. And I would see on the chart that there was like all these, all the PR in meds and they'd say, oh yeah, he's been getting his, every hour, you know, all night.

They get on shift, you know. You talk to them, you're like, I haven't gotten this stuff. Yeah, yeah, so there's that, but a lot of times it was patients that were like on ventilators and stuff. So they weren't like up, but you would, you know, you would assess whether you were going to give them the med based on their, you know, vital signs and whether they were showing these signs of discomfort or whatever, whatever it is, depending on the patient. So yeah, I'd get there. I'd be like, this patient doesn't need fentanyl every hour. there's no way and so and so there would be times like that where I'd be like okay well I can get

away with taking a couple since the chart looked like just continuously but I wasn't willing to do that what the nurse was like the nurse before me was doing like sometimes sometimes they would get you know some people get so desperate when they need opiates that they'll they'll just kind of do the dumbest things to get them and so all this stuff is charted and documented and so if anybody ever suspects and looks back, it says, okay, well, on your shift, they're getting this whole time. And then on everybody else's shift, they're not needing it at all. What's the deal here?

I was kind of aware of that. I didn't want to, like, raise a flag. So, you know, maybe I'd take a couple of, you know, I pull it a couple of times for the shift and be like, yeah, he was getting a lot of it, but he seemed to do better now. But I gave it to him a few times, you know, that didn't seem as suspicious to me. So I'd get meds like that. And there were a couple other ways that I could, that I got them. But again, I was taking the cratum all the time.

So these were just kind of like bonuses for me at that point. But my appetite did end up growing. We started traveling around doing travel nursing assignments. And as my appetite for drugs grew, I started wanting them more, but not willing to, like I just mentioned with the chart and everything, get to the point where. I was making it obvious what was going on. So what I ended up doing was I started going out to the streets and just finding drugs there. And I ended up finding, I think I started going out and getting first because the Adderall thing, again, it was like I was taking it, you know, not as prescribed. My appetite for it was more.

I knew Addera was similar to Adderall. So I just wound up going up out on the street one night and just walking into wherever I thought was the worst part of town and just looking around and kind of say, hey, do you know where I can get some meth, basically? Right. I mean, it's just that was, that was that was it. I just, I was, I was deliberately going to find it on the street. I didn't know anybody who had it. So I was just going to go find it in the worst places I could find it. Why couldn't you just doctor shop and go to another doctor?

So I wasn't getting prescribed any of this stuff. It was just stuff I was getting from the hospital like. No, I meant the Adderall. You had said you. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You know, I got another doctor at one point and I just didn't, I didn't think about it. I think I just wanted to try. It wasn't that I was like desperate to have more Adderall and I just was like,

I need something. It was more just I wanted to try. You know, I had this appetite for drugs in different highs. And I at one point way earlier on before this, I remember thinking, if I ever get an opportunity to try meth, I'm going to do it. You know, it just sounds crazy. Everybody says it's some crazy drug. You know, I want to try it. That was just my mentality. And so at this point, I was just like, yeah, I'm going to go find it. You know, I'm living in the Bay Area at this point on a nursing assignment. I'm just going to go find it on the street. And then, and then I have these IV supplies too. So I, and I had, you know, there were like micron filters that I would get from the hospital to like, that would, that I'd run the drugs through when I started doing them from

the street to like filter them out or whatever. I thought that was going to make it safer. That didn't last long. But I, I, so I got meth. And while I was in the Bay Area on this assignment, I also started getting from the street, you know, and I felt like, oh, this is good because I won't have to get it from the hospital. It won't show up on the chart. You know, that was my thinking. I can get it as much as I want if I could just find someone on the street that I could buy it from. You just all seem like really bad decisions. Yeah, right? I mean, a little bit, I think. Somebody who is smart enough to get through nursing school. Like that's it's it's it's a little abnormal I I don't run into a lot of people who are it were a nurse and went to prison and you know did it because they just went out on the street and started getting heroin and well you know I'll hear the guys that it's like you know I was in a car accident I started getting you know they prescribed me whatever you know oxycodone and you know and then you know I'm saying and then at some

point, the doctor was like, yeah, you're, you're good. You don't need this anymore. He's like, what? They're like, well, taking it. All of a sudden, they go and start going to withdraw. Yeah. Or, or maybe it's not even withdrawal. It's that they're still taking. They're not really in pain anymore, but there's just now they're kind of addicted and they, and they like it. And then the doctor cuts them off because the doctor's like, you're, you're healed. Yeah. You're okay. And then, then of course, it's not necessarily the withdrawals, but they're just like, but I knew I didn't want to stop. So then I started just getting like they never even got to the withdrawal.

So like they're like, they're like, I just like the way it makes me feel. Right. And I know that if you take me off it, I'm not going to like that. So then they go out and they start getting more, you know, finding different. And then eventually it ends up leading to something like or something where it's like this is even cheaper. Right. And it's even easier to find. And it's, you know, whatever.

Absolutely. Yeah. The pills become harder are harder to find than heroin. And they're way more expensive. Especially now after they've kind of tried to. cut back on prescribing. Yeah. Yeah.

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So you were saying, so now you're out looking for... Yeah. I found it easily. And I, you know, just ran to do a couple people that I got their number. and they said they had it all the time. And so I would go out and I would get it. This is when my girlfriend, my wife now, we had gotten married before we started doing the travel nursing assignments.

She started kind of being like, what is wrong with you? And she ended up catching me a couple of times. There were actually three or four different occasions where she discovered something that I had left out. like I had to be heating the head up with this spoon and there was like burnt on it and I had it bent back and she found that one time and just called me and was like what the hell is this really kind of traumatic for her another time she found like a bloody saline syringe in my pocket and knew what was going on like what's going on here what are you doing it became a And it quickly became like an issue because I would be, I would deny, I would say, I would,

I would only admit to whatever I felt like I had to admit to and deny everything else. And then, and then say, I'm fine. You know, it was a mistake, whatever. I'm going to be better. I'm going to be fine. And I had the intention to stop and get better, but I would, you know, obviously continue. That's just, you know, the nature of being addicted to drugs. So after this happened a few times, this nursing contract ended.

And we decided to kind of take a little break from each other. She went on, we had three months, she had this three month retreat that she wanted to go on. And so she took off on this retreat. And I just, you know, when we parted, it was kind of like, I don't know what's going to happen, you know, after this, because this is a huge issue. And I said, I swear I'm going to get better. I moved to Minnesota because my friend of mine lived there. And I, so I was going to stay there for three months and just live and not work or anything.

And she went on this retreat. While I was there, I got off of everything. I got better, except for the cratum. I was still taking the cratum. I could never quite get off that. I tried to get off of it. I would stop, and then I'd go into these withdraws that were just as bad as withdrawals. Some people don't experience that with cratim, but with me, I can say that they were just as bad as withdrawals for me if I stopped taking that stuff.

yeah so i was there got off everything except for the cratum i was still intending to get off the cratum we she got done with her treat we moved back to the bay area we were living in san francisco started a new travel assignment and i was doing well and she was happy we were we were kind of you know i i was saying you know i was being open and honest with her about the cratum, but it's honest also that I've gotten off everything else. It was New Year's Day 2019, I believe it was, January 1st, 2019. She gets a call that her mom has just taken her own life. And her mom had been sick for a while and kind of always threatened suicide over the years,

but it was not something that we expected, because this has been going on for years. and so we this just kind of sudden and shocking and so she cancels her nursing contract and goes back to Tahoe to be with her dad and sister up in Tahoe after this had happened I decided I was going to stay in San Francisco and finish out the contract because we were on a contract for both of us we've been hired as a together and I didn't want to cancel it. canceled both of us on our recruiter so suddenly, so she didn't lose both of us. So it was, she went back to Tau, canceled, I stayed and was going to finish out the contract. And there was another like month and a half or something like that with the contract before I would go home.

The day that she left, I think it was that night, I went down, found some and got high. It had nothing to do with like me being traumatized from the suicide. side. It was, I mean, I was very sad with that. Her parents weren't just like in-laws to me. They were like second parents to me. I was very close with them. So it was, that was, it was very, you know, it affected me a lot as well. And just her being affected, affected me. So I was upset about that, but me going to use didn't have anything to do with that. It was just that she had left. I didn't feel like there was a consequence. I felt like I could get away with it. And I went and I used. Contract ended. I kind of kept using. I moved back to Tahoe after the contract ended.

Sorry, before that. It was actually like, I think it was literally January 2nd or January 3rd, like a day or two after her mom had taken her life, that she had gone back. Her dad had this appointment at the VA and ended up out of the blue being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and given two months to live. This was literally like a day or two after this had happened. I think that's why she was going back to Tahoe right away. She was like, I'm going to go back and be with him. He has this appointment. I'll go to this appointment with him. You know, we can all talk about this. And then he finds this out at the appointment. So just devastated again. And again, this guy is like a second dad to me. I love this guy. He was like family to me as well,

not just some in-laws I saw on the on holidays. They were like my family. So I moved back after the assignment, got to Tahoe. I decided I was going, she was going to take care of her dad because he was going to be put on hospice pretty soon. Like he was doing well, but he had he was, they predicted he was going to decline quickly, which he did. So she was just going to be with him and I was going to work locally at a, at a hospital, just get a job locally. I got a job at a local hospital, got hired, and during the onboarding process, there was a drug test, but I didn't realize, I don't think I really processed it until the last minute that they also did a hair follicle test, not just a urine test. So I could pass the urine test because I had stopped, you know, whatever I needed to stop for the period to pass the urine test. I only needed to be off of stuff for a week or so to make sure I was clear for the urine test.

test. Hair test goes back 90 days, though. And so I remember like, oh, shit, they're going to do a head. Your head. You didn't come in and take the next day. Yeah, you can't. There was the stuff that I found online that you're supposed to be able to buy and wash your hair with like vinegar and do this whole process. Right. Like three cycles of this process. I did all that. Went in, took the hair test. A few days, a week or whatever later, or a few days later, I guess, I get a call from the doctor at the place that did onboarding stuff and was like, hey, man, what's going on with you? And I'm like, what do you mean? And he says, you have on this test. And I said, well, and vinegar. Yeah, and vinegar. And a lot of drinking ways, you're eating waste too much. Yeah, there's a lot of meth,

but the problem I'm really concerned with is like, how much vinegar are you consuming? Because this is fatal potentially yeah no so he was like he was like no I was like there has to be a mistake I have a prescription ad or all that he's like no mistake this is not you know there's no mistaking this it's like the the show the way it shows up it's definitely you know what I said it was and I remember getting kind of just offended on the phone I was so in denial about like the problem I had I was offended I kind of was like you know what man you know whatever like and I just like okay well I guess I'm not going to get that job. And I can't even remember what I told.

I'll just call her Jamie. She, my ex-wife, X now, asked me not to use her name. So I'll just say Jamie. So Jamie, my wife, says, I can't remember what I told her. I can't even remember what I told her. Something like, oh, I must have done some MDMA in San Francisco before I came back. and they showed up on my hair test from pre-wee, whatever, just some lie. It was a couple weeks later, I'm at the grocery store, and I get a call from her saying

this letter just came in the mail for you, and it's from the board of nursing, and it says that you are under investigation now because of that failed drug test. The letter also said, your license is unaffected at this point. uh until we finish this investigation the investigation may take months we don't know how long it's going to take but until the investigation is finished uh your license is unblemished so you can continue to work the other thing that they offered was if you want to sign up for our drug treatment program which is called the diversion program it's something the board of nursing off board of nursing offers uh uh nurses that are

or having issues, they said, if you sign up for this program and come in and take it, it was like a, there was an inpatient portion of the program and then afterwards, it's this long period where you're being monitored while you're working, you know, you can't give meds, you have to have somebody sign off on everything, your supervisor has to know what's going on. And so you're like under this probation period, basically. If you do this, then we'll drop the investigation. Probably would have been the smarter choice. I was going to say, that sounds like the, that sounds like the right move, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely not the option I took, though, unfortunately. And great that they have a program like that. Yeah, it is. It is. Hey, you, you know. I've talked to, I've talked to a lot of nurses since I've been out and since I've been doing this YouTube channel that have had these issues and some that have gone through that program. They say it's really intense and there's a lot of things about it that are, that are like very restrictive. in a way that isn't helpful for kind of getting better and it's very penalizing in a way that makes it hard to it makes it hard to get through it and it's just very trying especially when you're like trying to get off of drugs and you're fresh in being off of drugs it's very stressful but it's very good that they offer something like that i mean i think that uh i i've

yeah it's it's actually it's necessary there's a lot of there's a lot of drug abuse in in the medical community. So, yeah, they offered that and I just, I was again on the phone. I remember just being offended and like, this is ridiculous. I can't believe that this is happening. How dare they? You know, it's not what's their business? What I do when I'm not working, you know, kind of thing.

Just absolutely out of my mind with it. So I kind of accepted that, was like, I'm not doing that. I think I retained a lawyer, like a lawyer that worked. with the board of nursing, never ended up doing anything with them, as you'll see. But I decided, okay, I'm going to get a job, another nursing contract for now, since my licenses has not been blemished yet. There's no ding on it. So I'm going to get another contract.

I ended up getting this contract a couple hours out of town. And I put in the contract, one of the stipulations in the contract was that I would only work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, day shift, because you work three shifts a week, generally nursing, three 12s. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are the only days that I could work because I would be commuting. So I was going to go down there, work the three shifts, and then come back to Tahoe, and then spend time with the family. Got this job because, yeah, everywhere else only did urine tests.

The place in Tahoe is the only place that I ever ran into with a hair test. I'm so glad that this all happened in retrospect, but I, so I went down, I got this job, no problem. As soon as I started doing this down there, the only place I knew where to get in was in San Francisco. And this place was about halfway between Tahoe and San Francisco. So it's like a three-hour drive, three and a half hour drive from Tahoe to San Francisco. This place is that each way, this place that I was working is about halfway in between. and near Sacramento. And so almost immediately I started, I would either leave the night before my three shifts and say, I'm going to go down there and just sleep and then I'll get up for my

three shifts and drive all the way down to San Francisco, pick up drugs, go back, work my three shifts and then come home, or I'd go down, work my three shifts, go to San Francisco, pick up more drugs and then go all the way back to Tahoe. So, I mean, the suspicion was kind of growing with, with, with Jamie. She was always like, what's taking you so long to get back and forth? But she was pretty preoccupied with with her dad at this point. He was getting sicker and he was needing more care. He was on hospice at this point. So I kept doing this, kept doing this right up until the point where I think I was down there and I remember I was going and getting more drugs at the time instead of coming home I would have been home in time when he passed but instead

I was just messing around getting drugs and so he passed her dad and I came home after that had happened and there I had the few days off I was getting ready to leave for my next three shifts after this had happened after he had passed. And Jamie wanted me to try on a shirt. She was like, hey, there's this shirt. Can you try this shirt on? And I was wearing long sleeves at this point because I had track marks everywhere because I had been shooting up so much. And I was hesitant to take my shirt off. And she's like, immediately like, you know, what's wrong? This is like a couple of days after her dad died too. And why don't you want to take your shirt off? And I kind of just was like there's nothing I could do I took my shirt off she could just see the my arms were just

destroyed and just completely broke down it was like that was like one of the most horrible moments ever for me of my life is just like just watching her after losing her parents and then this that it happened with you know she's just discovering this so soon afterwards I just it wasn't because I was upset that she found out I was just like watching her watching her kind of just fall apart was just so horrible And she was like, you can't go to work. You can't go to work. I'm like, I have to go to work.

I have to do these three shifts. She didn't want me to drive. Now that she knows, she's like, you're going to die. You're going to crash. You're going to overdose. You know, all of a sudden, I mean, because she knows now. So now all these things are on her mind. I end up taking off going to work for the three shifts.

I could probably get more drugs at some point. I'm coming home after the three shifts. And I'm thinking like, oh, man, this is going to be bad. I don't know what I'm coming back to at this point. get home. I stayed. I was supposed to come home right after my last shift. And so I should have been home by, you know, like 11 p.m. I was messing around and doing drugs and stuff. Didn't get home until the sun was coming up. It was like 6 a.m. or something like that. And I pull up to the house and her car is not in the driveway, but my friend Joel's car is in the driveway. So I'm thinking,

fuck, you know, intervention. And I pull around the corner. I do more drugs. I'm thinking maybe, I'm not even going to go in there. I'm not even going in there. Finally kind of talk myself into going up, go up. Joel opens the door. He's like, hey man, come on in. And I'm like, who is here right now? And he's like, just me.

So he was just there alone. He had my friend Conrad on the phone. And they're like, dude, you're going to rehab. And I'm like, no way. I'm in the middle of a nursing contract. We just canceled a contract on my recruiter. Just all this stuff. Like, I was like, there's no way I'm going.

It's crazy. Like, yeah, Joel had been there since the night before. He, he is a musician. He plays music in this awesome band that he has. And he was playing a gig all night and then came to the house to wait for me to take me to rehab. And then stayed up all night waiting for me. It's 6 a.m. And now he's arguing with me about getting in the car.

So he can drive me four and a half hours down to this. rehab and then drive four and a half hours back and play another gig that night so he's like get in the car man like you're going to rehab finally talks after just like two hours or more of this he talks me into getting in the car reluctantly he says flush all your drugs i flush part of them i keep some i keep some of them hidden we make this drive down to down to this rehab it's like a four and a half hour drive and he told me later that he had he had spent little snippets of time with me prior to this like I had seen him here and there for a minute while I was using but he said he hadn't spent a continual amount of time with me for a while and it was just crazy seeing me for four hours in

the car he said I would be like I was just I'd be cool talking to him about music and then I'd just be absolutely just belligerently mad and just completely like angry about everything that was happening. And I was just super mood swings, getting angry in ways that I never usually get angry. He finally drops me off at rehab and takes off, goes home and plays his gig. Great friend. So I spend three months in this inpatient rehab. It's a 90 day inpatient rehab. I was there for a little over 90 days, I think, and get off of everything. The withdrawals are terrible. But But after a week or ever, after a couple of weeks of being there, I feel, I'm starting to feel better, make some friends there, kind of get my head straight. And after this 90 days, I feel really good about where I'm at.

I'm like, I'm going to, I'm never going to do drugs again, right? I mean, this pink cloud basically is what they call it. I feel like my problems are over forever. And I'm going to be there for everybody in my life from now on. go back home, Jamie was getting ready to divorce me. She's like, you know, this is it. I don't think it's going to work out. I go home.

I'm doing so well. I kind of give her hope that, you know, wow, this guy is the guy that I want to be with. Not this, not this guy who's always doing drugs. I was just feeling so good and positive. She was like, okay, maybe this is going to work out. But still, we were living in separate places at this time. She was living down the street from the house that we had, and I was living in the house. A few weeks go by, so this rehab that I went to had two locations, the one that I went to,

and then there was another location that they had that just happened to be right down the street from my house in Tahoe. The only reason I hadn't gone to that location is because they only did 30-day inpatient rehabs there. The 90 days were down at this other location. But since I had just gone through their program and I still had my nursing license, they were like, we need a nurse at the Tahoe location. So they wanted to hire me there.

But they, at first, they wanted to hire me as a, just like they hire the rest of the people that graduate from the program, like nonpaid, you used to live on the property. You just, you know, that's what they do to, you know, people who want to continue with the program after the program, basically like, well, we're hire you, but we're not going to pay you, you know, but you can live here, you know, kind of thing. and then you'll do all this stuff for us. But they wanted to hire me like that, but except for I was an RN, so they wanted to use my, and I was like, no way.

They came back with a couple more offers, eventually with something that I was okay with. And I was like, okay, this will work for me for now until I figure out what I'm going to do next. I ended up working for them for a little while, and right away it was just not the job I was used to. This is a, this is an office job. This is a paper pushing job. You know, you are working. It was a lot of administrative work. They also had me doing all kinds of other stuff that didn't have anything to do with the nursing job. I was doing transport for them and all this kind of other stuff. And they had us working like 10 hour days, five days a week. And so I was started, I burnt out pretty quickly and we, Jamie and I had this vacation planned before I got hired

there to go to Utah, to go to Moab and do some mountain bike riding. So we had this plan. So after working there for a little bit, this vacation happened. We went on this vacation. On the way back is when COVID hit and all the lockdown started happening. Right. So what about your nursing investigation? So the investigation was just ongoing at this point.

And I had a lawyer retained and they were like, okay, once the board of nursing comes back with whatever they come back with, then we could do something about it. But at this point, the investigation was just ongoing. And they had said it could take up to a year, you know, which is interesting that they, like, I always found it interesting afterwards thinking about it, that they would catch somebody doing something and then be like, okay, but you're good for, you know, months, months and months. while we investigate this, you know, when potentially something could be going on. That was always interesting to me. But yeah, so this was just an ongoing thing. And it was just a waiting game at that point. Let's see.

Yeah, we're on the way back from this. Mountain bikes. Yeah, the mountain bikes. On the way back from this thing, COVID happens. We get locked down. I get home. Because I was traveling, they're like, you can't come in for 14 days or whatever. it was to my to work at the rehab right um so you're on lockdown because you're traveling and so i'm on

locked down in my house alone for 14 days with 14 days off and i end up deciding to go get some drugs and i relapse i did i relapse on and math probably i was like and it's always every time you do it it's always i'm just going to do it one time just this one time and i'll be good nobody'll know that's how it always is obviously that's not how it worked out i started using again um i started going down to reno to get drugs this time because it was so much closer um i i yeah i found somebody in reno that i was buying from so i'd go down there after work i started working at the rehab again after the lockdown was over but now i'm using and i got i ended up getting a random drug test because everybody gets randomly drug tested there and i came up positive and they

said, hey, you know, this is an issue. We can't have you keep working, but we want you to keep working here. If you just go down and you can do a little bit more time in the inpatient rehab down at the other location, do another program 30 or 90 days or whatever they wanted me to do, and then come back and you can keep working here and you can keep your job. And this, I mean, this should have been a good idea for me because it looked good that I was working as a nurse still when this investigation was going on. But I was like, I'm over it. I don't want to do this anymore.

I just kind of, you know, I didn't like working there. They were great people and it was a great place to go to rehab, but just the job was not for me. And I didn't like it. And I had already relapsed and I was just kind of in a downward spiral. And I just said, you know what? No. Sorry.

I quit. I'm done. I'm out of here. I shortly after that, Jamie found out that, you know, I was using again and she was like, that's it. It's over. You know, I'm sorry, we can't do this. And I was, you know, understood.

I was like, absolutely. I understand. Ended up moving out of our house and moving in with my dad. He lived down the street. And so all I had really. when I moved out, I kind of just left her with everything. I just felt so bad about everything I'd put her through and everything she'd gone through. I was just like, you know, all I took was the, there was like the cash in my,

or the money in my bank account, and I had a car, and I just took that and moved in with my dad. I just had a few thousand dollars, I think. So I was in living with my dad, hating it, going down to Reno to get more and more drugs. I ended up finding someone in Tahoe, actually, who sold it sometimes too. But it was very inconsistent. There was, there was, the people I was running into, it was, you never knew if they had it. And if they did have it, you never knew what it was. If it was what the quality was, it was all very, very, you know, sketchy, volatile and sketchy, right? Like, there was no,

there was no guarantee that you were even getting anything that was any good. It's dangerous too, right? You don't know what you're getting. You don't know what you're putting into your veins. So it was sketchy and it was inconsistent. And I was spending a lot of time away from the house just doing that. I ended up getting this camper van that it was like this 1996 Dodge Ram Pleasure Way camper van. It had a, it was like it had a toilet and a shower in it. It was in a bed. refrigerator, sink, kitchen, all this stuff. So I just moved into that because I was like, I got to get out of my dad's house. And so I mean, you know, he was very hospitable, but I was using drugs and I just didn't want to be around, around anymore. And so I got into this camperman

and just started running around doing these sketchy drugs. At a certain point, I was getting sick I was getting sick of like running around and spending all of my time just buying, buying, like trying to find drugs and then trying, just finding enough to, you know, get high on and then being on this hunt again. I was spending all my time doing this. A friend of mine, a guy from the rehab actually who had also relapsed and was running around, had somehow hooked up with this guy in Sacramento, which is, it's a, I don't know if you're familiar at all with this area. I know, I know I remember in your story you'd been to Reno

before and you found that that guy and Reno that you were talking about. That, yeah, yeah. Gary Sullivan. Yeah, Gary Sullivan is the guy. So anyway, yeah, so Reno and Zach are like two hours away from each other. So he and across the border. So Reno's Nevada, Sacramento's in California. So this guy had found this guy in Sacramento who apparently had consistent stuff, consistent heroin that was consistent quality. And he had it all the time, but he only sold it in larger quantities. So it wasn't like you could just buy personal stuff for yourself. You need to buy at least a couple ounces or more at a time from this guy.

So I had this little chunk of money still from, you know, know, just from, I just had this little, a few thousand dollars still. And I was thinking, okay, I'm either going to run out of this few thousand dollars or, you know, just buying this stuff around here, or I can spend this chunk on with this guy. And there were a couple people that I'd been buying from. There's this one old lady called Kathy that lived in this motel that I was buying from in Reno. There was also somebody else. I can't remember what her name was that I would buy from in Tahoe, but they were the ones that always didn't have it consistently. They were always complaining about where they could get it from. And so I asked them before I went and

got it from this guy, hey, if I come with some stuff, if I come, if I bring you an ounce or whatever, will you buy it for me? This is what the price will be. I think it was like $1,200 an ounce or something that I was going to charge them. And I knew I could get it for seven or $800. I can't remember exactly what it was. So they were like, yeah, absolutely. So I went to Sacramento, got hooked up with this guy in SAC, and started getting his stuff and buying a few ounces at a time. The first time, yeah, I bought like a couple ounces, I think. And then would supply Kathy and the girl in Tahoe. And they started having this consistent stuff.

So they started getting a lot of people coming to them more consistently as well. because the word kind of got out on the street that they had a good supply that kind of was always around. So I kind of ended up doing this more and more. I would go back to Sacramento and go give them, you know, it was, it was Kathy mostly in that motel who was buying from me at first. And she would buy an ounce every day or two, then it turned into like two ounces every couple of days. And so then I kept supplying her with this stuff and going to Tahoe to supply that. person. And then there were just a few other people that, just people I knew that wanted it, that I would sell to them as well. So I was kind of in the sweet spot where I was just going back and

forth and making pretty good money, just selling, selling to these few people. But the thing was, I was running around a lot. I was just driving from SAC to Reno to Tahoe to Truckee to Sack to Reno to Tahoe doing this loop all the time and I was getting and I now that I had all this all these drugs I was using them a lot more and I was just really getting strung out I was getting out of it yeah what I was thinking when you were talking about I had met a guy in prison and like I forget forget his name super funny guy actually came back to left prison and then came back he was a nurse okay and you know his girlfriend he had which I think he'd met there maybe anyway um they started using and then they they ended up making um you know fake prescription pads

and then they would write it out and then you could call the doctor like they registered a doctor or they changed a doctor's name or something or his phone number so the pharmacy could actually call and they would verify it if they did call like they had a whole setup and so they were just you know um writing scripts to different people and having them go in the pharmacies and just cat and just you know getting the prescription and they were just selling and selling and they'd been they did this for I don't know how long if it was six months or it was 18 or two years I don't know but eventually they got caught and this was like was this quite a while ago probably 10 well no this is more like 15 years ago and but they but I think both I know he was a

registered nurse i don't know if she was i think i feel like she was wow um but i know he was anyway he ended up getting like five or six years and i remember when he left prison like he was all good and what a crazy time and you know thank god i got caught i was you know so horrible and what was i doing and then i'd say two years later he came back oh man and he was just he had lost looked like he lost 40 pounds like he left at probably 180 pounds came back at probably 145 140 pounds just you know just like a skeleton because he was probably 58 59 and um and real sketchy like when he got back he was like oh you know hey what's up what's going on like real

and it was like he's not on drugs because he's been in prison for for six months you know he's been well he's been the you know they'll put you in like the holdover for six months while they wait to sentence you so he got any he ended up getting a few more i ended up getting i don't know six months or a year because it was really like a violation okay he had and he told me that he'd gotten back on um i want to say it was oxies but he got on something failed a drug test a couple of them and then they they actually sent him to like a rehab the probation offices like hey if you go here we won't throw you back in he went there got back failed another test they said yeah we're done

He gave him like a year, threw him out back in for six months or a year. And then he was there for a few months before they put him for halfway house. He went right back to, um, to a, he went to a, uh, half to a halfway house. And, and then I never heard from him again. But I remember he, they had like 10 or 15 guys working for them because they were just able to get, get the, uh, prescriptions over and over and over. I mean, they're as fast as they could write them out and get, people to cash them they had people just cash them sorry fill them they were just getting there

you go in fill it hand it to me we'll give you 200 bucks you know because they know they've got six or seven thousand dollars with a medication they can sell and they're doing that like the you know every guy was good once a month we got how many guys then of course he's like then we're giving them to these guys where are buying them and they're reselling them and but super sophisticated that only you could do if you knew how the inside worked of Of course, eventually somebody gets busted and it all comes crumbling. Yeah, I think it would be hard to do that today. They just probably way it is now, but that's, that's, that's, that's crazy.

But, um, I'm sorry, but you were saying like I kind of when we had first talked, I thought, I wonder if he had gone about it like this. Yeah. No, yeah, it was just, for me, it was like a, it was just, it was always about using for me first. It wasn't about, you know, making a bunch of. And at a time, at the time I was making, they were, they were definitely using. Yeah, but I mean, they had like a whole operation going on. Right.

I mean, my, in my operate, I didn't really have like an operation going on. I was basically just selling to these few people and getting it, getting it from this guy, selling it to these few people, but I was making pretty good money. I mean, I would, every time I sold an ounce, it would, I would pocket, you know, four hundred dollars profit, you know, and I was selling a couple ounces every couple days. So, you know, it was, it was, I was making money. I don't know where it all went or like, because I was just using. And I think I was, end up using more of my supply than I, then I, you know, I was just getting high on my supply.

And it was, it didn't work out, you know, as, as it doesn't when you do that. And so I don't know how I didn't end up with a bunch of money or whatever. But by the end, I was just, I was just using and barely, barely getting by with it. But yeah, I was doing this and I was running around. I was getting and I was using so much now that I was kind of getting to where I was just out of it. I actually, there's this time when I was driving from North Shore to South Shore in Lake Tahoe. Somebody wanted drugs in South Shore and it was in the middle of the night and I was just tired and out of it. but, you know, I was high, so I thought I could drive, and I was just so, I was just driving and kind of like nodding off, you know, nodding off at the wheel.

And this is a road that's like windy in the mountains, you know, with drop-offs and stuff. It was not a good place. I mean, there's some houses here and there, but I was driving, and I remember I was just kind of like, you know, trying to stay awake. And then the next thing I knew, I'm waking up to the car just going, go, go, go, go, go, go. go, go, go, go, go. And I, and it finally, it stops. And I'm sitting there and I'm, and I'm like this, like sideways. And I'm looking around, it's the middle of the night. I have no idea where I am. It's just darkness. I don't know if like that's a cliff right there that's that I'm just leaning on this cliff on the rocks. There's rocks around me. And I end up getting

out of the car and it's like a, I opened the door and it, I had to open it like a hatch almost because it was kind of just up on the side like this, climbed out, looking around Just like, what the fuck? It's just rocks everywhere. And this guy comes running up, hey, man, are you okay? What's going on? Are you okay? You almost hit my house.

And there's, I'm like basically look around and I'm like almost in this. I'm basically in this guy's yard and his house is here. And I'm like, oh, man, you know what? I'm good. I just, I'm just sleepy. I just, I fell asleep. I'm just driving too late. And he's like, okay, man, well, I'm going to go inside and call 911.

are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine. You don't need to do that. But he's like, well, I got a call for somebody, you know? Yeah. And I'm standing there and I'm waiting and I get a call from the people that I'm supposed to go drop off to. And they're like, where are you? And I'm like, yeah, this is what happened. I just crashed my car. And I'm on the west shore. And this is like probably 20 or 30 minutes away from where they are. And they're like, well, what are you going to do? Then I'm like, I'm just going to wait here and, you know, I'll talk to them when they get here. all understand that I was sleepy. I'm like so out of it. I think I'm just going to talk to the cops and they're just going to be like, oh, yeah, you're good. And so they're like, dude, you can't do

that. They're going to take you to jail. You know, we'll come get you right now. You got to get out of there. Just get out of there. Like run away and then we'll be there and we'll pick you up somewhere. And I'm like, okay. I mean, obviously they needed their heroin, so they were really eager to help out yeah so they so i do i just i just take off uh into just there was like some streets behind the main road that i was driving on start walking around i it's pitch black i'm just looking at my gps like walking through the forest trying to you know there's barely any service i find a spot on the road like 20 30 minutes later they are like i meet them hop in the back seat of their car and they're turning around to drive back and as we're driving back the there's a cop that stops

them in the road. Hey, hey, hey, wait, slow down. And they've got a tow truck there. And it's, and the tow truck's like trying to get up onto this ledge. And what I had done is I'd hit, I'd just driven off onto this rock wall. And I'd gone so far up this rock wall. It was just almost into the, it was like a big rock wall and then the neighborhood up here or just a couple of houses up here. And these real nice, expensive houses on the west shore. And I had gone all the way up this rock wall almost to just almost into this guy's house and so they're like pulling this thing down and and the two that are driving that came and pick me up are like what the fuck and I'm like and I'm just in the back seat and they're just like hey have you seen anybody

walking around here and they're like no no we haven't yeah because there's nobody in the car and but we uh you know we were trying to we're trying to find whoever drove this car the guys up there said that he was just here like not too long ago and they're like yeah no we don't know man and so they just let us go by anyway that was that was crazy after that i kind of got uh i i decided i wanted to stop like driving around so much i was i had been driving my little car not not stop using drugs not to driving around it was the issue i'm going to make i'm going to make a better driving schedule or not right using drugs yeah i and i don't know if i mentioned i wasn't in my van it was my smaller car that I had. I had the smaller car in the van. So now I just have the van. This car is basically

total. And so I'm driving around this van now all the time. I ended up devising this plan so that I wouldn't have to be running back and forth so much. I would anticipate who would need drugs and how much they would need in the, you know, in the plan, like how frequently they would need it. And I, when I was there, I would sell to them, but I started selling to them, but I would also take more that I had. And like in Tahoe, I would go out into different parts of the, like right by different businesses out in the forest though and just find these spots to bury these drugs. Like I'd be like, okay, I know that so-and-so is going to need a couple more grams by, you know, the day after tomorrow. And then a day after that, then this person's going to need, you know, a ball and eight ball. and I would just bury these things around kind of near where they would be.

And then when they, and I did this in Reno as well, buried stuff all around. And what I do when I buried it is I would kind of put like some sort of marker on it, like a rock or something. And then I would mark, I had this burner phone that I was doing this with. And I would mark the exact coordinates on the phone, like longitude, longitude, like the pin drop of where. it was on the phone. Right. I would write a small description of where it is. You know, it's in the Home Depot parking lot, go all the way to the back of the park, Home Depot parking lot and then off the into the dirt to the left side, whatever, write a description. And then I would take a quick video of just the area and then I'd zoom in on where exactly the thing was buried. And I would

have people cash app me to this cash app account, this random cash app account that I had. And as soon as the cash app hit, what they would get in return was the text with the video, the coordinates, and the description. Yeah. And so that's all they would get. And then they would go and they would find it. And so I wouldn't have to actually show up to sell the drugs to them. So I had that scheme going on for a little while. And just getting worse and worse. Kind of brilliant. Yeah, it was, it actually was good. And the thing is, I was like, okay, if somebody, my deal was, if somebody unbearer, if somebody, if somebody claim they couldn't find it right and then i went back later and i couldn't find it either meaning they like took it and then said they didn't find it because they were in places where nobody's

going to accidentally find it yeah i would be like okay they would they uh then i would just stop i would just stop dealing with them i would just completely cut them off uh you know i'd be like sorry this is because i had stuff that was really you know it was good quality and it was a good deal i was selling it for pretty cheap compared to everybody else that was selling this crap and because i was just trying to keep getting high. I wasn't trying to get rich or anything. So the thing was, like, if you're going to try to fuck me over when I'm trying to hook you up and make all this really easy for you, then you're just cut off. So that's what I was doing for a while. Things got, this is kind of the wrapping it up when things were getting kind of going downhill. There's this

girl, Haley, that showed up. I got introduced to this girl Haley, and she started hanging out with me in the van and that was like that was when things went south i should have never hanging out with you in the van yeah i should have never allowed her to start hanging out but i kind of liked her and i was lonely you know i was just you know on drugs strung out but she was just this girl drug addict from the street um but she was like you know cute and i just i just i was like you whatever come on and hang out the problem with haley was that she had she was you know from the streets of reno and so while before I was kind of just selling to these select people, Haley comes around and she's got all these friends that she's known from the streets forever.

So all these kind of shady characters start showing up and hanging out and coming around and wanting to buy. And so now I'm selling to like all of these different people instead of, you know, and I should have been like, no, fuck no. I have my thing here going on. I, you know, I know what I'm doing. I don't need to sell to anybody else. Keep here these weirdos away. But I was just, you know, I liked her.

I was like, oh, they're her friends, whatever. I was so stupid and so strung out and just started having all these people come around and all these different people started buying. There was, and one of those people would end up, you know, getting caught and then telling on me. Right before that happened, I, Haley had this guy come in the van. I remember I was in the van and I was counting money because I was going to just go, I was just about to go back to Sacramento and buy more. And I had like six or seven grand that I was like counting out on the, in the van.

And she like bursts in with this, this friend of hers that's like wants to buy some. I'm like, fuck, you know, so I take all the money. I put it in this backpack. But he saw me put it in the backpack. And he comes in and we talk and he's nice and, you know, whatever. He's like hanging out for a second. And then I, you know, he's like. can I just get a gram or something?

I was like, yeah, you can just have it. I remember I just gave it to him for free. And then he, and then Haley was like wanting me to take her to Walmart or something. So, and he was like, I'll take you to Walmart or whatever. And she was like, okay, cool. I was like, yeah, go with him. And so they left. And then it was like five minutes later, knock at the van door.

I open it. And it's him and some other girl that I've never seen before. just standing there like just standing there i'm like uh what's up man and then he uh pulls out this gun and like pushes me back into the van and like hops in the van this other girl hops in the van behind her and he's pointing this gun at me and i'm just like whoa man come on hold on he's like give me the backpack and the backpack's back here on the on the bed i'm like dude i'm not giving you the backpack just chill out just chill out and he's like coming at me with this gun and somehow and he like hit me with it and somehow that girl got behind me, got the backpack.

I'm going to grab it from her. She's got in her hand. I'm trying to pull it back. The gun goes off and I let go and they run out. I'm not a gun guy. I don't know guns or anything. I'm like very gun naive. For some reason in my head, in my drug addled head, my first.

my first thought is it's a fake gun because it just went pop, you know, it was like a little pop. It sounded like, to me, it sounded like a fake gun. I was like, it was a fake gun. So I get up and I'm like barefoot and I just run out of this van chasing after them. And they're running and I have no shoes on and I'm just running after them through this Motel 6 parking lot. And they are approaching their car and Haley is in the back seat. the door getting out going like what's going on you know and like what's happening as they're running towards the car and i'm chasing after them they hop in the car and and haley got out of

the car she's like what's happening and they peel off and i'm like haley they just robbed me with a fake gun i'm so mad i'm run back to the van and i'm going to follow them but they're like gone already because my van was like parked on the other side there's like no way i was going to find him and I was so angry with her I remember I was like you've got to get out of here like I was convinced at that point that she was in on it or something and I found out I mean it turned out later that I really don't think I mean I she wasn't she wasn't she wasn't but like I was certain at that point that she was and I was like you have to get out of here I like kicked her out and she ended up coming back later but anyway I and then she like I I I

I kind of just, I kept an eye on her and I wasn't, I don't know, I was just, I was so stupid. I should have just gotten rid of her completely at that point, but, but, uh, yeah, the gun was real, though, by the way, there was a hole in my, a bullet hole and the bullet in my, uh, through my cabinet door and through, through the cushion in the back, uh, but, yeah, I thought you were going to say he, he, he shot the, ended up shooting the girl by accident. Oh, yeah, no, this is about to go bad. Yeah, no. He just, yeah, he, but yeah, that was, that was just, just this is the kind of, there was like, there's a lot of crazy things that happened like this, just random stuff, but that I mean, I can't really even put together in a sensical order in the story. It was just chaos. And this was all going on for probably, from the time I left Tahoe in that van and started running around in Reno and then buying drugs and doing this, this whole period of time until I got arrested. was probably about a year, a year and a half, maybe a year or a year and a half.

So there was a lot of crazy stuff that happened in that time. But so after having been robbed of this money, I remember calling my guy in Sack and being like, hey, I just got robbed. I, so, you know, I, you know, I was going to come down and buy this stuff. And he was like, you can just come get it anyway, but I'll just give you less. At this point, I was getting like up to like 15 ounces. pound at a time from him. And so he was like, I'll just give you less and then you can sell it and then get more later, right? But I'll front it to you basically. And so I was like, okay,

so he ended up giving, so we went down there and I, this was so lucky, I ended up getting like seven ounces from him at this time instead of the 15 that I normally got. Right around this time, one of those people that Haley had kind of brought into the band that I had been talking or that I had been selling to now had gotten pulled over by the cops and said they were going to take her to jail or whatever and she said you know they they convinced her to where are you getting it from basically you know if you help us out then we'll let you go or whatever I don't know what the deal was to this day still but um so she She had, and she was in touch with me now, like, you know, we had gotten on talking terms,

you know, she was buying for me. So we were texting all the time. And she, so when I'm coming back from Sacramento to Reno with the seven ounces, and I had a few ounces of mine as well that I had gotten from him, I had, Haley was in the van, and this other girl was in the van, this other girl, Stevie, we're in the van, we're heading back. and this girl, Ashley, is texting me like, hey, where are you? Where are you, you know, basically saying, I want to get high. I'm like, okay, we're here, we're here, we're here.

I'm basically telling her exactly where I am on the way back and updating her, right? She's obviously telling them where I am. So right as I come across the border from California to Reno or to Nevada, right as I'm coming into the outskirts of Reno, pulled over. The sirens go off and I'm pulled over. And the guy comes up to the passenger side because the road was right here, the cop. And he's like, hey, man, you were swerving. And I was like, I wasn't swerving. At least I did, you know, I'm pretty certain I wasn't swerving. And so, hey, it starts asking me all these questions, right? He knows. And he knows. And he,

he's, he's, he's determined to arrest me right there. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, but I have no idea. I'm just thinking, okay, whatever, like I'm used to, you know, I'll just tell them, you know, okay, cool, yeah, I'm sorry, give me a ticket, whatever. He starts asking me all these questions. He's like, do you have any weapons in the car? I'm like, no, I don't have any weapons in the car. And he, uh, he, he, he goes, well, what's that? And there's, like, a knife that somebody left, like, just sitting on, like, down on the floor, just something that wasn't mine that just somebody left in the van. I didn't even know it was there.

I'm like, oh, shit, yeah, I don't know. Like, it's just, I don't know what that is. And he's like, why don't you step out of the car? I'm like, really? And he's like, yeah, can you step out of the car? So I'm stepping out. So I get out of the car. And as I'm getting out of the car, I realize that because those two girls,

those two, you know, basically these girls that were in the car that, you know, they're basically hanging out with me to do drugs. I knew that they, I didn't want to be driving without knowing where the drugs were with them wandering around the back, you know, I'm thinking they're going to take them, right? So as I'm getting out of the van, I realize all these drugs are in my pocket right now. The seven ounces of heroin at least, I think the meth was still in the car, but the is in my pocket. I'm like, fuck.

And so the guy, you know, starts, keeps asking me questions. he ends up searching me. I'm like, I remember saying he was like, I'm going to pat you down. And I'm like, I don't consent to be searched. I just started saying, I don't consent to be searched. And he's like, well, I'm going to do it anyway kind of thing. Pats me down, finds it. And he just immediately, I remember when he pulled it out of my pocket, he was like,

ooh, that's a trafficking, that's a drug trafficking violation right there. You know, the amount of it was for, you know, he recognized immediately that it would be enough to get me on trafficking. And I'm so glad that it wasn't the whole pound because that would have been another level up. The other thing was there was this some other friend of mine always had this gun that was unregistered to him, but he like had it sometimes and he would bring it in the van. And he always kind of left it in my van. It just happened so happened to be that that gun wasn't in the van at the time of this arrest. It was usually in there, but it wasn't at the time, which is crazy.

because if they would have got me with that pound and with the unregistered weapon, I think I would have been in a lot worse shape than I am now. We wouldn't be talking right now. Yeah, we wouldn't be talking right now. So they arrest me and they basically, let's see, take me to jail. I don't have a clue what's going to happen. I've never been arrested before, never even spent a night in jail before. and I don't have a clue what's going to happen how long I'm going to be there but my main concern

is that I'm about to be withdrawing really bad so I and I did and it sucked it was horrible in intake I was with other people that were drawing there's this guy who just kept projectile vomiting into the all night like getting up projectile vomiting while I'm there just like sweating and I mean it's just the most uncomfortable withdraw and it was a withdrawal too. It's just, it's like the most uncomfortable thing ever. It's everything's swirming. It's like the worst flu you've ever had times a thousand.

It's like the, but the worst part is just the psychological part. It's like there's this crazy confusion and depression and just it's, it's a mess. So I go through this and for the first few days, I'm just a mess. I get transferred up to this other unit and I start calling my. friend out on the street and I find out that my bail is the bond the bondable is $750 and so I'm like you have to come up with the $750 you have to do it after about seven days I think I was in there seven days still feeling like trash got out on because he paid this $750 bond and I got out they let me go and I went right back to doing exactly

what I was doing before. In my head, I was like, okay, I'm good. I got through the worst to withdraw. It's been seven days. I was still withdrawing. It takes, it really takes a couple months to really get out of a bad withdrawal, like to where you're really feeling normal, but the worst of it's usually over in a week or two. So I'm still feeling bad, but I'm like, okay, I'm through it. I'm going to get over it. I'm just going to get high once, though, real quick, just because I feel like shit and that's going to get me through. So I do. I get high and I'm back to the races, like right away. End up going and getting more drugs in SAC.

So he fronts me again, this guy in Sack, because I had been so consistent with him up until his point, even though the cops had just taken what he had just fronted me. And so I'm running around, and it was about three weeks of running around. And while I was running around, that same person who had snitched on me before, did a control buy on me. They did a control buy with her. I still had no idea she was involved. So she came and bought from me. I don't know if she was wearing a wire or what or how they recorded it or documented it, but they got a control buy on me. Obviously, they don't arrest you

right there because then you'll know who it was that did it. I mean, it's so easy to find out. Anyway, but they waited a little while. I remember one of the, The last things that happened before I got arrested again was I was coming back from Sacramento. I was driving, this other guy was driving, this guy Sims that I was hanging out with. It was his car now. I had stopped using the van because I didn't want to be in that van anymore running around. And Haley was there too. She's in the back seat.

And we're driving back from picking up from the guy in Sacramento. We pull over to get high, excuse me, and we make up shots, and I remember doing this shot, and like the last thing I remember was thinking, oh, that was a good one. The next thing that I know, I'm like in, it's quiet, and I'm in this dark, like, tunnel. and way at the end of the tunnel there's like this it almost looks like a screen like a TV screen this is just how I remember it and it's slowly coming towards me moving closer and closer my face and as it's coming closer I can kind of make out what it is and it's a road and then I realize okay I'm in the car and we're driving down the road until it comes back and as it like comes back

like all this sound comes back to my and it's like ah and all these feel this feeling comes back And I feel like death. I feel worse than I've ever felt in my life. And I just come out of this like, what is going on? And I'm in a passenger. I'm in the passenger seat. I was the last thing I'd remembered, I was in the driver's seat sitting in this parking lot. Now I'm in the passenger seat and we're speeding down the highway.

And Haley's in the back seat with her hands around my neck crying. And Sims, the guy that's driving. He's like, white as a ghost looking at me like, what the, what? What it happened was I've done that shot and I've been like, oh, this is a, this is a good one. And then I just fell out completely. I'd never overdosed before at this point. Completely fell out and they start freaking out. I'm not breathing.

I'm turning blue. Sims is looking for Narcan. You know what that is? Yeah. Yeah. So Narcan. He has some Narcan in the car, like a nasal one that you can just put in the nose. So he's searching for that.

Haley calls 911, and it's like, we need you here right now. This guy's dying, ODing. Sims finds the Narcan, gets it up my nose, and I kind of go and like start to like show signs of life. Now they realize, okay, the ambulance is coming, probably the cops are coming, and we've got a bunch of them in the car. We got to get out of here. He's alive. So they picked me up and dragged me to the passenger seat, put me in, and pulled out and like just took off down the highway. And so that's where I woke up.

And I remember just feeling worse than I've ever felt. It was like stagony. Like I could barely stand just being awake, being alive. Like I was like, this is horrible. And one of the other things that happened was that my, when you're on opiates, it kind of like makes you constipated. My bowels just like released. And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, Sims, you have to pull over right away, like immediately. And he's like, what are you talking about?

We got to get out of here. We just pull out of that parking lot. They're coming. You can hear the sirens coming. Like, we're, we got to get away from this spot. And I'm like, you have to stop the car right now or I'm going to shit all over your car. And he pulls off. Okay, he pulls off at this next exit and into the CVS parking lot.

There's CVS and as Wells Fargo. And I, and I like, he's like, okay, there's the CVS, going to CVS. I'm like, there's no way I can get into that CBS and find a bathroom right now. I, like, basically crawl out of this car, and it's just getting dark at this point. I crawl out of this car over behind this Wells Fargo, like, it's facing the forest, but where the, like, drive-thru ATMs are. So it's there, and luckily there was no one there, and I just, like, lean up against

this Wells Fargo and just like, ugh, just release, like, completely. It's just, it was crazy. And I'm just like, oh, my God. He luckily had some toilet paper in his car. I clean up, I crawl back to the car, and I'm like, give me a shot. And they're like, there's no way we're giving you a shot right now. Right. Right.

So anyway, I ended up taking a few hits, just smoking it like off of this thing. I can't remember what they call it the thing that you use. And I smoked a little bit. I smoked a bunch of hits until I finally just started to settle down. Like I didn't feel better, but I felt like I wasn't panicked anymore. and we're all sitting there and Sims is like this is crazy and he walks in and goes to get something in CVS and I'm sitting there with Haley and I'm like I'm getting off of these drugs now like this that scared the shit out of me I was like we're we're getting off this and she's like yeah I'm going to get off it too so we go back to Reno and I remember I scheduled an appointment to get on methadone and yeah but they've done more control buys on you aren't they just waiting to pick you up right so so they just did is one controlled buy. That was the only one they had done. And then they were waiting to pick me up. So when I went back to Reno, I think it was the 9th of September that the controlled by happened

on. And the 23rd of September is when they picked me up. So there was a few, there was like a week or whatever, a couple weeks in between that. So I went and got this methadone appointment was going to, and I remember that methadone appointment was the next day after I ended up getting a arrested again. I was in this parking lot, just sitting there, all these cops surrounded me, um, busted open the van door, pulled me out, you know, and I was like, what the hell is going on? You know, what's, what's, what's going on? They're like, well, we, you know, you're under arrest for, you know, control by or whatever they said. And handcuffed me, uh, you know, took me to, took me to, took me to county jail again. And this time I kind of knew that I wasn't going to be

getting out after no seven days I had yeah I had completely I I but again my only concern was the withdrawal the drug withdrawal went through it again I spent four months in county jail waiting for sentencing ended up signing a deal that I I had I've never been in through the system before so I had no idea what was going on I just I just kind of was like whatever you know, they, uh, offered me a deal and made it sound like it was, they were like, you're going to get probation, you know, kind of thing. Like you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you've never been arrested before. It's your first offense. You're going to get off with the program. That's what the,

what was the deal? What's the deal that you plead guilty, but we'll recommend something or what? Yeah, it was. Yeah, there was like a, um, it was, I, I don't remember exactly what it was. I was just, I, at that point, I was like, kind of just like, whatever happens happens, happens kind of thing i i wasn't i just had a public defender my public defender that i had quit the day before my my trial or my not my trial but my sentencing and uh and i had a different one that day so i just it was uh i don't remember exactly what the deal was but it was like yeah this and we'll you know shoot for probation basically uh or or a program that's what they wanted to they put me in a drug treatment program and

what I ended up getting was three to ten years on a bee felony. So that means nothing off the front. So I just have three to ten. And four months in county jail until sentencing. Then they went to the fish tank over at NCC. I was in the fish tank for a month. I was on a level four yard for a couple of weeks and then just got transferred to camp and spent seven months in camp. From when I was arrested to when I got out on house arrest was a total of about 13 months. And then I've been on this angle monitor for almost two years now. It's coming up on. What's a level four yard? I don't know. That's what they said it was. It's like the security level or something.

Like the lowest level or the highest level? I think it's like one of the higher ones. I think what was happening was I was in the fish tank and they were trans, they were transitioning the fish tank to a level four unit. That's what they were calling it. And they were. switching the fish tank to a different unit and so before i got transferred i just ended up on that unit and why would you be on such a high level it was just because it was a transition thing it was

like they were they were moving units they were like doing this swap thing where they were making the fish tank a totally different unit and so this was becoming the level four unit but the people who had been transferred out of the fish tank that were getting out of the fish tank instead of going over to the new fish tank because we were already like done with the fish tank time they just left us on that unit for a couple weeks until we got transferred wherever we were going. And so I ended up on that unit for a couple weeks. But there was a lot. It was like a pretty mixed unit.

You know, nothing had clicked up or anything yet. Everybody was kind of new to the unit because they were just moving everybody around. So, but it was like I was there with all kinds of criminals. But it was only a couple of weeks. And then I got transferred to the camp. so how long were you there at the camp just about seven months it was uh and and then halfway house and no then i got to uh my sister lived in reno at the time she doesn't anymore but i was able to i was able to apply for house arrest with two years to my p ed as long as i had two years or less to

the p ed i could apply for house arrest because it was my first offense and because i had like less than two felonies. I ended up with two felonies, one for trafficking and sales, and then one for just the possession and one was the trafficking and one was the control bide. And I, because I had two or less, that was the rule. If you have two or less, you can apply for house arrest. If you have two years to the PED, you can apply for house arrest. So I applied and I got accepted and then they put me on the angle monitor i moved into my sister's house at first for a couple of months then ended up moving in with a roommate uh just somebody i work with and now i'd live in my own place here and i what are you doing what are you doing for work i right now i just

work at a uh it's an online auction house it's like it's a warehouse job it's just a bottom of the barrel you know dead end warehouse job it's a it's an it's an online auction so people we basically get liquidated products from Amazon or Target and we put them up on auction on a website and then people bid on them and win them and then they come to the warehouse to pick them up. So yeah, I've been doing that for two years since I got out and then I just started to make YouTube videos. Are you the only guy with an ankle monitor there? Yeah, definitely. Okay. The summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants.

That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only date is July 18th. Long-bendy Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going. Keep the fun going. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking?

By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open select Small Business Banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash Small Business Match to learn more. Conditions apply. Um, it's funny. Um, yeah, my buddy Pete works at Amazon. Okay. And he's like, and everybody knows, you know, that I'm why he's there and, you know, that he's on, you know, probation. And it's like, everybody knows. He's like, I'm, he's like, and they're all very standoffish. Oh, yeah. But he's a standoffish person. He's not super friendly. He's a, okay. And walks away a lot. You know, he's like, they're like, hey, hey, Pete, this is so and so. He's like, how are you?

and then just walks away. So I'm like, well, you're not endearing. And he's like, well, I'm not endearing. And I don't think that they think I'm the kind of person they want to hang around with anyway. And it's like, so it's only adding to the mystery of, you know, he's like dangerous. That's like I wish I could pull that off, actually. No, you're too friendly. I know.

As soon as I'm there, like everybody, like when people find out, they're just like, what? You're on an inglemoner? Yeah. But I wish I could, I wish I could have that cool, you know, standoffish prison vibe going on. So okay. And then so but so are you in your own place now? Yeah, I'm in my own place now. Did you just tell me that and I didn't hear it? Yeah, but whatever. Yeah, there's a lot. And that's a lot of things. And then you you started the YouTube channel. Yeah, I started it about, um, it was in August.

It was August 19th, I think was the first video I posted last year. And so you've got almost 10,000 subscribers. Yeah. Yeah, I just started posting one video a week. That was my thing. When I was in, even back in county jail, I was thinking like, oh, just maybe make a YouTube channel and start to talk about this. And, and just kind of share what I'm doing.

Most, at first it was kind of just more of a, some way to make a video so that, my friends and family could still see that I was doing okay and just kind of tell what I'm up to and what I'm thinking and how I'm doing. But then, yeah, it just turned into talking about different kinds of addiction stuff, telling stories. And I just, it's just been me alone doing it. I'm just posting one video a week and about, it was around April, I think, is when it got up to a thousand subscribers.

And then, yeah, it takes, I think they said, I don't know if this statistic's true. or not. I just like to quote it. I had heard somewhere that like it takes the average YouTuber who's consistently, you know, publishing or, you know, posting. It takes about three years to get a thousand, you know, videos. And I want to say either I looked that up or Danny told that to me because when I started my YouTube channel, I had like, I had been on a bunch of YouTube channels. And so when I put my, put my first video up, I already had like a thousand subscribers. Nothing was on the channel. And I remember, oh, wow. I remember Danny was like, bro, that's super impressive.

You don't understand. You've got to start posting. What are you doing? You're wasting. What are you? You're stupid. What's wrong with you? And you're like,

a thousand subscribers. You don't even know what you're, you know, you haven't got any videos up and, you know, um, but yeah, like it's, you know,

it's, it's typically very difficult. You've already got 10,000. It hadn't even been a year. Yeah. I feel really surprised about that. I wasn't expecting it at all. It was just,

it kind of came out of the blue, you know, I mean, I had, for the first, up until April. So what is that? Like, oh, it's a huge jump. Eight months, for the first eight months or something, it was like, I think I had less than a hundred almost.

And then just kind of shot up to a thousand and then kept going. I don't know. It's a. Well, what are you going to do now? I mean, what are you just going to keep doing what you're doing? Or are you planning on progressively doing something different with the channel? Or is it just a side project and you're going to? do something else yeah i would like to do i'd like to do more with it i was thinking of doing

yeah the plan the plan was initially to just not be me as a talking head you know i didn't want to just keep it out i wouldn't have conversations and do uh find people who were uh doing interesting things that you know have maybe recovered from hardcore drug addictions and and uh there's like there's such a drug addiction recovery is can be so depressing you know to to a to a lot lot of people and I wanted to kind and I'm having such a good time being being off drugs now that I kind of wanted to share that with people and kind of go around and find like you know how to live a good life how to live well you know after having gone through stuff like this that's kind of where my angle was but I and and I have a lot of friends that are involved in addiction and who have

been addicts and who have cool things going on now so I was going to just you know find people to talk to you, talk to them, travel around, do different things. That's kind of what has been on my mind about it. Yeah, I'm really limited until my ankle monitor comes off. On parole, there will be more options. But, and then hopefully you can do these. Yeah. Yeah. So I was thinking, I actually had one coming up with this lady who is, I talked to a lot of nurses who have gotten in touch with me that are like, I had a huge addiction problem before I became a nurse or I had a huge addiction problem when I was a nurse and I went through the diversion program. So many have been hitting me up and they're all like, while I'm still a nurse, so I can't talk about it.

So they're like, I'm lucky or you're lucky that you can talk about it because I'm not really interested in going and getting my nurse license back at this point, trying to get it back. I don't even know what happened with that investigation, by the way. I just never looked back. My license is taken away, but I don't know what the, what happened with the investigation. But yeah, I think I can't. I've looked into it. I had one of the counselors that was assigned to me through the, through the house arrest program, asked me to look into it.

And so I did. And I think I can get the license back if I want to, but I'm just not really interested in doing that at this point. You should see if you can get a copy of that. of the investigation. That's a whole video. Yeah. That's a great idea, actually. That is a great idea. I wanted to get my discovery back again, too, and just kind of go through that because I had it for a while, but I lost it somewhere and just kind of going through what the, what everything that happened was. I haven't gotten I mean, you can do that on the channel. You can do that just by writing a, like a freedom of

information request. Yeah. And you don't even have to, it doesn't even have to be special. You could just put this is a freedom of this is a freedom of information request oh yeah you know and then yeah just mail it to like whatever those departments are like i i always hit like every department and the prosecution and you know everybody somebody's going to start you're going to start getting it and they have different things at different levels so at some point they're going to come back and say we've got it it's 42 pages you send us 12 dollars and you're like here's 12 dollars and you know and then you'll get it and it'll be whatever and uh and then you'll have it and you look through the whole thing and that and it's great too because then it's obviously it's got

all the dates and then you remember what happened you're like yeah this says this but what really kind of happened was yeah they said this but i didn't remember i don't remember you know i don't remember you know all i remember is hearing the them knock on the door like you know that kind of little things but that's a whole video yeah absolutely that that's funny because you that you say that because I remember reading the discovery of that first arrest and being like they made it sound like I was I was about to attack them or something like they were afraid for their life and that's why they had to and I was like there's no way that they felt that way about me. I know I wasn't being aggressive. I know I was being super cooperative. It's funny. Like the things that they're right,

you know, in there. Hey, sorry to interrupt the video. Just want to let you guys know that we're going to have an extra 15 or 20 minutes of content on my Patreon. It's $10 a month for about an hour's worth of extra content every single week. Back to the podcast. How did you come up with your channel's name? What is it? Smile for days. Smiles for miles. When I was at camp, that's what people called me. That was my yard name was smiles. And some people would be like, hey, smiles for miles, miles from miles so that's why i just called it that everybody called him smiles yeah i thought it had something to do with um or something because in there that like hair like sunshine in a bag or something like in there's sunshine acid i remember sunshine acid was a thing back in the day i guess i think

my my wife told me that there was a that songs there's some song that and part of it it talks about it mentions that he had just gotten sunshine in a bag or something. She goes, do you know what that is? Oh, he's got sunshine in a bag. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, yeah, I was like, no, because I'm sitting there kind of singing along of the song. She's like, do you have any idea what you're doing?

I was like, no, it's sunshine. Yeah, it was nice. He's like, he's talking about heroin. I'm like, what? You know, what are you talking about? She's like, listen to the lyrics. That's what that means. Then start the whole song, I'm like, oh, it does

kind of makes sense like you think about it like that oh why they're so happy um i'm happy you know i'm happy i'm happy i'm happy i'm feeling that's what it was gorillas oh yeah yeah yeah yeah clint east to it i think is the name of that song um yeah i have that somewhere anyway well i'll listen to it as soon as this is over um okay so is your is your is your is your Is your channel monetized? It is. Yeah. Oh, good.

Yeah, it's been monetized since I think April. April is when it got monetized. Do you have, do you have a Patreon? I don't. I haven't set up anything else. People are saying, like, this is all kind of just new to me. Like, I never really did social media or anything before this. I never, I had a Facebook, I never used it.

I've never had it. You're leaving money on the table. I know. That's what everybody keeps saying. So I got to like, the Patreon. I got to start at Instagram, I guess. I got to start doing short TikTok. TikTok.

You don't know what's going to go viral on TikTok. Like I never, you know, you put something up. Have you that's going to viral? Oh, yeah, man. I've got videos that have on, well, on like TikTok that have like six million, seven million views. I don't really know what viral means. But anyway.

I don't either. But I just, yeah, I've never used TikTok or anything. So I was wondering how it goes on those platforms. I think, I was thinking of that as just being. things like I think viral for one person's channel is probably different because you have some people's like everybody that they put out gets like 10 million views or something right like and then you know I remember I did a video when I did one of the videos for that my buddy Danny and this was YouTube and he's like bro this thing's

going viral and I was like what does that mean he's like well he's so it's viral from my channel so I kind of figured okay well that's it's different for everybody That's what it must mean. Who knows? But yeah, I've had lots. Lots of TikToks where, you know, you know, six million, seven million, four million, five million, three million, you know, six million. It's like, geez, this is, you know, and, and if it's, if the TikTok channel is monetized, then that, that could be, you know, that could be a little chunk of money. Some of the, some of the shorts that we put up, we'll put up a short.

So, you know, based on like, let's say this interview, my producer, he has a guy. somebody one of the guys that works for him full time is a guy named Luke and Luke cuts up the the shorts it's so funny too because you just don't know what's going to happen like I'll spend well we'll both Luke and I would pick the same short the same story and I'll do it and I'll spend three hours I do B roll music I mean my short is amazing and it's 15,000 views and then Luke I'm telling you he didn't spend five five minutes on this thing, including listening to the, to the, he just chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And it's just, it's just brutal. And he puts it up and it's got, you know, four million views. And I'm like, this is disgusting. I'm disgusted with it. So I, I don't know what I'm doing. Obviously, you know, mine's like a, but it's not just an accident. Like he's doing it in a certain way that makes it happen like that. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what I'm saying is I'm so disgusted with the process that clearly I don't know what I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think he knows i just think that i think that the algorithm just has no taste yeah that's what

it is i'm coming up with a cinematic masterpiece within a minute a minute long cinematic mastery and he's butchering this and and i'm like mine is a beginning a middle and in his he leaves it off like you don't know what's happening at the end yeah and then it blows up but so you'll take a video like this let's say this video right here let's say it's two hours and you chop up a 10 different different or four different one-minute clips. And let's say this video gets 10,000, 15,000 views, you know, and that makes on a video with this, you know, streamyards don't do that well. Oh, sorry, remote, because that's the service.

So remote podcast don't do that well. If you came in person, it'd probably be 40,000, 50,000. It might be 200,000. I don't know. I wish you'd become a person. I would have done it. I would have put their plate if I could. typically they don't they don't they don't do as well as the other one so let's say it gets 15,000

views and let's say that ends up being not much 150 bucks 180 dollars whatever depends and then you know they'll Colby will put up four or five different shorts and one of those shorts will end up getting three let's say it gets three million views and it makes four hundred and fifty And you're like, the one minute short made $450, the video made $150. Like, I mean, we have that over and over again where Colby's like, you know, it's so funny. You know, that one video made $300. He's like, but these two shorts combined made $850. Wow.

You know, you just don't know. Yeah. And definitely the shorts on YouTube, they definitely bring in subscribers because since Colby and are. Colby and Luke have been putting out, like, dropping one or two every single day. You know, my subscribers have just shot up. Wow. Man, I really got on that. And it really doesn't matter.

It doesn't necessarily get, you don't get a whole bunch more views as a result of it. But you get more subscribers, which means you get more eyeballs. Which you probably do get some more views. Yeah. You know, like I'm not making up, like we're not getting paid based on, based on views. Well, based on having like one video that does 400,000 views, you know, we're making it up on volume. I mean, we're putting out four videos that get, you know, 50,000 views or 12,000, you know, and in the end, it just, there's just, we're just doing it on volume and not really content because true crime videos just don't get, well, at least not on my channel, millions of views. I don't have anything that's got a million views. That's a, that's an actual interview. We got lots of shorts that do, you know, six million views, three million views. but that's a great way to build and it builds because more and more people see your story

and more and more people will be interested and they'll come and they'll survive same thing with with TikTok you know yeah man I got to get on that the short thing that's crazy I didn't do anything yeah you just it's not even yeah I know is I have a question for you do you get issues with like the ad suitability strikes on YouTube like where yes Because I lately have been getting them all the time. And I can't figure out why what I'm saying or what I'm doing that's making it get this ad strike. I mean, you're talking about drugs. Yeah, but it says on the thing.

I mean, but you must talk about all kinds of stuff on your channel. Like, do you get them often or? Well, I'd say every three videos or four videos, we get one. And then we go through the review process. We tell them, hey, we don't feel like this. is violated, you know, your the, whatever, the terms of agreement. They actually reviewed in a timely manner?

Yeah. Well, with about three, four days, maybe five days. They'll, and so let's say 25% of the time, they'll still take it off. But here's the great thing. Well, they'll tell you what it was for. They'll narrow it down. Okay, okay. When they do the limited monetization, they narrow it down.

they say oh it's because of this content but they don't tell you if it's a two hour video it's like okay what we said that 40 times or where exactly did i even say that you know yeah but here's the great thing as of about a week ago week and a half ago probably a week ago youtube when they do the review now when they when you when they upload it if it gets the if it becomes limited monetization they tell you now at the 15 minute and 30 second mark that they'll actually give you a thing they'll say you talked about um you know a public you you dis you know whoever you smeared a public uh a public officials name something like that and so you can go straight to it click on it and watch that little clip and you're like oh oh okay i said joe

biden was this or i said trump was this and and you're like oh we had one the other day where we did this interview with this guy Zeskin and I'm telling you right now when we put it up we were like we don't talk about anything like there were some he was selling like

and we had Colby had already bleeped out all the words of like and we were like we bleeped out all he bleeped out almost all the words like we've had videos that were we didn't believe but like what is going on like so Colby

oh Colby we reviewed it and that when they reviewed it it came back and it said at the one hour and 12 minute mark 32 seconds it said uh and it i forget how they put it but he went listen to it and he goes and he told me what the word was i don't want to say the word now but he said he said and basically it's a he it was a homosexual slur oh okay oh and he's and he was like ah you know that guy's a whatever yeah or he said something i don't even remember that's how my smart minor it was but colby just that that was the whole thing keep on it beep re-ran it boom perfect do you have to go through the review process to get that specific information or they just i see colby does that i

want to say yes okay but i could be wrong it may just automatically do because i couldn't find it i was looking for it but i couldn't find it but yeah i think it's just i know that you're supposed to be able to talk about your drug experiences, stuff, as long as you're not promoting drugs. But there's some videos where I posted and I'm like, how did this pass monetization? And then the other ones I didn't even say anything in this video. Right. Yeah, the other one I was talking about disposing of a body. Yeah. It's like, what? You know, this guy said I slapped this guy. You know, it's like, what? There was the other one talking about decapitating and how to get rid of this guy said, oh, and I slapped the guy. What? What's the problem?

problem yeah um yeah i would i'd say i'm sure if you click if you go right now on youtube and ask about the new um the new monetizate or new you know how to figure out the you know why things are getting demonetized or what are the new rules or the new system or something i'm sure somebody's made a 10 minute video saying hey guess what yeah or if you want if you can't find that you know and you text me i'll give you i'll connect you with colby and colby else tell you yeah you know just go click here click here. This just happened, by the way, because I remember like, maybe I've just got to check it out yet. I'll figure it out. I mean, I just was wondering if like you had had issues with that. But yeah, that sounds that sounds good. I've never really submitted to review. I just, uh, the review process. This just started happening because I had none, none of these issues until just the last couple of weeks. And I started getting them like every time I post something, it would just be the yellow instead of the green, you know. No, that's that's no good. Because the difference is by the way, the difference is, like, Like, it's like making, if you were making a dollar, you're now down to about 25 cents. Yeah, I can tell because my revenue has gone like this, like over the last two or three weeks.

Yeah, you got to, you have to review. And this is the thing, too, is that if you're doing the reviews and they start realizing, like, we keep, he reviews them and we keep changing it, then they get more relaxed with you because they start realizing like, you know what? like obviously we're we're too harsh on this guy because every time we review one of these things we end up overriding the review so you know and then it'll be funny because then six months will go by and you'll be doing great and then suddenly the next you know four out of the next five videos will get hit and then they'll be really harsh on you for two or three weeks and then you you start hammering away at them again you start it up and next thing you know everything is smooth sailing for a while okay okay good good tomorrow yeah I because I'm brand new

to this so it's good to hear that because I was like is this this all me, am I doing something? So there's definitely variability in the way that they evaluate everything. I mean, honestly, it's, it's that. I mean, as far as getting like views, it's, it's that and it's thumbnails. Yeah. You know, I mean, thumbnails and the, and the titles of the videos are important. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, in yours, it's funny. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just saying, yeah, the one video that I, that I really, like, crafted the title and thumbnail on, I just, that was the one. video that I had that really brought in everything was this I just made it very dramatic like and put a picture of me like almost in tears in the thing and said for my final days as a trauma ICU are in or whatever and then that one got like a couple hundred thousand views and that's the thing that really took my the whole channel to monetization and where it is now yeah yours

or what's funny you do you got great yeah some of these things are you know 70 5,000 views 11,000, 3,000, you know, 216,8, 3,000, 3,000, 5,000. Like, these are great, 25,000, boy, these are great. Yeah, I don't know how like the last, in the last few weeks, it's kind of slowed, it's been slowing down a little bit. But I've also been getting those strikes too. So I wonder if that has anything to do with that. That doesn't, that shouldn't affect, that shouldn't affect views, though, whether you're, you know, know the mustache is horrible the mustache is horrible you don't yeah what were you thinking with what

you got like the the mustache oh did i not shave or something at one point i mean at one point you got like it looks like a mustache it looks like a porn mustache oh yeah no i don't know maybe maybe i did hey i appreciate you guys watching the video if you liked it do me a favor subscribe to the channel hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this leave me a comment also um we're going to leave the link to Brian's Smiles for Miles YouTube channel in the description box. So just go in the description box,

click it, go there, subscribe. I really appreciate you guys watching. Please consider joining my Patreon. It's $10 a month. We put special Patreon exclusive content on Patreon. So we're probably putting maybe 30 minutes to an hour

extra on Patreon every week. I'm going to try and we're going to put more on there. But once again, really appreciate you guys watching thank you very much see you