Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Tony Hoffman shares his story of addiction and how he went from prison to the Olympics.

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Tony hated who he was and found some temporary relief in substances. Tony knew he was headed in the wrong direction and something inside of him made him very aware of this. Once he discovered oxycontin he was hooked and would find himself in prison While in prison he set out to accomplish 4 things.  He has been sober for 15 years and this is Tonys Hoffman's story from Prison to the Olympics on the Sober Motivation podcast. Follow Tony Hoffman on Instagram Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram Download the SoberBuddy App

Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible. One story at a time. Let's go. Tony hated who he was and found some temporary relief and substances. Tony knew he was headed in the wrong direction and something inside of him made him very aware of this. Once he discovered OxyContin, he was hooked and would find himself in prison. While in prison, he set out to accomplish four things.

This is Tony Hoffman's story from prison to the Olympics on the sober motivation podcast. Before we jump into this incredible story with Tony, I want to thank all of you that have been listening and supporting the podcast so early on. Thank you for all of your kind words, and I want to let you know that I'm extremely grateful for your support. If you love this podcast, jump on your podcasting platform and leave a review and share it with two of your friends. Now let's get to the episode. Welcome back to the Sober Motivation podcast.

Today we have an incredible guest, Tony Hoffman, from prison to the Olympics. Tony travels the country and shares his story. Tony, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. It's a little bit cold, and coil went out in my heater, so I've got my jacket on to stay warm. But Cadillac problems, I'm doing great. Thanks.

Yeah, awesome. So how we usually start the podcast that we start off at the beginning. So what was it like for you growing up? Yeah, so I grew up in the middle of California, not the California most people think of when you say California, Fresno County, Ag Capital of the world. A lot of farms inside Fresno County is a little city, Clovis, California. My parents moved there for work, but also to put me and my brother into what at the time was one of the top public schools in the United States. I found out when I was a young kid that I was gifted with sports. and sports was a really big thing in the communities of Clovis, especially with Clovis Unified

students. So I started getting involved in sports like all the other kids, you know, and then it kind of started to show itself that I was a different athlete than, say, the rest of the people. And my dream was, you know, when I tell people about myself, my dream was to go to the NBA. I grew up in the Michael Jordan era where everybody said they wanted to be like Mike. For those of us that are, you know, 35 to 45 years old, we went and bought Jordans before everybody wanted to wear Jordans. And that was kind of my life. My parents have been married for 47 years, middle, upper middle class family. I have a brother that's two years older than me.

I'm gifted at sports, but by the time I'm in middle school, I really start to have this internal war start. I don't remember it happening in my elementary school years, so nothing before, you know, seventh grade. But when I got to seventh grade, I really started to have this internal conflict with myself, which really was me not liking who I was. I didn't like my gifts. I didn't like the way I looked.

I didn't like myself in comparison to my peers. I had social anxiety that I didn't know with social anxiety. If you're an early millennial like myself, your ability to be emotionally aware is probably zilch, even worse if you're Gen X, even worse if you're a boomer. For myself, I didn't know how to identify any of the feelings that I was having.

The only thing I knew was that I was really uncomfortable. and this uncomfortable feeling that I started to experience really led me to this path of self-hatred. By the time I was 12 years old, I was over, you know, consumed by this idea that I needed to kill myself. Despite being one of the most popular kids in school, despite being one of the most talented athletes in the school district, I hated who I was. I'm grateful that I didn't try to kill myself. I'm grateful that I obviously am still here and didn't kill myself because over time I found a place where I love who I am and the uniqueness that I bring to the table. But at that time, I was struggling with my self-worth. I was struggling with my relationship with my father who was a workaholic.

My dad was my hero, really. I wanted my dad around more than anybody else at that time. I didn't know it. It took, you know, 10 years of therapy for me to reach this place to understand that a lot of my discontention in life stemmed from this. lack of a relationship that I was having with my father. And he was providing for our family, working 14-hour days, and so was my mom. And so basically, I was, quote-unquote, raising myself. And in raising myself and not having the emotional awareness to understand what I was experiencing or the coping skills to deal with what I was experiencing, I started changing my behavior.

And my behavior at the root of the change of my behavior really was just a coping skill I was developing for what was uncomfortable within myself for the self-hatred that I had built. I was removed from school in seventh grade for selling weed. I became quote-unquote the bad kid from town. I stepped away from school sports or team sports and I got involved in individual sports, which was racing BMX. The idea of extreme sports, for those of us that grew up under the X-Games culture, it was really that I didn't have to have a coach and I didn't have to have a team to depend on.

I could win and lose at my own efforts. By the time I was 18, a senior at Clovis High School, I was graced on the cover of the largest BMX racing magazine in the world. I held endorsements with Fox Racing, airwalk shoes, spy sunglasses, heavy-hitting companies in the action sports industry were sponsoring myself. And they didn't sponsor professional athletes or amateur athletes. They were sponsoring me mainly because they believed that I was capable of turning pro and doing very well at the pro ranks. But that was when I started using 18 years old,

started smoking weed like a lot of other individuals late in comparison to what we see with young kids now, which is, you know, it's not uncommon for 12, 13, 14, 14, 15 year olds that I see when I'm on the road touring to be involved in heavy, heavy drugs, not just weed, cocaine, fentanyl, prescription pills, Xanax, Adderall, oxicon, percocets, those types of things. But for me, I was a late bloomer at 18. I started using. And at that time, I had no idea that when I was 12, and my behavior shifted in the classroom. And I struggled to kind of follow that order, which schools and society and communities want for an individual, that that was a coping mechanism. And then when I get to 18 and I start using drugs, that that also was a coping mechanism. And then

there was the difference between myself and others. And that is that my brain doesn't work the same. I can't just smoke a joint. I can't just do a line on the weekends. I can't just have a glass of wine at night. Eventually, the addiction started. And once the addiction started, it took me down a dark path, man. Yeah, I can relate to so much of the stuff you shared there, too. It's the same sort of journey for me in high school with stuff I just lost myself.

And the behaviors came out sideways, a lot of defiance and everything else. So what did it do for you, though, early on with the smoking? For me, it was a, it was escapism. right? Because smoking didn't give me the relief I was looking for, right? Start at 12. The behaviors change. It's a coping skill, but that coping skill doesn't really work. So you kind of go down this assembly line or this pathway of experimentation in which you're trying to find something that actually provides you that relief. And that relief is that feeling or form of safety that every human being is craving. When I start smoking, I don't feel safe. I feel anxious. I feel nervous, I feel paranoid. I don't feel what I want to feel. And so it's a coping skill that's not working. But I'm trying it, right? I'm trying it because it's giving me a way to escape from myself. And that's what I was looking for was to step outside of myself and into this new body, so to speak. And so when I started smoking, I was really just trying to find that that alternate

body that really fit who I believed I was or who I believed who I needed to be or also. who I believed everybody else was. So how did things progress for you? What did after high school look like? So I went from, you know, weed to cocaine to prescription pills really quick. Because once, you know, I tell people, if you watch my TED talk or I sit in front of schools,

I talk about this doorway and walking through this doorway. And really what's on the other side of that doorway is sexual activity, it's substance use, It's self-harm. It's anger. It's all of these things. But when I walked through the door, I walked through the door for the other side for substances.

And when I walked through the door for the first time, it made walking deeper into the door much easier. So it went from weed to cocaine, the prescription pills, you know, almost instantly. And when I found prescription pills at that time, oxycotton, that was the new body I thought I was looking for. I was looking for that feeling of safety. I was looking for that comfort. and I was looking to feel what I perceived everybody else who was quote-unquote normal was able to experience without having to leave the body that they were given.

And I quickly became addicted to opioids, oxycotton, never the premise that I was going to be addicted. It was under the premise that I needed these things to be normal and that I would just take these to function. are no different than somebody takes Prozac to function from their depression or Syracille to stop the voices from occurring in their life, right? There's there's these pharmaceutical drugs that can be a benefit to certain people's situations. Well, I was self-medicating and prescribing myself oxycontin because all the stuff the doctors were giving me didn't give me the body that I felt I needed or that I was comfortable in. And so oxycontin was a daily habit by the time that I was at the end of my year 18. And from there, it was just a spiral downhill, obvious for obvious reasons. You know, once I became physically addicted, then my behaviors became even riskier because the withdrawals were so powerful.

I couldn't overcome the urge to get back into this body. So it was like I had two bodies, right? I had this body that I hated, and then I had this body that I loved, which was given to me through oxycontin. But this was a very temporary body. Once the drug wear off, I had to go back to here. And then the more I took this drug, the more temporary or the less time I got to spend in this body, but also it made this body more painful. And so I was constantly going back and forth. And then the war that started with myself at 12 years old became even more turbulent.

And so my behavior became more impulsive as I was trying to keep myself in this body that I believed was the correct body I should have been given. Three years later, that was a home evasion robbery. The worst decision I made in my life, I was withdrawing on pills. And we knew that our friend's mother was being prescribed these pills because he was stealing, stealing, him from her originally. And he would sell him to us for $5 a pop. I don't know if he used oxycontin, but they were like $40 on the street at that time and selling us them for $5. We could all get them. Well, then she caught them and started locking them up. In the early 2000s, we're talking about 2002 to 2004, there wasn't enough people selling their

prescriptions in my area at that time. And when they did, they always ran out because the pharmacies didn't have enough of these pills at that time. This was right around the time. when Purdue Farmer starts ramping up the manufacturing of these pills to meet the demand that started to happen across the United States. And so we couldn't get the pills and we were withdrawing. And the withdrawals were so painful, you know, we made a dumb decision. And that dumb decision was to commit a home evasion robbery. Did you understand sort of the consequences of the withdrawal when you started when you were taking the pills? Did you have any education on that?

No. No. At that time, we didn't know anything. the DARE program said stay away from heroin, meth, cocaine, crack cocaine, PCP, LSD, and marijuana, you know, and not if, and by the way, if they would have said stay away from prescription pills because they're withdrawal, you can withdraw from these opioid medications or you can have seizures from these benzodia medications, I don't know that that would have changed anything, right? Because when you're in the state of discontingion, itself and you don't have the emotional awareness to develop positive coping skills that leave you in a place where you love the body you were given. You're going to go on a tour of experimentation. It just depends on whether you use people, places, or things, right? You're only going to use one of those three things. And you can be one of the other things that I wasn't and still find yourself

in a place that I was internally. So, but yeah, we didn't know that there was going to be the consequences of physical addiction that mimicked heroin at that time because there was no education about those pills. And by the way, at that time, we all know that Purdue Farmer's marketing was that it wasn't physically addictive, that it wasn't addictive like other drugs. And so, yeah, we took those pills liberally and we took them as much as we could without knowing at that time, we were about to become pharmaceutical heroin headaches. Yeah, and that's the course that it took, it took for a lot of people, is that the pills ended up drying up and then you switch. over to something that was available. Yeah. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Yeah. And my story is going to mimic

many others in that, right? It started with oxy cotton. I remember when I first went to jail, they all made fun of me. That's hillbilly heroin. And I thought to myself, you know, by the time I used heroin, I looked back and was like, these things were better than the heroin that I was getting. I don't know what you guys are making fun of these oxycottons for, but you were guaranteed 80 milligrams. You knew exactly what you were getting. 40 milligrams. You knew exactly what you were getting. go buy black? I don't know what I'm getting. And I have to buy a lot of it to match what that $140 pill was doing. But yeah, I switched over to heroin just like everybody else. But by the time

I was on heroin, you know, I'm staying up for 12, 13 days at a time on methamphetamine as well. I mean, my life spun completely out of control. My opioid addiction was to maintain this temporary body as much as I could. But I also had this urge to just do whatever else was around me. and the Russian methamphetamine in the very beginning part of that high was hard for me to get away from as well. Did you ever find what you were looking for in any of these substances? No. It was temporary. I thought I found it, right? When I first took it, I found it. You know, then you start dealing with the withdrawals and you don't realize that really what you're doing is trying to create something that doesn't exist.

and it didn't take long for me to stop having fun. You know what I mean? Like I listen to a lot of stories and people talk about the fun they had for years. Years. You know, I see people at my treatment center years into this, 40 years into us. I'm just not done having fun. And I think to myself, fuck. Like I stopped having fun, I think six months into the gig.

You what I mean? But I hated who I was. And I could feel that. I was around people that didn't love me. I knew it. I was around people that didn't care about me. I knew it. I knew that I wasn't supposed to be in the areas that I was in.

And when I say areas, it was to buy dope to escape from myself, not necessarily the people, so to speak. It was just I knew that people, places and things that I was surrounded around weren't where I was supposed to be because something inside of me was communicating. This isn't for you. This isn't the place that you're supposed to be. But I also hated who I was. was to the degree that I was trying to create or find that what I thought oxycotton was going

to bring for myself. But once the addiction started, I couldn't get out. You know, I was like in this room, but the doors didn't open. So how did the home invasion play out? So the home invasion happened. When we left, I knew I fucked up. You know, before we went in, I knew we were fucking up. We actually turned around. We weren't going to do it. fuck it let's just go back house to the house and then nah let's go you know but then when we leave i'm like i'm never doing that again you know you get the shame and the guilt that you got to confront can only be shut up by you know continued behavior of the sort or using substances to stop yourself from feeling that you know and uh my co-defendants kept robin people

one of them's dead now. The other one's still struggling. Years later. And I said, I can't do this again. But six months later, I was arrested. And at that time, I hadn't seen my family in about three years. And my parents got me an attorney. Obviously, there were some other privileges on top of my attorney that had me looked at differently when I went to court.

And I was given felony probation. I was given felony probation. and a strike on my record, five years felony probation, a strike on my record. And back then, you know, drug programs were just go to meetings. Early 2000s just go to meetings, right? That's all we had. We didn't have, like, go to a therapist. We didn't have, you need to go to this treatment center that's going to provide you

high levels of care and really give you a shot at living a life and long-term recovery and change the outcomes. Go to meetings. So at this time, I still don't think I have a problem. I think that I'm just using drugs, choosing to use drugs, and then I just need to stop choosing to use drugs because I don't want to go to prison for 10 years if I come back because that was the deal. If I came back, I'd go to prison for 10 years, up to 10 years. And the consequences obviously weren't enough to change the self-hatred for this body. So there was a desire to not use because of the consequences, but the desire to not use because of the consequences,

didn't outweigh the self-hatred and discontention I felt in this natural body I was given. So I couldn't overcome through willpower the ability to abstain from using mind-altering substances because what truly was controlling me was something that started at 12 years old was the self-hatred that I felt. It was the relationship of my father that I didn't recognize and had dealt with. It was all of this stuff that I was going to have to address through a program of recovery and spiritual principles that was going to lead me to a place where I completely saw my body that I hated differently and began to love that. And when I began to love that, then I would find myself in a place where I could maintain

my sobriety. When did you get sober? What's your sober date? So May 17, 2007, it comes into about five months. after being incarcerated, four and a half months after being incarcerated. So when I get out of jail for a robbery, I'm 21, 21 years old. I go back out 30 days after I relapse. I'm drinking. Then I go right back to opioids. And two years later, I'm completely homeless. When I say completely homeless, there wasn't a bed to sleep in. If it was a bed, it was a motel six.

It was dirt fields. It was behind dumpsters. There was no friends' couches, surf on anymore, apartments, floors to lay on. It was a hotel in a field behind a dumpster or sleeping on the street with nothing. On January 21st, 2007, I have this spiritual experience that kind of snaps and changes my complete perspective on life. January 22nd, I wake up at 2 p.m. I'm arrested. I broke into a house that was up for rent. After I get arrested, I got to go to court and face this armed robbery probation that I violated. And they gave me, four and a half years in prison, and I served 23 and a half months on that. When I got to Wasco, I was making wine with one of my cellmates. And that's why my sobriety date is in January 22,

2007. It's May 17, 2007, because I was actually drinking when I first got the prison. But May 17, 2007 is my sobriety date. So was that it was that intervention of the prison thing that helped you out? Did something happen there? So the spiritual experience before was really what the intervention was. A lot of people will say, oh, so you found God when you're in prison? No, I found it right before. And really what I found before through this spiritual experience, I had somebody call me and tell me that God had given them a vision and I was in this vision and I was going to get three significant chances. If I didn't stop doing what I was doing before these chances took place, I was told I was

go to prison. Well, in November of 2006, I was pulled over three times in four days. I was on felony probation, so I was pulled out of the car two of the three times. I had a needle stashed between my ass cheeks the first time. They let me go. I had 64 oxycontin stashed between my ass cheeks the second time. They let me go. The third time I was in a car with fake tags, no registration, no insurance, driver didn't have a license. I had drugs on me. She had drugs on her. The cop, didn't ask if anybody was on parole or probation, so I didn't get pulled out. And she gave us a fix-a-ticket and told us to drive the car home back to the person we borrowed it from, which is unheard of.

They should have towed the car at the very least, right? If you're not going to ask if anybody's on parole or probation, you're at least going to tow a car that hadn't been registered in five years because it's clearly hot. So when the cop leaves after giving us a fix-a-ticket, I remember saying to myself, that was the three chances my friend Adam told me I was going to get. I got him pulled over three times and four days. Two months later, I get invited to a church. I have this spiritual experience that, one, I'm not alone. Two, there is a power greater than myself. And three, how I feel isn't the way this thing feels about me.

So the hatred I have for myself, the lack of worthiness I have for myself, this depression, this cyclone of negativity and uncomfortableness is not what this other thing feels for me or wants for me. And so I believe what I tell myself. And my first night in prison, I have what I consider my full surrender. And my full surrender is that I can't do this alone. I don't know what I'm doing, and I need some direction. And so I started reading the Bible, and I don't push my faith on anybody.

I think that you can take multiple pathways into recovery. This is just my story and what happened for me. And if it's something you want, I think you can also search that out for yourself, and you can get the same thing that I got. And I started to have this revelation, so to speak, or these visions that I was supposed to do these four things, which was get on my bicycle and race professionally, go to the Olympics, start a nonprofit for kids, and become a professional speaker. But in that time, I didn't know how I was going to get there because the best I could do for you

is find dope, sell dope, and use dope. I couldn't hold the job. I couldn't sit through an interview. I couldn't do anything. I had no skills at that time other than I was an athlete growing up. I cheated my way through school, so I don't have an education to back me. I literally have these visions of doing these great and grandiose things, but I have no idea how I'm going to get there. And so my first night that I'm in prison, I'm laying on my bunk, and before I have my surrender moment where I'm just going to give up everything I thought I knew for something different,

I read this quote in the ceiling. And it says, be careful what you think because your thoughts become your words. Be careful what you say because your words become your actions. Be careful what you do because your actions become your habits. Be careful what you make a habit because your habits become your character. And your character becomes your destiny. And so when I was reading it, and I've explained this a few other times, if I was in a cell right now and those doors didn't have handles on them, that's kind of where I felt like I was my entire life. I was trapped in this room and I didn't like the room that I was in.

And I was kicking and screaming trying to get out of this room. and in the nightstands were these things that I found that made me feel like I could be in this room. But I still didn't want to be in here. But then the things that were in the nightstand that I found that made me comfortable being in the room that I was in ran out. And then I really hated being in this room. But then I had this spiritual experience. and the doors became glass. They didn't have handles.

They became glass and I could see outside of this room that I didn't want to be in. And I realized I really want to be out there. But I don't know how to get out of here. I like what I see outside of this glass. I want to get out of here. I don't know how to get out of here. But then I read this quote about it. Everything's starting with your things.

thinking. And eventually your thinking becomes your character. And what I did was I realized that I was trapped in a room because of myself, not because of my dad, not because of the coaches I didn't like, not because my friend didn't get his taillight fixed. So we got pulled over. No reason other than my own self. And that if it was my own self and my thinking that had me in the room that I was in, that I needed to change the way that I was thinking so I could change the way that I was, which is my character, and that I believed my character would open the locks on the glass doors and let me out. So I decided I'm going to get to the Olympics by changing my character. And at that time, I didn't know how to change my character because I don't have a therapist.

I'm locked in a cell for 23 and a half hours a day. But I realized I can't even brush my teeth every single day. If I can't brush my teeth every single day, how would I take care of showing up to a job interview? How would I be somebody that's coachable or somebody that can take direction from a boss or do anything required of me to even make it to the Olympics? So I realized that for me to change my character, I had to recognize that a lot of the small decisions that I was overlooking in my life needed to be taking care of the. with the same type of focus and intention that I would have if I was at the Olympics. Because you don't luck yourself into the Olympics and then decide that once you're at the Olympics, you're going to take care of this with the utmost responsibility and accountability,

right? You grow into the character that can manage an experience like the Olympics. But I couldn't manage brushing my teeth. So I said, I'll just learn how to manage brushing my teeth. Then if you listen to my story in other ways, it's making my bed and organizing in my stuff and learning how to be disciplined, which was my ability to do good work when I didn't want to do good work at all. If it was too hot, I still worked out. If it was too cold, I still worked out. If I wanted to do it, I did it even better. If I didn't want to do it, I did it to the best of my ability. And so I started to develop these qualities while I was in prison that became skills

that I would use while I was in recovery, while I became an athlete, while I became a CEO of a nonprofit organization and while I became a person that was managing one of the largest speaking tours in the United States specifically for substance use and mental health, that I needed, started in prison managing these small things. So when I got out, I was able to manage bigger things. And as I learned to manage these experiences that most people think don't matter, I was given more opportunity as a result. And when I got those opportunities, I took those opportunities and I continued to manage them exactly the same. Like me doing this podcast, I don't treat this podcast any different than I would treat it a speaking engagement that paid $15,000 because it's the same to me. If I come into this

and I treat this experience different because there's no money on the table, then what does that say about my character. What ends up happening to my career over time? Well, it's going to fizzle out because you're only about the money. Right. But I believe that my ability to come in and manage each experience exactly the same is what allows me to attract more opportunity. What I've had to do in the time that I've been in recovery is learn how to create

boundaries, right? Because I can't do everything. I'm one person and I have to have a life for myself. traveling on the road 250 days a year is already very challenging to have a life for myself and my relationship with my significant other. But boundaries have allowed me to say, yeah, man, let's do this, Brad. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it.

That's so important, too, those little things. Because I feel like when we get into sobriety and we want to conquer this other big stuff, that small stuff is so important. And, man, I'm with you 100%. I was in prison for a year. and man it was the worst thing but the best thing that happened to me because I needed structure I needed discipline and I needed time without distractions to do stuff and I had you know something maybe a little bit different but I set a few goals for myself too when I first when the door closed

and I was like this is real you know and I had a few I had a few things I wanted to be an addiction counselor I wanted to have a German Shepherd that was it I had two goals and I've got my second German Shepherd now and I did addiction counseling you know and it was I worked at a treatment center up here in Canada for six years. And I was in the same spot. I was living on my brother's couch. I had absolutely nothing. I was unemployable.

All I knew was withdrawal symptoms from methadone and heroin and prescription painkillers. And I couldn't stop drinking and I couldn't get the methadone anymore. And it was those small things. How can somebody get started, though, saying that they're not in prison. They're out here in the world. And they want to get started with some of those small things. What would you suggest would be a good starting place? Yeah, I honestly think writing stuff down.

You know, I was a big journal for a long time, not as big as I used to be. But I think writing things down is a big start. What do you want? Do you want a German shepherd? Write it down. You know what I mean? Like write definitively down what you want. I used to write it every single day.

I will be a very successful business person. I will go to the Olympics. I will go to the Olympics. I will be a very successful business person and I would write it down every day. Those two things. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of times. Right?

But once I wrote down what I wanted, now what do I have to do to get it? Because nobody comes to save us. So if you're day one, we recognize nobody's coming to save us, that this journey is our journey and that that requires us to do something. Writing down what you want gives you the first part. The second part is what are you not managing in your daily life that communicates to the universe and yourself you can't have what you want. And it's as simple as

brushing your teeth. It's as simple as taking a shower, cutting your hair, shaving. If you're a female and you should be shaving, quote unquote, you should be shaving, and you're not shaving. Start with these things that are completely manageable. But I also think if you're not in prison, and even when I was in prison, I had mentors that were helping me, is you can't do it alone. You know, I see all the time with my treatment center. People that come in and say, you know, I don't need to go to meetings. I don't need to find a community of people that understand me or a place that I can feel at home. I don't care if it's meetings, church, grief groups, donating your time at animal shelters.

But you need to find yourself around a community of people that support you and empower you in a way that takes you further away from that door, which is using substances if you're listening to this. podcast in most cases. And you need to ask somebody for help. So you can do these things where you write something down and then recognize that, you know, maybe I need to start getting up and making my bed every single day or brushing my teeth and managing these small experiences. But at the same time, your secrets, as long as you keep them, will always have power over you. And so you'll never able to get, you'll never be able to overcome the power of what the secrets you're holding on to are because secrets always have more power over you. And so when you get around a community of people or ask for help with somebody that understands the situation that you're in, maybe through

personal experience or higher education, you can start to release these secrets and you can trade them out for these pieces of empowerment, these skills of coping that you've never used before. And it's not this idea that as soon as you do that, you instantly change. But as soon as you surrender the secrets and you begin to adopt through open-mindedness and taking suggestions, over time there's a transformation. For some of us, there's epiphanies, right? Like myself. But even then, I was drinking when I got the prison.

So it didn't just change me, right? What changed me was my perspective because of the spiritual experience and me wanting something different. Then reading the literature of the Bible was helping replace some of the negativity with some positivity. And then while I was drinking, I was being convicted that this wasn't for me. And that conviction was what allowed me to continue to move forward to try and remove myself from feeling that conviction by doing what needed to be done on a daily basis, which was esteemable acts. Over time, those esteemed blacks became a believable thing to me. And I was able to adopt this idea that I can, I will, and I'm able, and that I don't need these things to get through my day anymore. And so a big part of that is asking somebody for help.

Yeah, so powerful. And getting involved with community and other people who can sport the journey. So how to speak into the Olympics? I think that's the coolest thing I saw on your Instagram there from the Olympics. So I got out and I became, so I did all four things that I said I was going to do. I was very fortunate. My family came back in my life after years of absence. The one thing I think my dad really felt like I think my son's back is that I said I want to get on my bike.

My dad being a former professional motocross racer, my brother race in BMX, us race in BMX through our teenage and late teenage years. I think my dad realized, okay, if my son wants to do this, they're something. something different about him. And so my dad said, I'll support your racing. I'll give you a place to get out and I'll support your racing so long as you're living a life in sobriety and doing what needs to be done. And I had started all of those things that would need to be done when I was in prison. So I could work out seven days a week. I could go to bed early in the night, wake up early in the morning. I was ready when I got out. So I get into racing. And when I got out, I just turned pro before I even raced a race. I didn't touch a bike in seven years. I didn't touch a bike in

seven years. I signed up to be a pro and people were like, ha, what are you doing? You haven't raced in seven years, bro. And I, there was just something inside of me that believed, like, okay, wait a minute, I think I see my gift now. Like, I'm not your normal athlete. I'm an elite, world-class athlete. And I don't say that in a boistering way. I say that in a recognized now that my athletic ability is different than most. And so I believe that I wrote a bike good enough that I got out. All I needed was a short period of time and that I could race pro, especially if I mixed it with this newfound perspective and this

ability to work hard seven days a week on my physical body, not only just my spiritual and my soul part of my body. And so I start racing five months after I get out. I take third place at this first pro race I've ever raced in my life. And immediately that was the confirmation. Holy shit, this is really happening. Like you can do this. You know, like I was sketchy out there. But I got third sketchy, you know, because I didn't touch a bike, so I'm not riding my bike very well. But I've got enough physical attributes and enough skill that I left off with seven years prior that I was able to take third place. And that first year, I won five races at the lower pro division. And in BMX, it's basically like AAA baseball and the major leagues.

So you have AAA and you have major leagues. They call it single A and double A pro. So I make enough money to graduate from single A pro to double A pro. I raised double A pro in the beginning and I'm getting the shit kicked out of me and I'm thinking maybe I'm not cut out for it. But I stayed in it. I stayed resilient and I made some coaching decisions that were different. I left my coaches and I started coaching myself based on the information that I was learning. And my own coaching allowed me to make six finals at the AA pro class to the Olympic level in my first year.

thought to myself, this is happening. Right? The Olympic Training Center invited me, the United States invited me down in the Olympic Training Center. You know, like, if you look at my store, I have my prison ID, and I have my Olympic Training Camp ID that are like right next to each other. Like, it's fucking nuts, right? And it's cool because the BMX community was so embracing for the most part.

Like, people loved it. Like, people that I can't believe you're here. This is fucking nuts, you know, because it wasn't. that long ago that I was in prison. And even it wasn't that long ago that I was homeless, strung out on drugs, you know? So it was so cool because the BMX community also embraced like this journey of holy shit. Like this is nuts. This dude's doing it, right? And it didn't happen as a racer because shortly after my BMX camp that I went to at the Olympic Training Center, which was like in March of 2011.

In October of 2011, I blew my ACL out and had to have a reconstructive knee surgery. I was 28 years old, devastated. I did it with no pain medication. The only thing I took was Tylenol. And I didn't even let him give me versetter fentanyl before I went down. And I didn't let him give me fentanyl when I came up, Tylenol only. And I had to shift gears from,

this pathway or this vision that I was going to go to the Olympics as a racer to now there's a different way that I'm going to get there. And so I started coaching BMX athletes in around 2012-ish. I was coaching some other athletes on these ideas that I was creating and using on myself with these other athletes, right? And so I kind of felt like I had enough to dive into this coaching thing. And then by 2016, you know, I coached two national champions, had three world champions under my belt. You know, if I take you outside of my room, I've got jerseys from from guys from the UK, from the Czech Republic, coached athletes in Bolivia, Argentina, Australia, Italy, just all over the country, all over the world. I had been able to coach some very decorated

athletes, Ecuador. July of 2016 is when Brooke Crane, who was my top female athlete, said, we're going to the Olympics, half, pack your bags. And I was able to grace. the Olympic stage as a coach, not as an athlete, like I originally thought that I was going to get there. But looking back, I'm so glad I was there as a coach. I'm so glad that my role in Brooks' own story, which if you look up Brooke's story, is different. She had the same struggle with and herself attached to her identity. And my story and my coaching was a catalyst for her. loving this body she was given, right? And so we got to go to the Olympics and be there with her family,

who I consider family, her a sister now these days. And it was amazing. I'm glad I didn't have to stress out like she did. She took fourth place. We missed a medal by one spot, but you know what? I was at the Olympics. And it was a real deal. And when the United States found out about my story for the most part was at dinner with Brooke and her family one night and these heads of the USA Olympic Committee were there. One of the guys reached out to me afterwards on Instagram and he's like, I had no idea that you had this story, you know? It's like, we're at the Olympics and Brooke's family's like, listen to this guy's story, you know, like, and it's like, Brooke, we're here for you, you know? Like, forget me, right? Like, we're here for you, but her family was still,

you know, bringing up how great it was what I was, had accomplished. And the guy reached out to me, and he said, send me your address on behalf of the United States. I'd like to send you something. And I have a letter from the United States that talks about my dedication to Brooke and coaching her at the Olympics and a special coin from the United States Olympic Committee. And I hold, I hold that dear to my heart because, you know, some people say, you know, you weren't really a part of the Olympics. And I have this letter. You know what I mean? And this coin was given to me.

And it's like no other coaches got this coin and got this letter that I could hold on to, to allow myself to say, nobody can take that from me. nobody can try and minimize that experience. The story from prison to the Olympics exists. It's real. There's no spin on it. I was there, just not as an athlete, as a coach. And I tell people, if you think getting to the Olympics as a coach is easy, go find an athlete that's good enough to make the Olympics

and believes that you can get them to a medal at the Olympics. And then you'll find out that coaching to the Olympics. to the Olympics is probably harder than getting to the Olympics as an athlete. Yeah, wow, that's an incredible story. And I love the thing there where you brought up to the name tags, like the prison name tag and then the Olympic thing there with the transformation, everything. And I think that just as a very good visual picture of all the work you put in in between

things and how you stuck with it. I mean, what I'm really getting from your story is that you really stick with this stuff day in and day out. And I think for all of us, life happens and there's ups and downs. And I'm just really feeling that you stick to those core beliefs, that stuff, the things you've developed to push. And I think it just provides so much hope for people. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I've done is I had somebody on my Instagram, a kid asked me, so how did you get so? which is a great question.

And I was on a plane and I started thinking about how do they get sober? And I really came up with this model of sobriety and it's basically a house, right? Something we've seen before, the pillars. And I have this house where the foundation is built on spiritual principles and belief in self. So if you're not a God person, belief in self. Okay. I believe you can do that so long as belief in self doesn't become ego, which is self-destructive on the other side of the sword if you don't know how to use it.

The first pillar is honesty with self and others. The second pillar is the second pillar is willingness. My ability and willingness to do whatever it takes. The third pillar is discipline. My ability to do good work when I don't want to do good work at all. The next pillar is structure. my ability to know what I need to do from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 10 p.m. Call it what you want, but I know what I need to do week in and week out.

The next pillar is routine. My ability to work. The structure day in, day out, consistency. The next pillar is giving my ability to give time to yourself and others for the benefit of the world around me. And the last pillar is my ability to connect with support groups and community to understand me and lift me up and make me believe in self when I don't believe in myself as a result of experiences. And I too can do the same for them if they're in an experience where they feel like they can't, they won't and they'll never be able. And as long as I stick to that, everything works out exactly the way it's supposed to be. and I really have learned how to remove myself from needing things to happen a way I visioned them in the

beginning. And I call it persistent flexibility. I won't abandon the routine, but the routine is also flexible and what needs to be done and what direction that I'm going based on what's happening around me. And that ability to give up certain directions for another direction, I believe, is also why I made to the Olympics and didn't just quit racing and walk away from the sport from resentment. Those are incredible pillars. Which one that gives you a run for your money? Is there anyone specifically or all of them? Probably nowadays probably structure.

Yeah. In the beginning, honesty was self. So honesty is a pillar, but I always say it's a double-sided pillar and that what you read on the front, there's also something on the back. and it's the only pillar that has that. It's honesty with self and others. If you dropped your wallet, I could easily say, here you go. That's easy to do, bro.

But why are you going to the house that you're going to? Is it because you really want to help the people that are there? Or because when you're there, you know dope will be there and that at some point you actually want to use? or why are you asking this girl to go on a date because you're truly interested in her or you're going to manipulate and deceive her to have an intimate experience with her and then leave her high and dry because the motive behind that motive was actually to do that because when we do that where we're not able to experience full self honesty with self,

there will always be a reaction of shame and guilt that comes from that action. And that shame and that guilt, the more we live in it, it drags us backwards and leads us back into the door eventually, or it holds us still in the position that we're in and we find ourselves never being able to progress. So in the beginning, it was honesty with self because I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing, getting with the girls that I was getting, going to the places that I was going. There was a reason for it, but until I was able to get honest with myself, I would never figure out what that actually was. Then I started to get that part down. And now, you know, 15, almost 16 years into this, it really comes down to structure is making sure that I know

what I need to do because I'm still a person that struggles with depression. And one of the ways that I work myself through that depression is making sure I know what I need to do and I'm accountable to a plan that I need to execute on a daily basis. Yeah, I love that. I love how you took us back there as well to when you first started because the honesty part is so important too. So definitely a big struggle starting out with things. But look, this has been incredible.

I appreciate you jumping on here, dropping some invaluable insight with us from your journey, 15 years and all the different stuff you've been able to overcome and that you continue to work on and you're doing this. I can't thank you enough, Tony. No, I appreciate you reaching out to me, man. I've been following you for years. I love the work that you do. It's so funny how we all have a niche and a direction in which we can make an impact. And I think that what you're doing is amazing. You've got a huge following of people that are looking for you for a source of inspiration, giving the message of persistence and to keep going, and then starting this podcast to give people kind of some deeper dynamics

of people's personal experiences through their own stories and giving people a way to relate to this. So thank you for what you do and thinking of me as being somebody that could come on to this show and make an impact. Well, we meet again at the end of another incredible episode. I know everybody will enjoy that episode because I know I sure did listening back to it. so many things hit me.

It was so insightful, and I can't thank Tony enough for coming on the podcast and sharing his story, but also sharing some tips and tricks that we can implement in our lives to stay on track. Tony is 15 years sober. Incredible, incredible. And thank you for everyone out there who's been listening, who's been leaving reviews, and who's been sharing this podcast with your friends. Let's get the word out there to the next level this week. everybody keep putting one foot in front of the other and let's drink some days together and I'll see

everyone on the next episode.