The Bossticks - Alexis Haines On How She Recovered From Addiction, Jail, Reality TV, & A Life Of Abuse

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

#196: On this episode we sit down with Alexis Haines to discuss how she conquered a troubled life of abuse and addiction and came out the other side. Alexis struggled for years as an addict which lead to many hardships including jail and the famous reality TV bling ring fiasco. On this episode we discuss how she conquered her hardships and came out on top.  To connect with Alexis Haines click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis and we also now get our wine at Thrive! They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive 25% off your first order (Max $20) + free shipping and a 30 day trial. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 25,000 courses. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for free. That's right, Skillshare is offering The Skinny Confidential listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to www.skillshare.com/TSC.  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 20,000 courses. I'm currently using the platform to learn a bunch of different skills that we have talked about many times on this show. This is a tool for brands and individuals to acquire new skills or take novice skills to an expert level. Think of it as the Netflix for Learning Skills Online. So join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for free.

That's right, Skillshare is offering the skinny confidential him and her listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to Skillshare.com slash TSC. Again, go to Skillshare.com slash TSC to start your two months now. That's Skillshare.com slash TSC. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie.

And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. So I'm lucky to be here at nearly 28 years old, okay? I'm like every day I think my lucky stars and I'm still alive. And so then they looked at resilience, right? Like what makes somebody strong? And so part of that is epigenetics, right?

which is kind of the things that were predisposed to, but that aren't necessarily firing yet, but that aren't in us. The switch hasn't been flipped on. Trauma switches that flip on. So they looked at all of these different things, and there's a resilience test too. And if you're a very resilient person, then your chance of having those negative outcomes go down significantly. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her podcast. Today we have a very special guest.

That clip was from our guest of the show today, Alexis Haynes. On this episode, we discuss addiction, her reality show, family, babies, kind of everything. We go everywhere with her. She's such an open book and she's so vulnerable. I'm so excited for this episode. I have a personal connection to drug addiction. My sister was addicted to heroin for about five years and she's sober now. She's been sober for seven years.

and to go through that journey with her and to see what it does to a family and the user was just so, so intense and gnarly. So to go through this episode with Alexis and sit down and really hear her perspective was really interesting for me and almost therapeutic. Yeah, we've been covering this topic a little bit more. Like Lauren said, it's a little bit therapeutic. Everybody's touched by addiction in some regard, whether it's family, friend, relative, spouse, whatever. We first talked about it on episode 63 with Lauren's sister Faye, and since we've talked about it a few times.

And, you know, this episode was pretty interesting. I mean, it went into some pretty deep places that I don't know we were expecting to go, but I think it's relevant for the audience to explore people that have been through addiction and who've suffered. I mean, Alexis story, one, starting in reality television, that was, she was portrayed in a certain way, and then eventually ending up in jail, recovering. now doing amazing things in the recovery space. She's a doula.

A lot up. She has her own podcast. It's been pretty incredible to just see that journey, but to talk through it as well and see what an individual has to go through to come out the other side. And also I like to go deep with people and hear their history of why they became addicted in the first place. So how she was so open about being molested and going through what she went through with

her father and abuse was really eye-opening. And I think it's important for us as a platform to discuss these issues that may be other platforms aren't talking about. I know I feel really passionate about bringing someone who sort of had to go through darkness to see lightness on our platform, and I couldn't be more excited that it's Alexis. I mean, if you guys watched pretty wild the show on E, you know it's such a nostalgic show. There's so many amazing one-liners. And Alexis is not only beautiful. She's funny. She's charismatic. She's sassy. And man, she's got a lot going on. She's a mom, and she's also a podcaster. She's got her own blog. So she's kind of an inspiration to everyone. Since this episode is 70 minutes, we're going to get

right into the show. And I promise you guys are going to be obsessed. You ready? Alexis Haynes is a former American television personality. Shout out to Pretty Wild. She's a podcaster. She's a content creator. And she is a mom of two. Basically a badass. With that, let's welcome Alexis to the show. Michael Bostic, did you know I have a curated skinny confidential him and her page on Thrive Market? Lauren Everts, I did know that because I shop on it. It is banging, you guys. It is off the charts. I have everything from the raw almond butter I like to the Italian healing clay that's $5 that you just mix with raw apple cider vinegar to even the silver that I use.

Yes, silver for when I get sick. It has like my calm magnesium powder and even my favorite fiber gummies that have 28 grams of fiber in them and taste just like peachy rings. Guys, Thrive Market, like Lauren just says, they have it all. That small selection she just mentioned is nothing compared to the selections they have on Thrive. Everything, they source all of the best ingredients, all of the best products, all of the best companies. They also break everything down by section. So if you have a specific diet, whether you're vegan, paleo, vegetarian, gluten-free, whatever they have it. If you're a new mom and are looking for baby supplies, is that what you call it, baby supplies?

Yeah, they have them there. Household supplies, cleaning supplies, wine, meat, poultry, everything on Thrive. And it's all 25 to 50% below retail. It's efficient. It shows up right to your door. If you've been a listener of this podcast and you haven't checked out Thrive Market, I don't know what's happening because honestly you can go on there and get all your favorite snacks. I got Michael his specific pretzels stuffed with peanut butter, his candy that he likes. He has these little peach yum yum earth candies that he's obsessed with and even the popcorn. I'm constantly sharing my Thrive Market order that arrives right to my doorstep on my Instagram stories. And I have to say that this is a service that I will never stop using, especially if one. day we decide to have kids. One of my Dumbo friends came to me and said, hey, does that code really work? The one that you talk about on the podcast? And I was like, what the hell are you talking about, dude? Of course it works. Go to thrivemarket.com slash skinny for 25% off your first order and free shipping. Yes, even for my friends. I recommend it to everybody. Why would that code not work?

Of course it works. We've been talking about it for years. That's thrive market.com slash skinny. And make sure you check out my TSC at Curated page because it just breaks down everything for you. 25% off your first order and free shipping. Enjoy. Check out the curated page. Thrivemarket.com slash skinny. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Bob's coming on after you. I know. I'm so excited.

He's great. Today we're really excited for both you and him. Oh, well, I'm excited to be here. He has a lot of history, I think, that hasn't been, like, dived into. Yes. And it's really interesting to talk to him about how he developed celebrity rehab. because that's a really crazy kind of situation. You have to tell us if there's anything like that that we should ask him.

Well, this is why when you guys, when we knew you were both coming in, because originally we were going to do together. Together. Yeah, but we'd be eating each other alive because we're both talkers. And it's like, I have to, like, it's hard. And even going on his podcast with you, you have to jump in on top of him or else he just will talk the whole time. When I went on the podcast with him and you, I was like, no, no, no, these are separate

stories. Don't intertwine this. This is a separate story. and I think it's going to be so much more powerful to have each of you, like your star shine bright without each other. I just love that you guys are covering so many addicts. Like, you're covering Khalil, you're covering me,

you're covering Bob in this age where people are sober curious and they're looking at their relationship with health and wellness and well-being and things like that. Well, you know, like, I think it's really boring when people only want to cover the bright side of life. Yeah. I think that that just gets

repetitive. And listen, we have those shows that are very health and wellness focus and we do them. But I think you've got to show all facets, right? And so we try to go everywhere, sex, addiction, you know, bad relationships, good relationships, health. It's important. Well, and you, and if we look at ourselves in a holistic approach, we are all of these things. We are the good and the bad. We are the bad experiences and the positive experiences. And it's unrealistic to be in a place of joy and happiness all the time. And I think people are so accustomed to thinking, I have to be happy all the time. And so I'm depressed.

And it's like you're not depressed. This is just a phase of life and it's hard. That's so true. I agree, especially with social media. I am a personal believer that I think addiction almost starts before the addiction even happens, meaning like there's things that happened. I know my sister is an addict in childhood that I think maybe had to do with her eventually becoming an addict. Is there stuff that you can pinpoint before you started using drugs and alcohol that were things that maybe would make you more prone to dealing with a addict? addiction. I love talking about the ACE study, the adverse childhood experience study. It was done by

Kaiser Permanente and the CDC. And they looked at metrics, right? They took a group of people, a couple thousand people, and they looked at various forms of trauma, and then they correlated it with health outcomes. And most people would say, okay, you've experienced trauma, so of course you're going to have higher risks of suicide and depression. But they also looked at things like heart disease and lung disease, obesity, all of these various health outcomes. And then they measured how likely you are to experience those based on the amount of trauma that you've had. The other thing that they came out with a couple of years later was a study on resilience. And so they looked at how resilient people were. And they saw like, okay, so if you measured a nine out of 10, which is basically

a death sentence on the ACE study. Wait, so define that. Like death sentence. sentence in what regard? Like your chance of having cancer or suicide or depression or addiction is so high that like it's basically inevitable, right? And then you have- What were some of the criteria, though, to like come up with it? Like what makes you a nine? A parent that went to jail. Okay. And a parent who had severe depression or anxiety, a parent who had alcoholism, witnessing abuse, were you ever hit as a child? So there's 10 questions, right? And for me, I scored a nine out of 10. Wow.

So I'm lucky to be here at nearly 28 years old. Okay. I'm like every day I think my lucky stars and I'm still alive. And so then they looked at resilience, right? Like what makes somebody strong? And so part of that is epigenetics, right? Which is kind of the things that were predisposed to but that aren't necessarily firing yet. But that are in us, the switch hasn't been flipped on.

trauma switches that flip on. So they looked at all of these different things and there's a resilience test too. And if you're a very resilient person, then your chance of having those negative outcomes go down significantly. So for me, around four or five years old, I began being sexually abused and sodomized by someone, oh, I don't usually get emotional about this, but maybe just because the cameras are on, I'm feeling like a little bit. It's okay to get emotional. heavy um usually i can talk about this with like no problem um because i've done so much work but yeah i was like basically being raped like as a kid okay so um yeah and that went on for like several years and is this was this someone close to you yeah it was a family member he was 10 years older than i was

so he was 14 to 17. And I remember, I kept that secret until I was 18. And I remember it's just so clear as day what he did to me. And it's just so heinous. And like making a five-year-old perform all sex on you is like the most, like I have a six-year-old. Like I cannot even imagine. So I had that going on. My parents divorced when I was three.

My dad was an alcoholic. My mom was kind of like this really. free loving pot smoking hippie you know like chick who had like no boundaries and um who left the house at like 13 and and kind of raised herself and um so was she just not in the picture not paying attention or just not equipped to she wasn't that hands on especially after my dad left she got a nanny and she was into like really a lot of distractions herself because she i think she was in a lot of emotional pain. My dad ended up having an affair and left the family. And so there was just a lot of trauma. My dad was physically violent with me. So by the time I was like 12, and what people don't

realize is that early childhood trauma literally changes the way your brain develops, your prefrontal cortex, your amygdala, all of these things that need to develop, you know, between the age of early childhood through 26, if you're under an amount of a lot of stress or trauma, then your brain develops differently than somebody who didn't go through those traumas. So I was just constantly in a state of stress. Stress response was high all the time. It affected my schooling, my ability to have friendships and relationships, my ability to have healthy relationships with boys. It just was chaos. And so by the time I was 12 or 13, I was already like, how can I check out? My very first addiction was food, sugar.

I wanted to eat sugar all the time. It provided me with that dopamine hit. And then I had surgery in my preteen years, and the very second that I tried to bike it in, I was like, this is it. Wow. Yeah, this is it. And so I began, I graduated school early, and I started working in Hollywood. I wanted to be a model. I was working doing music videos, partying at Kid Rock's house, all of these things at like 17 years old.

And I was already full-blown addicted to smoking multiple oxy cotton a day. Wait, how did you get my question? Whenever someone says that to me, they said, I started taking bike it in and now I'm smoking oxy. What's the time? Like, how does that turn into that? So my addiction was really fast. I went really fast, really hard, and then I got sober. It just brought me to my knees.

And I always say, had I not gotten sober at 19, eight years ago, I would have died. Like, for sure by now, I just with the way heroin is on the streets, like, I would be dead. So I had the surgery, and I knew I really liked this feeling, but I wasn't able to get access to those type of drugs all the time. I would occasionally at parties and we would get lean, which is like the cough syrup, and we would get loaded a lot. I mean, I was also doing a lot of other drugs and substances at this time period, but I knew that I really loved opiates. Let's go back a little bit. How did you get out of that kind of like chaotic childhood home? Like what was the transition from leaving the house and going to L.A.?

So I didn't leave the house. I would go to L.A. and I would, we, Tess and I, my... And just give context to Tess for anyone who... Because I feel like you two together at that age with what you guys has access to was really dangerous. It was literally pretty wild. Like, they named the show perfectly because we were insane. Tess, I've known since I was about two and a half, three years old. And she's been in my life ever since.

She's lived with us. My mom has basically raised her and we view her as a sister. And she was a playmate at this time, right? She was not yet in Playboy. She was in Playboy's Cybergirls. And she ended up getting Cybergirl the Year and all that stuff. But this was about the beginning of that time. And so we ended up getting a connection, a very steady connection for OxyContin.

And we were doing, I remember partying at Kid Rock's house and going like, wait, we're partying harder than these people are, like all of them. And we're so loaded all the time. But I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Whatever. Like this is just how we are. And so we kind of, we developed this whole thing.

We said we were fraternal twins who are 20 years. years old so that way no one would ever ID us because we couldn't have ideas because we were 20, not yet 21. And we put on this whole thing and we would just get in our car and drive to L.A. And we knew every big club promoter and club owner and wealthy man in L.A. And, you know, they were whining us and dining us. And we were living this very extravagant lifestyle. And eventually we ran into what would then become the producers for Pretty Wild.

So can you give me, so I could not believe how many women were freaking out when you guys first collaborated on your show about Pretty Wild. Because, I mean, maybe as a man, I didn't know what it was. What, what exactly, can you guys tell me exactly like what the premise of the show was? I know now what happens on the show, but what, like, what was? It's iconic. It's iconic. I can't like it's it's such a nostalgic.

I can't explain it as it was like the hills kind of, but the hills, but for me, I like more real and it was so real. What year was this? It was back in 2009. Okay. So this is kind of what I think that the reason it became iconic was obviously like the bling ring is, um, was made into this huge kind of empire of its own, right? And kind of just explain backstory in case anyone doesn't know. I actually still don't know.

Okay. So I just want to touch base on why I think it became so iconic, though, is because there was like a peak in reality TV. Like we were kind of on the up trend and it was just peaking and it was like people didn't really understand that reality TV is like not that real yet. Like it was like everybody believed every, you know what I mean? So we got this show on the premise that we were like a little bit of a wilder, like kind of hippie, like extremely, like just really a cool, funky family that was

kind of similar to the Kardashians, but not. And Chelsea Handler co-produced it. It was on E back in 2009. And we didn't get picked up for a second season because my addiction was so bad at the end that there was just like, it was either I was going to go to rehab or prison for six years. That's how bad it got. So to back story to the blingering. A lot of people think that I was the leader and mastermind of the bling ring, which, you know, my husband's all like, I think that's the coolest thing about you. Like, I wish you could just like own that. But the reality is this, that Nick Prugo and Rachel Lee,

and actually, if you guys listen to Not Another True Crime Podcasts from Betches, oh, they just did an amazing blingring episode. It's so good. And probably the most... Were you on it? Did they call it? No, but they kind of dissected it. And it was the most authentic and closest to actually what happened.

start to finish story that I've ever heard. Because media, here's the thing. I think I know. I became the face of the blingering because it's not that exciting and sexy that two kids from Calabasas went and robbed a bunch of celebrities. I mean, that's like a story, but it fades out.

But the girl who has her own reality TV show and not just her own reality TV show, but that's a complete shit show herself because I was. Yep. It became a huge story. It became a headline. It became a headline. And so the bling ring for a little bit of a background is Nick, Nick Prugo and Rachel Lee.

And do you still know these people or friends? So I didn't really know. I only knew Nick. I only knew Nick for about four months. The reality behind the bling ring is this. Back in 2008 and early 2009, they were going into these celebrity houses multiple times. I think they hit Paraseltin's house like four to seven times before she even realized anything was stolen, okay? So they would kind of track celebrities. This was before, you know, Facebook and

Instagram kind of blew up. So they would figure out their addresses, figure out when they were at red carpet events and premieres and things like that. And then they would go and rob their houses. By the time I met Nick, he had robbed. I don't even know how many people at that point. And what does he say? It just comes down. I was like, hey, my name's Nick and I'm a robber? No. No, no, no. Nick is very good at putting on, he's two different people. Does that make sense? Yeah. He sounds like me in the morning.

Yeah. Right? Sounds like you every hour of the day. Yeah. He's just, it wasn't, it wasn't like a really like a known thing and it was kind of like you just don't ask questions. And then one night, Nick and I were out. We were at Baso.

Do you remember Baso, the Kiss Lounge? This was like 2009. It was the hot spot, even Longoria spot. And I was already blacked out, which was my huge, you know, during this time period. I loved Xanax. I love my oxy. I love to drink martinis. And so I was, yeah.

No, I'm telling you, like, I'm a tank. I don't know why I can, like, tolerate so much. It's insane. But I would black out, but I would still, like, survive. Okay? So we get in the car and he drives to this house and basically I'm there for one of the robberies, okay? And then fast forward a couple more months. I knew what happened.

We stopped talking after that. And by the way, you guys, I am no motherfucking Teresa. I'm not. I don't claim to be. I'm absolutely not. I don't really recall specific, like, what happened in that, that night. It's very fuzzy to me. But I will say this. Like, I was checking cars. I was panhandling. I was doing whatever I could. This was before I signed the $100,000 contract with E. Like, I had no money. Okay. I was not a good person, you know. So this situation took place. We stopped talking. I signed my contract with E a couple of months later. or maybe it was even that month or the month before. When you sign that contract and get that big of a check when you're in that state? You don't get that big of a check. You don't get it.

You don't get it. Over time. But it was gone within a day. Like I had, Tess and I together had a $10,000 a week habit. Wow. Yes. Yeah. And we were not really living in that house.

We lived in a Best Western. That's what they do. The show. They just put you in the house and pretends. The house is all lit. It's not really their house. It's, you know. Somebody asked me to go on a reality show one time and it was,

Like this situation where they wanted me to go in this fake house and I was like, I just can't do that. I can't do it. Everyone's going. Everyone knows. So when E comes to you, this had already happened. Are you in trouble at this point? No. So what happened was over, so over that summer surveillance video started coming out of Nick

and Rachel hitting all of these houses. Lindsay Lohan, Audrina Patridge, all of these houses, right? So I actually ended up calling the cops because I, when I realized like the severity of like what was going on. I was like, holy shit. And I called the cops. I tried to find out who Lindsay's manager was so I could, like, reach out. And I have the phone records to prove it. So I called the cops. And so what's funny is a couple of months later, so Nick got arrested. And on the second day of filming when the cops showed up to my house, I thought they were there to like get information from me. I didn't think they were there to arrest me, despite the fact that it was like the

fucking SWAT team. And Michael, just so just so you can have context, and this is what I think that I heard on your podcaster, you told me this. You thought you were filming like a happy reality show. You didn't know that they were going to manipulate it into what it became. Well, I think that there's a number of things. So I, when they signed up, they didn't sign up for the bling ring show and to follow me through this court case. They signed up for two Hollywood party girls and this kind of like hippie mom that homeschooled her younger daughter. And, like, we had, you know, this, like, really kind of lighthearted stuff. And then all of a sudden the second day of filming, I got arrested.

So it took a turn and they really had to work with it. But it is true that they absolutely, like, so certain stuff, like, so our dog wasn't really missing, right? They hid the dog. And then they watched us react and, like, freak the hell out that the dog was missing. Like, there was a lot of. it's loosely, it's not scripted, but it's... Somebody hides my dog and then pretends, and I find out they pretend.

That was really actually fucked up. They thought the dog was missing. Can you imagine it was an unpert? I just remembered that scene. They were crying the dog was missing and I didn't know that the producers had the dog. Could you imagine if a producer did that to me what I would do? That's like... It'd be the last day that producer lived.

Especially within the state you were. So you would make a great reality TV star because you react. Yes, my reaction would rip his fucking head off. Don't stroke the ego. You would not make a good. Sign me up. Okay, so they're creating all these situations and manipulating situations. So you just kind of go with it?

Well, we don't, I didn't realize that at the time I was a naive 18 year old girl. And when you loaded at this time? Oh, yeah, I was so high. I mean, when you go back and watch, like, my emotionally, emotional state and instability is comical, okay? It's like my highs and lows. I mean, if anybody's out there and is on drugs, they know. Like you're just so out of your mind that it's there was something though I have to say at the time you were 18 I think so I was probably I think I was 18 too when this was on there was something though that was like relatable with the way that you were with your mom like at that age you're giving your parents attitude yes like you're kind of bitchy you're not really into your own so for me it was a total C-U-N-T but that's how you are 18 you're like kind of an asshole you are you are um I think the drugs and amplified that. So then there was another episode where the producers hid their dog's pills. The dog

had just had surgery in underneath my bathroom sink in the house and then told my mom, go look for pills in the girl's bathroom. And then she would like come at me and like attack me. And I'd be like, what the that's like not actually my drugs. Like that's not like, hold up. My drugs are in my bag, which is hiding under the bed. Like they're not actually like in the bathroom. So she would, they would do things to provoke a response and then cue the most memeable meme of all times, which is me having a meltdown over Nancy Joe Sales article, right? That's what Lauren showed me. Yes. And I still get the best one to date. And if whoever created this could please send it my way, you know the opening script in Star Wars with the music? They wrote out the entire script that I said to Nancy Joe

Sales. And it's like with the music like rolling up. And I was literally crying. And I was literally crying. because it is so good. I'm just so grateful that I can look back on all of this now and be like laugh at myself. It's amazing. Like be able to be self-deprecating and to have a laugh because those moments used to like pain me. And now I'm just like, whatever.

It was a stupid reality show and I was loaded. It's a testament to the work you've done and it's great that you can look back and look at it, you know, in a fond life. Where the fuck is Nancy Joe anyway? Look at you. But I mean, you've had to... I have a problem. And I'll say you're not wearing a brown kitten heel right now.

You're wearing a polka dot pump that is so chic and high. So I'm not going to get that wrong in the intro. But behind all this, you've had to deal with like some serious trauma. Yeah. So I was raped again at 16 by a really big powerful man in Hollywood. And he's been charged with rape before and got off. I never came forward with it. What happened?

I decided, well, what happened was when I finally reported my early child of sexual abuse to the cops. Was that person ever punished? No. They wrote it off and he said, you know, sometimes kids just do that kind of thing, playing house and whatever. And I was like, he forced me to suck his penis. Like, I was five years old.

He, like, I can't even, like, I won't even go into details of how, I mean, that's, like, the least heinous of the things that he was doing to me. So, like, if you can even imagine, like, just how. like just horrendous and deviant and horrible. At five to... At like five to seven years old. Just horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

So, you know, the thing is about, I think it's 90 plus percent of perpetrators walk free. And it's just kind of like, am I going to really re-traumatize myself going through all this? No. For me, no. And I've got kids now. And like I said, he's powerful and has a lot of many. And I am just, it's just like a fight that I'm not willing to take on right now. So I had so much abuse and so much trauma and so much pain.

And I needed to numb out every single bit of it or else I was, I was going to die. And what did the drug addiction? Like at the time of the show, you're right. It did look super, super glamorous. Walk us through what it looked like your drug addiction. Because I know that it sounds like with the best Western, there was a really dark side that was not shown on the show. Yeah. I mean, the second we stopped filming, it was like, how can I get my next fix?

Like, where are the drugs? Where's my drug dealer? I would be driving in my, like, little Accura to, like, very scary parts of Los Angeles, to get really horrible dope. I was just so reckless and so out of control and just spiraling. And you can actually pull up old TMZ videos of me walking out of clubs, just completely annihilated, driving. to getting in my car and driving, which is just horrible and just falling out of clubs all the time. It was just not. What happened was, so I had the show and I had a drug addiction.

And then I was constantly bombarded by a paparazzi. And literally, like, it made me none more because I was just like, I can't take all of the pressure where they're like following me around and everywhere I'm driving they are. And it's just, it's really intrusive. and as somebody who's like dealing with so much going on. And I was also fighting a case that we knew because of a number of factors, one of which was the lead detective on the case was pretty sketchy and doing some pretty sketchy stuff.

We just knew that we weren't going to win this. I ended up taking a plea deal, which, you know, I look back on all of this stuff now, guys, and I've got to tell you, this is the very best thing that ever happened to me. Going to jail saved my life. Like, I am forever grateful for the way that this stuff, that it took me down, it took me down fast and that I survived it because I would not be here today. And as a mom and as somebody like just this morning, I did, you know, a post. I talk a lot about, like, social justice and about things that were going through in this country. And I talked about abortion.

And the amount of women that reached out to me and were like, oh, my gosh, you just have no idea this, the way that your story and the way that you. your truth just resonates with people and helps us. And it's just like, yes, like, this is why I was here. And, you know, they used to make fun of me on the show when I would say, like, I look up to Angelina Jolie and they only use the part where I said, because she's got a hot husband. But they left out all of the things that I really looked up to her for. I mean, like, growing up Angelina Jolie and Oprah and these, like, huge powerful women, like, were my idols, you know?

And I just was so sick. I couldn't be that person I wanted to be at that time. And it feels really good that obviously I'm no Angelina Jolie right now, but that I'm able to do my part, you know? I love a skill, don't you? Skills, if you don't have skills, you're done. No, you got to have a skill. And this is why we're such fans of Skillshare. So basically, my graphic designers, I have a lot of freelance graphic designers, have learned from this platform called Skillshare.

I've talked about this a lot on the skinny confidential blog and podcast. Skillshare is just a place where you can go and learn and get really, really good at one skill. So you can niche down on something you've always wanted to learn. To get very granular here, and we've been talking about Skillshare for a long time on this show. So Skillshare is an online learning community for creators with more than 25,000 classes in design, business, and more. You'll discover countless ways to fuel your curiosity, creativity, and, as Lauren says, your career. You can find everything from photography to creative writing to design, productivity, and more. Honestly, whatever you're looking to improve on, you can go to this website and improve on it.

So if you're a bartender, you work nine to five, or you just want to have a side hustle, I would recommend that you go to Skillshare and do some digging and really zone in on what's working for you. We just had a meeting here at Dear Media with the whole team. The team's constantly expanding. And we were just talking about people that are effective and proactive. And I was talking about Skillshare. I said, listen, if you're unsure and you're working in, whether it's your on the production team or the sales team or the finance team even, there are classes on Skillshare, taught by professionals, taught by young people, taught by creative people that can literally, you can jump into. And I just think for me, I'm always wanting to be a student of life.

I never want to feel like I get to a point where I know it all or I think I know it all. I always want to keep learning and studying. And with Skillshare, you can do that. Guys, you really don't have an excuse. Like I said, I'm about to give you an offer for free. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for free. Yes, that's right.

Skillshare is offering the skinny confidential listeners. Two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to Skillshare.com slash TSC. Again, go to Skillshare.com slash TSC to start your two months now. That's Skillshare.com slash TSC. Enjoy, guys. Pick up a skill. What was your rock bottom?

I had a number of them, honestly. Like, it wasn't. I had a number of, like, what I would call, like, profound kind of, like, spiritual moments that brought me to my knees. The one, I mean, going to jail, obviously, like, when you're in protective custody, you're by yourself 23 out of 24 hours a day in a jail cell. I have 100 questions about this. Hold on. Can you have a book? I have a book coming out in September.

No. Okay. About this. We'll talk about. Oh, no. I want to hear about your book, too. Do you have a book? I mean, do you have a book in there?

For 23 hours, because Michael might like that if you had a book. So you're allowed a certain amount of books. Yes. And there's kind of like a library. It's not a library. It's a box of books at the bottom where when you get your one hour out, you can go and switch out your book. But this was when Twilight was huge. And so I just kind of like read these fantasy books and kind of just try to dive in as much as I could.

And just like really I would just read like self-help at the time was like not for me because I wasn't. a place yet where I was able to help myself. You know, if self-help worked, then we would have cured all of our issues by now. Like, it's not, like, I was looking, yeah, to get out of my current reality. Is it hard when you're an addict and you go to jail and you immediately get drugs taken away? Well, I kicked and it was brutal. And there was a lot of, I mean, this is not glamorous, like shitting of pants and barfing my brains out and sweating and cold sweats and freezing.

and cold and like what I would consider many seizures and so much pain and body aching and I just it was the most horrific thing ever and then when I got out I guess I missed it so much that within a few months I was back because I got out and I couldn't stay sober and within I think it was four or five months the cops raided my house again because I couldn't show up to probation and I was getting loaded again and my addiction was at the worst possible place that it's ever been and I was just so done at that point I didn't know I was done I actually blamed the dope on my little sister Gabby which is so fucked up because she was like 15 I'm sure I'm sure she didn't appreciate that no but they knew it was in my wallet they caught me it was a point I had a point 08 which was

like nothing but I had a tutor because I was smoking at the time because I was trying to stop shooting out so much because I was, like, blowing out my veins all the time and missing, and it was horrible. Like, I was not a very good IV drug addict at all. I went back to jail, detoxed once again. That was an even worse detox than the one before because the one before I'd kind of been, like, tapering down because I knew that I was going to go in. And this one, I was just like a full-fledged junkie, like panhandling, considering prostitution,

just like just it just is it's the devil's drug I mean it is it takes you down so fast so yeah so I just I went back in and um at that point I was facing six years in prison I met my my I consider my guardian angel an amazing attorney Mike and he said are you ready to take responsibility for your life I had no idea what that encompassed but I said uh okay turn tell me what I need to do. And he said, you need to plead guilty and accept fault for all of us. And I was like, what? Like, you want me to acknowledge?

And it wasn't just acknowledging for me. It was that there was CNN in the room and all of the major news stations that were covering it. And so, but I did. And there was a very nice man in the room who offered me a year in his treatment center for free, Greg. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. had no money and no health insurance at the time. This was pre-Oabomacare. I went to treatment and I dove in. I went, I became a drug and alcohol counselor in treatment. I worked my steps. I went into intensive therapy. I was doing group therapy. I was still a total asshole and I was actually

voted like least likely to succeed and I'm like one of the last people that's sober. It's just I just dove in. Like I was a total asshole still and had no humility at all. And I feel like humility comes with time. It's not something that it's just going to come to you because you get sober. I had to be broken down time and time and time and time again in sobriety to become more and more and more. Not that I'm necessarily, I wouldn't say that I'm humble, but to have the realization that I'm no better and no worse than anybody else, you know, and that I don't have all the answers. and that's okay.

I saw you on Vice helping a friend, which was really inspiring. It's my ex-boyfriend, Kevin. That was, you were helping a friend who was still using drugs and you were sober and you were so clear-headed and he obviously was still using. Was Tess your sister at the same time still using? Like, how are you helping all these people around you? So it is just such an honor and a privilege that I'm able to help anybody. Like, I can't even believe that I help people today.

My husband owns a treatment center and we just, you know, we throw our life's work into alohouse. We throw our life's work into helping people because nobody else is really doing it. I mean, we have upwards of 65,000 people a year dying from this. It is a total public health crisis and nobody is doing anything about it. Was it like a 95% failure rate in the way it's treated currently? You know, something like that from the pharmaceutical companies. Yeah, it's really, really hard to gauge success, right? Like, we have people that remain completely abstinent.

We have people that go on suboxone maintenance after they leave treatment. We have people that smoke weed again. We have people that remain, you know, like there's so many. I mean, how do you measure success? For me, it's that you're not dying. It's not one size fits off. It's not. It's not.

And our motto, which I really love and I think is kind of, is a shift in treatment because treatment used to be really like heavy 12-step, which I totally disagree with because the 12-step programs should remain free. You shouldn't be profiting off of the 12 steps. I mean, that's total bullshit. And then the other bottle is kind of like this compliance base where like you don't know what you're doing with your life and you need to sit down, shut up, and listen to us because we know how to run your lives, which it's like, you're just a bunch of drag addicts in recovery too. Like, come on. Like, really? So what I think, though, is that our motto is compassion, not control.

And we really believe in connection. We believe that the opposite of trauma is to connect with people and to have that heart to heart eye to eye, that person you can trust to build that relationship. And I think that that's kind of, it's essential to long-term and lasting recovery. I want to know more about how you met your husband, Evan. So in my early days of recovery, I would go to this meeting. And Evan had about five years at the time. And I would just hear him talk.

And it was like, it was like God was talking through him. I'm not very religious. I'm super spiritual. But it was like everything he was saying, I was like, I want that. Yes, that resonates with me. And that's the amazing thing about 12th step is that it's really about just sharing your experience and finding the people you relate to and hearing the. the commonality and not the differences.

And so I'd hear him talk. But I went to meetings with like scarf overhead, big glasses, full of ego and like, fuck you. Nobody talked to me. You know, I'm a celebrity, even though like I was a total D-Less celebrity. You know, and I had this huge ego. And then I ended up having a couple of experiences in a really recovery that just brought me to my knees.

And I dove into the work, got better. And I returned to the meeting like a new person. glasses off, you know what I mean, like put together. I was in school. I was like doing the deal. And he was really attracted to that, but I didn't have quite a year sober yet. And so he kept his distance, but we would all hang out as a group of friends. And then after our first date, I knew that he was, I knew he was the one. And he dumped me on the second date. And I was devastated. So he felt a little different in the beginning. I think that, well, there was a number of things because I was so early in recovery and he was just starting Allo.

And I think he felt like the pressure from his business partners to not date me. And then the other thing was, and I think he admits to this is that he was really feeling that same way and it scared the shit out of him because he's had a lot of trauma. His mom committed suicide when he was younger. His dad was an alcoholic. He had his own issues. and so I think that made him run. But two weeks later, we were back together. How long had he been sober at this point?

Five years. Five years. Yeah. So we ended up getting back together. I moved in a few weeks later. Eight months later, we were married, and now we've been married for seven years. Lauren, if you don't describe me to other women that when I speak, it's like God speaking to you, I don't know if I can continue on in this relationship. When you just set the bar.

When you speak to me in the morning before 11, it's like the devil's speaking to me. She set the bar in compliments. I want a God. compliment. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, Evan is truly a very special and unique soul. And I think the majority of people say that about him, he just, he really, he's one of those people that's just really gifted at being such a compassionate and loving and strong human being. This is going to sound really weird, but you can tell, I know this is going to sound nuts, you can tell through social media. I don't know why.

Whenever I see your Instagram, you can tell he's a really good dad, a really stable partner. I know that sounds nuts, but just it, he just seems like a strong foundation. He is. He's definitely the rock. So he's a Libra. He's very, he's loving. He's artistic. He's grounded.

And I'm like, very much so a Gemini. I'm like crazy and just like, like all the time. Like, I got to do this. And I got to do that. And he's like, he brings me. Why does that sound so familiar? He brings me down to center, and I am really hard on myself. I think I have such high expectations for myself, and he often reminds me, like,

you're a great mom. I'm right now battling postpartum depression and anxiety disorder. I can't take meds. I'm about to start transcranial magnetic stimulation on Monday, actually. What is that? It's basically an MRI magnet that they stick on your brain that, like, zaps your brain and make, just try to make you. Is it like kind of like, do they call it?

It's not an invasive shock therapy. Okay. And so I go five days a week for six weeks and it's pretty brutal. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little bit nervous. You know, it's really interesting that you just bring this up because we just had a girl on Healthy with Nettie. She's a blogger. And she came on and said that nothing was working for her grandma.

Her grandma wanted to commit suicide. She was so depressed. And what you're mentioning is the only thing that worked for her. She's so happy now. I hope it works. I'm remaining positive. The thing is I don't want to fall into a deeper depression if I set my expectations really high and then I'm left disappointed if that makes sense. Well, that's wise. I really do believe in the power of manifestation and I do believe that I can heal from my depression and anxiety. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I know it is going to happen.

And it's just I've heard a lot of people that, you know, then it didn't work for them. And then they went and spiraled out of control. And like, I already feel like I'm kind of teetering on that, not going to lie, most days. So it's just, and people are like, how you have it all together. And it's, you know, come nine o'clock at night, I'm like, you know, I'm having intrusive thoughts and I'm exhausted and worn down. And I, and it's just something we're going through. It's definitely, I recognize it as a season, you know, it's not forever. Well, you seem extremely self-aware now.

I am very, and it's almost to my detriment. Like, I over-analyze all the time. Like, how am I feeling? How am I doing? What's my body doing right now? Like, blah, blah, blah. Like, I've almost become too self-aware, and I need to work more on surrendering. It's probably wise.

So touching, I know we're touching on children a little bit. You have two kids now. I met one of them, beautiful kid. I love that beautiful kid. Yeah, beautiful kid, it was. knowing kind of the... She had a little mask on when I was there. What was she doing?

Yeah, so we do a lot of imaginative play at my house. We do some of those plays too. Yeah, right? Throw your mask on. So, yeah, she had like a little mask on. And she loves to run around and be different characters. She tells me every day that she's a boy. And I'm like, okay, you know, all right.

Do you? Yeah, she's very... She's definitely a very... unbunctious two-year-old. So I have a daughter who's six, Harper, and then I have a two-year-old Dakota, and she's almost three. So knowing some of the trial, I mean, a lot of the trials that you've been through and raising two young kids as a young parent, do you, I don't want to say stress or worry, but how do you kind of guard against some of the things that you had to go through? Because there's a lot of young people listening to this that are having young children.

In the beginning, how I mentioned that trauma, you know, can increase your risk factor for a lot of these things. So it's not necessarily that we're constantly worried about our kids not coming under any sort of trauma. It's that we feel equipped enough to be able to handle their feelings and to acknowledge them and to help them process them in the moment. That greatly reduces the side effects of trauma. One thing that I've found with my six-year-old who is very sensitive and who is emotionally rocked kind of easily, despite the fact that I'm a very attentive parent, is that I found that emotional freedom technique tapping, which I do a lot for my own anxiety and stuff. And it's basically this tapping sequence that kind of forces your body to process trauma or big emotions and things like that.

I started doing it with her now, you guys. So like she'll be in a full on meltdown and I'll just start going, I'm feeling really anxious right now, but I deeply love and care about myself and I acknowledge my feelings as I'm starting to tap the points with her. And she'll start mimicking the things that I'm doing. And by the end of one round, she's on the floor laughing. It's kind of like, and so it is. A little bit, a little bit. It's like a thing to say with your kids.

Michael doesn't. Michael's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. And so it is our slogan. And I have it on my fingers. It was a really big, it was that was our thing was we, we talked a lot about manifestation. And we did. We manifested that show.

I mean, getting your own reality show is like one in a million shot. And we did it. And so, yeah, we always end our affirmations and things. like that would and so it is so yeah so i'm doing my best to just raise really capable resilient strong loving children and that is a full-time job in itself it's a lot of work it's definitely a lot of work and it takes a lot of self-care too because when mommy's not in a good place the kiddos aren't in a good place and my emotional dysregulation really affects them and so i do a lot of self-care i spent a lot of time at the four-season spot i'm not going to lie are you fucking kidding me i'm going to be

getting a facial, like I'm going to be left. It's important. The whole thing. So I also know you're a doula. I am a birthdula. Can you tell us about that? Because that's really interesting. Yeah. So I'm super passionate about birth work. I think I'm really passionate about body autonomy and about making informed decisions. And with my first birth, she was supposed to be a home birth. And we ended up transferring. I pushed her butt out at home. And so we transferred. And at the hospital, I felt like my body. went out the window and that I wasn't able to make informed choices because of the way I was treated. Right now in the U.S., we have the highest maternal death rate of any westernized country, and it's rising.

Is that true? Yes. And over 30% of women give birth via major surgery. And the World Health Organization says that that percentage shouldn't be any more than 10 to 12%. Anything over that is harming women. What the fuck's going on here? Well, we have made birth, which is for 90 plus percent of, of women a normal natural process and we've turned it into a medical system and it is quite literally

killing us. I became a birth dula because I wasn't happy with my birth experience. And when I started attending births, I became more and more passionate about helping women to make those informed decisions and to be able to maintain their body autonomy. So I'll give you an example. Standard medical care. Mom is having contractions. She's the first time mom. Doesn't really need. know what's going on with their body because it feels really out of control. She doesn't have a doula. She's taking birth classes at the hospital, which basically is just like a rundown of hospital policies and procedures, and you're going to birth the way they want you to at that hospital, which is why it's really important to choose the right doctor and right hospital and to have a

dula. So she walks into the hospital and she's about five centimeters, okay? She's laboring for a while and the doctor goes, you know, we're not really progressing as fast as we'd want. We're going to either, they're a, break your water, or B, give you an epidural and give you potosin. How do they break your water? They go in with this thing. It has like a little hook on the end and they pop your bag. Oh, fuck no. I'm not fucking, you're going to.

There's pluses and minuses. There's definitely been moments where I've seen bag of water help. And then there's been moments where it's been catastrophic. So, and that's a whole other conversation. But I'm just talking standard of care, right? So now we're already in intervention mode, right? Because people just think, oh, I'm going to get an epidural. and it's fine. No, it's a catheter. It's an IV. It's a yes. It's, and then it's in your back, right? And so you have

all of the stuff on, maybe you have oxygen, and you've been on potocin for a while now, okay? And your water's maybe broken. And so then you get a fever or baby gets a fever or your blood pressure drops from the epidural or whatever. And it's an instant C-section. That's just like one of the millions of things that I've seen as a doula, right? So that's like standard. woman walking in just not informed about birth that much, doesn't really know her options, and ends up having major surgery, which has complications for each subsequent birth after that, versus a birth that I was at the other day, or a couple of months ago, actually about a year ago. Mom had been in labor for a long time. Her water broke. We were out of the hospital.

We were planning for a birth center birth. The midwife starts running IVs, which that's another thing the hospital will put you on a clock from the time that your water breaks. And if you haven't had your baby by a certain time, you're having a C-section where if you're not in hospital, it's kind of like, just keep giving IV antibiotics. And as long as no one's getting a fever, it's okay. Ended up that mom did need to transfer. She'd been in labor for a long time. And we did go and we gave her her options. So she made an informed decision. We said you can either have IV drugs, which kind of are going to relax you so you can rest for a bit, or you can have an epidural. Here's what comes with the epidural.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. She opted for an epidural. What comes with an epidural? You're talking to someone who has no idea. So your risks and there's risks and benefits. She had been in labor for a long time. She definitely needed to rest. Baby was kind of a little stressed because she was really stressed.

She was a little dehydrated. So there's benefits to it in that. And there's absolutely times where epidurals are necessary. But then for a lot of people, it can stall labor. It can come with so many bags of ivy fluids that your milk comes in later. It can drop your blood pressure and then they have to give you basically, what is it, epinephrine, like speed to like get your heart rate back up. I mean, it can make you dizzy. It can only numb one side of your body.

It could not work. They could have to replace it. You get a catheter. It's like a whole slow. It's not just you get an epidural and you're numb and it's okay. And so. Listen, I said it once on this show. I said again, women have it a lot harder than men.

We do. Way harder. We do. But you know what? That's the thing is like what I'm saying. So what ended up happening was this mom. pushed for a long time. And then we gave her the option.

Do you want to have a C-section or not? And again, informed consent. We gave her all of the different rundowns of her options, and she made a decision. What's the difference? The difference is trauma. That mom who felt like she was just going with the flow and everything was out of control,

the first mom that I was talking about, and she didn't know what was happening, and they were doing so many vaginal exams and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, versus the other mom whose situation was a lot calmer. she was making decisions for herself. What do you think that the outcome of her mental state after each birth is going to be, even though they both ended in C-section?

That is so interesting. You're so right. It's like stress, trauma, cortisol on one hand. And then the other hand, it's more of a beautiful process. I'm getting a Dula, just saying, you know. Even if you have a C-section. Even if I have a C-section. Yeah.

Whatever you want. I'm getting a dula. I want a nanny. Maybe two. I'd like a chef, a personal trainer. I love my nanny. This is one of those situations where I'm just going to be like, you never know. I had the whole mommy makeover after the fact.

So I became a doula to help bring down those numbers of catastrophic events. I believe that if we want to change the world, it starts with moms because healthy moms raise healthy babies. And those healthy babies go out into the world and do big and amazing things. Tell us about your mommy makeover. You've been so open about it. And you know how I am with my platform. I have such massive respect for you on how you've shared it with your audience. Getting a breastlift was the best thing that I have ever done for myself.

Like, I didn't have great tits before. And so I always wanted them, like, a little bit perkier. And then I nursed two kids. And they literally were, like, empty tube socks. Like, it was so bad. And so much of that is genetic. Like, there's nothing that you can do to really change that except for surgery. And so not only that, but I had really bad diocese recti, which is, like, a muscle separation.

I had two hernias. I had so much loose skin. And then I had a really ugly C-section scar. So I went in and did the works, and it was the best choice that I've ever made for myself. What do you mean the works? Like, can you tell? I did a full tummy tuck, liposection of my flanks. I got my tits put back up to where they needed to be.

I've done liposection on my jaw line. I get my lips filled. I mean, I wouldn't have it any other way. Like, plastic surgeons are there for a reason. If you can afford it, then girl, hey, like, get it done. And here's the thing. It's like, people are like, oh, you don't love yourself. and that's so not spiritual of you.

And it's just like, boo, fucking who. Get out of here with that. I love myself so much. And I'm 28 years old this next month. Right? So I'm like, I'm not going to go the rest of my life with tits like these. Sorry. Like I want to be able to wear.

Yeah. It's your body. If you want to do what you want to do, you want to do what you want to do. Yeah. And isn't that refreshing that you can just say that. Like this morning on my thing, I got like baby killer and blah, blah, blah. Because when I was a 16 year old heroin addict at four weeks, I took the pill, had an abortion at home or whatever.

They just, you know, it's like the size of a, and I'm not like minimizing the experience because it was definitely traumatic back then. And it's like nobody wants to have an abortion, but I was 16, okay? And I was on heroin. And then at six weeks, then I got pregnant again later on. And at six weeks, I had a DNC. And you know what? And then as a mother, I had a loss.

And then I got the diagnosis with another baby, Dakota, my miracle child. of not compatible with life. We had a blood test and a CVS test. And I decided to carry on with that pregnancy. And so obviously, like for me personally, that's shifted, but I'm really glad that that option was there for me before. And it's just like being able to say this stuff and to be able to be free and to be authentically mean

to realize that like even if I lose, someone messaged me and they're like, well, I'm going to lose followers if I come out on Instagram. And I was like, you know what? Then they're not. Because you're going to grow your, then they're making space for your community to come in. You know what I mean? Like my community is inclusive. My community is women that love each other, that lift each other up, that can agree to disagree.

There are so many women that are like, I love your story, but I don't agree with that. And I was like, okay, I'm so glad that we can have civil dialogue via DMs about this really important topic. And most of the time when women hear my story about deciding. why I decided to carry on with my pregnancy with Dakota, it was because I had access to full-time child care because I was going to be on bed rest and I was going to be hospitalized with that pregnancy, and I was. I had access to great health endurance to finances should that baby actually be born and need tons of surgeries. We didn't know what we were going to need.

All of that. Most people don't have those luxuries. Most people who get abortions are below the poverty line. And they're not teen moms. They're over 25. So it's like the reality is I was just so fortunate to be able to have these luxuries that most people don't. And had my life ever been on the line, you better believe that I would have ended up having a late-term abortion to save my life. And I almost end up dying anyways. I had three blood clots in my right lung and almost died when she was days old. So it's like, health care should remain between women and their doctors, you know, period. That's just my opinion. And I don't even know how we got on this topic. I just think I just appreciate how authentic you are with what you believe. It's so free to be able to

say what you want. I hope that there's a shift with influencers and, you know, YouTubers or whatever it is where people can say what they really think. And it's like what you said about that girl that message to you. I'm going to choose to not agree with you, but I still respect you. Well, here's the thing. Exactly. What I, I think it's so freeing to be able to say whatever you want, and people should say whatever they want and however they feel it. And they shouldn't just do it because it's what they think society wants them to say and do. There's so many people that's like, you check a box of feminism if you support this type of feminism. But like there's another, there's another side that if they don't, and so I think that people just need to say what they want

and believe in what they believe and have no consideration to what everybody else thinks and feels. You have to do what's right for yourself and be authentically who you are. And the people that struggle with that are the people that are going to struggle through life. Listen, right now, I believe that we're in another Me Too movement with regards to abortion. One in four women have an abortion in their lifetime. And you would be surprised that over half of them are actually religious. And so here we have very loud religious people and Republicans. men for the most part yelling about, you know, pro, pro life, pro life, pro life, pro life.

And they're the loudest voice. And I feel like we're in a time now where women are coming forward to be a louder voice. You know what I mean? To be a louder voice and to be able to feel comfortable enough to scream from the rooftops. Like, this is my public, this is my private health care and I have a right to it. And you're not going to tread on me. And my belief is that if you're a religious person that believes that you're that you're pro life yeah then don't have an abortion that's fine don't have an abortion but you can't listen this goes with any religious person like don't push your beliefs on somebody else's body or life still there's a reason why there's a separation of church and state it doesn't really exist in this country even though it's supposed to this is where

we get dicey when it's like when you're marrying law with religion right because that that should be completely separate i believe everybody should practice their own religion and have the right to do so of course but when it starts crossing over into other people's lives and it's and those and it becomes law. That's what I don't, I don't disagree with that in any kind of, in any kind of subject. For anything,

absolutely. And it's, it's funny because the Republican Party, which claims that the party of freedom is trying to strip away so many freedoms, personal freedoms from people right now. And the Democratic Party is coming in and saying, no,

everybody should have health care and everybody should be able to choose what they're going to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it's kind of, we're in this very weird political place. And I feel like it gets people really riled up. And we're in a dangerous place because left and right are both completely wacky, right? It's like if you're far left and far right.

There's so many moderates. And so I'm, I would consider myself liberal, but also a moderate Democrat. And I can go to Orange County and sit down with my stepmom and her husband that my dad and her ended up getting divorced. I still call her mom because I love her. And she is my mom who are very much so Republican. And when we actually talk policy, we agree on 90% of. the issues. Yes, I think if you sit down and just talk to people and have common sense conversations, but this is why we're in a dangerous place in this country. We had an author

named Mark Manson on this show, he wrote the book, The Soutle Art of Not Giving a a Fuck. We talk about, we're in a dangerous place where it's like left or right, but there's so many issues that cross over, like, I may be very socially liberal, right? I don't give a shit what anyone's doing or who are they marrying. But you're financially more in the Republican. Maybe I might say, hmm, I don't know if I want the government in my pocket that much. Maybe I might have that conversation, but it's like you have to be on one side or the other. Absolutely. And we're in a dangerous place where it's like almost like we can't question one side of the other. And that's why I have a huge problem with where politics is at in this country right now,

which is also why I don't get too political. And I'm right there with you and I don't really, I won't sit there and banter with somebody over DMs over politics. I just won't. Like, somebody messaged me today, like Trump has been, and this came out of nowhere because I didn't even talk about Trump. Trump has been the best person for people of color. And I'm just like, I'm not even going to bother going toe to toe to with you, but I'm right there with you where it's not a matter of like, I don't want to be taxed more. I want you to stop funding wars and to put caps on drug medications and to, you know what I mean? I want you to like reprioritize where we're spending our money. You know what I mean? So it's like, yes, it's just anytime that there's extremism in any

movement. It's a mess. You're never going to be able to come together. And I feel like when we look at the Martin Luther King Jr's and we look at these huge monumental people, like, yes, they had a message. It was clear as day and it was right on. It's not, it's not so extreme. You know what I mean? Like it was. And it wasn't driven by money. And it wasn't driven by money. Yes. It was like, we're coming. Yes. Like, let's come together. We want our rights. We want. And it's, and those, those people were the movers and shakers of of that time and thank God for them. But it's, it's, yeah, I mean, it's hard. It's hard.

And you're never going to meet somebody with anger and get them to change. And when I hear people yelling at people on Twitter about not using the right pronoun and instead, you know, not taking the time to just say like, hey, can you refer to me as X, Y, and Z or whatever. And I'm all for all of that. Whenever I have like a troll, I'm always, I always like, it's. diffuse. You have to diffuse it. Yelling back at someone is not

going to solve anything. Here's the thing. I'm not interested in any kind of dialogue with people that are looking to be offended. If there's somebody listening to this show and they're waiting for me to say something that offends them and they're sitting there with their checklist and they're waiting like this guy's about to say something offensive. Get the fuck off my airspace. I just posted yesterday

about emotional maturity and EQ and one of the top thing Oh, the daily stoic. It's so good. The top thing of emotional intelligence is that you aren't looking with your pencil to say, oh, you've offended me here, you've offended me here. Because listen, people are human beings and we make mistakes. We're going to make mistakes.

Yes, of course. But people, you know, listen, people have to understand that mistakes happen. And if you're one of those people that's sitting around waiting for that mistake to happen so that you can get someone like. You're always going to be let down. Yes, and maybe reexamine what you're doing. This conversation was one of the most colorful podcasts we've ever had because we went, we hit so many different subjects. I actually don't know how you're going to title this episode. you're going to have a big problem.

Hopefully Taylor was taking notes, Taylor. You awake? Always taking notes. Okay. Why is your goddamn mic not on again? Mike's never on. She's always... So, okay, I want to talk a little bit about your business.

Okay. You're writing a book or you already wrote a book? No, I'm in the process of writing book right now. Good luck. That's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But you'll do it.

You'll make it there. We're hoping to launch in September, which is Recovery Month. Okay. So we'll hopefully have edits going by June. We'll see. Yeah, so it's amazing. So I kind of stepped out of the spotlight completely. I dove into learning about myself, learning about other people, trying to really get my recovery solid and have that foundation.

And then for the last year, I've been thinking about how I'm going to take this information out to the masses. And I wanted to do that through a podcast. It's the perfect platform to be able to have these really tough dialogues. And you have to be the type of person who's willing to learn from other people. You know what I mean? And I really am. I really find that interesting. So I'm having more guests on.

We're just having interesting conversations. So we're covering from reality is a podcast where we talk about recovering from life. Obviously, it's a pun because, you know, I was a reality star. But, you know, we're talking about life. We're talking about recovering from all sorts of trauma and how we can come together, learn from each other, relate to each other. and there's so much beauty in that. And I'm so grateful to be able to do that and to have it be as successful as it's been.

And I just am so looking forward to where it's going to take me. We're only 10 episodes in. You know what's so funny, though, you guys, is I think I heard about your podcast on the Morning Toast Group. And I went and I listened to the first episode. It's so good. There's something so soothing about your voice. I'm sure everybody says that.

You do have a soothing voice. You should. Like whisper into the mic. Yes. Michael, don't get a boner. So I love your podcast. I've listened to all the episodes. There's so many different subjects on there. This episode is going live in a month. But I was, if we're looking back, I was live on your. So it'll be next week. The great thing about podcast guys and audio on demand is they are there on the channel. So I don't think we have to. Okay. So I'm on recovering from reality. We did an episode. Yeah. I think your episode of like 11 or 12.

Episode 11 or 12. You are a badass. You're amazing. I think you bring so much depth to the influencer community. I'm so glad you were on the podcast. You can come back anytime you want. I'm sure there's many more layers. You're like a fucking onion.

Yeah, there's a lot. We could talk about a lot of different things. I'm so grateful to be here, you guys. Awesome. Pimp yourself out. Where can everyone find you on Instagram website? So you can go to at it's Alexis Haynes. that's H-A-I-N-E-S.

And then the Recovering from Reality is at Recovering from Reality. And then it's Alexis Haines.com and Recovering from Reality.com. And I'm so excited for my book to come out in September. And, you know, I love that I'm using this platform through Instagram as building a community, you know, and a community in a space for people to come and have really important dialogue and all of that. And it's just, it's just awesome. I want to say something on this episode that I wanted to say mid-episode, but I thought I would leave it for the end.

If someone's out there and they're listening and they're struggling with addiction or depression or anxiety, where would you point them? Is there a number, a website? Yes. You can always DM me. I run health insurance benefits for, I can't even tell you how many people a week. We will do it. Even if we know we don't take you, we will do it and run it. And we have our whole insurance department in our business at Allo.

And so we'll put you in the right direction at least. so that way you can get help. You can visit us at AlloRecovery.com and right when you pop in, it'll have like a little box where you can start typing and talking to somebody or you can call. And like I said, you can DM me anytime and I'm on Instagram really late because I don't sleep. Wow. That is a very, very cool thing that people can DM you right through Instagram. Yes. I mean, I'm always here to help.

I get calls from moms at like 9 p.m. I'm like, okay, I'm getting in my car. Let's go get her. That was an amazing podcast. I got to end it with, and so it is. And so it is. And so it is. That was rad.

So good. Guys, I don't know about you, but I absolutely loved this episode with Alexis. You can also find me on her podcast recovering from reality. She is a boss. As always, let us know your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at the Skinny Confidential. And someone from the team will drop into your inbox and send a few of you pink, sparkly popsockets.

With that, we will see you guys next week and make sure you rate and review the podcast on iTunes. This episode was brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market is your one-stop shop for high-end, high-quality, and highly discounted groceries, supplements, beauty products, household supplies. Thrive Market guarantees its customers 25 to 50% below retail on all items because it cuts out the middleman. Go to Thrivemarket.com slash Skinny for 25% off your first order. And free shipping.

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