The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Brandon Novak Speaks On Jackass Fame, Fall Out With Bam Margera, & Getting Clean | The Connect

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Brandon Novak became a household name in the early 2000s after becoming a fixture on the hit shows Jacka$$ and Viva La Bam. But despite the success of fame and professional skateboarding he lived a dark life full of crime and drug addiction. After two decades he's gotten clean and found his calling in life; helping others. Brandon joins the show to tell us all about his life and road to recovery. Support Brandon's Work and Recovery Homes! Website: https://brandonnovak.com/ Novak's House: https://www.instagram.com/novakshouse/?hl=en Support Our Sponsors! Fum: https://tryfum.com/ Promo Code: CONNECT Hello Fresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/connect50 Promo Code: CONNECT50 BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/ Promo Code: CONNECT PrizePicks: https://www.prizepicks.com/ Promo Code: CONNECT Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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anything a thing. I had been medevac to like four different hospitals and four different states from four different overdoses. My mother had bought me a plot. People had taken life insurance policies out on me. Like, I was expected to die. Today we have on Brandon Novak. He is best known from Viva La Bam with Bam Margera, CKY, and the Jackass franchises. This guy has an amazing story. He started off as a professional skateboarder on the streets of Baltimore. He became strung out on heroin by the time he was 17 years old. Then he met Bam and became one of the stars of those series back in the day. He was in some amazing stunts. And finally, after 20 years, after all of this crazy stuff in and out of jail, rehab, he finally kicked his heroin habit at the age of 38. And now

he owns sober living houses and rehab centers on the East Coast. He's also written several books, and he has a documentary coming out about his time on Viva Labam and Jackass. This guy has an amazing life and an inspirational story. So without further ado, enjoy Brendan Novak. What I know to be true today that I did not see at the time, that was the very first moment in a series of events that took place to this outcome that created a change. That's when I see the lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches.

and he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Brandon Novak. Thank you, buddy. Dude, thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

I mean, like the West Coast version of Baltimore City. Where? Oh, right down here. Yeah. I wasn't expecting what I came into here. But I feel like South Central is way nicer. Like, I feel like, does Baltimore still have the corners that we saw on the wire 15, 20 years ago?

Nothing's changed there. And it's funny that you said that because coming here, I was, I knew where I was at and I kind of could see what was going on in the neighborhoods, but yet they all had really kept fucking grasses and lawns. Yeah, exactly. That's LA, dude. Even the hoods look nice. Yeah, like, who the fuck in the hood takes care of their yards?

Dude, I thought of you today. I knew you were coming on the show and we're going to talk about drugs and drug addiction. And I'm at a diner getting some food and this junkie walks in and he's walking around the tables asking people for money and food and he just starts grabbing food off of people's plates and shoving him into his mouth and I'm like oh this is fitting who's gonna tell did you ever get that bad I was never hungry right like I was two things in life as an addict I was fucking sick trying to get well meaning get more heroin or high and just comatose fucking state of like surviving and maybe a snickers for dinner right right like I didn't

And, you know, food wasn't really on my list of things to make happen. Well, so let's start from the beginning because you look like a different, you are a different person. Yeah. I was rewatching like, you know, Jackass and some Viva Bam videos. And it's like, it's, I'm looking at a different human being. So were you using in those days? Oh, 100%.

Um, you know, it's funny. So, so Bam and I grew up skateboarding together. Okay. That's your background, right? Yeah. Yeah. that's what kind of led me into all of this with skateboarding. That's the commonality between all of us.

Yeah. The majority of us. And you're from Baltimore. The west or the east side? East. Okay. And yeah, that's right, because that's the white side. It's like, it's the culturally diverse mixed.

Right. West is black. Right. Good luck if you're white. Yeah. Totally. Over there trying to score. Like I'd go over there trying to score heroin.

I remember one time I, this shop, it was red and white 25s in Park Heights. Park Heights for a white guy is really off-limits. Even if you're buying dope? Yeah. Really? Check the story out. It's a midnight shop, midnight to six, park heights. I'm sick.

I have some money. We go over. There's this long line of people getting served. I jump out. I have a hood on and some shorts and I'm in line and I get up to the front of the line and there's three guys. A guy standing, a guy on a bike and a guy standing. One guy has a gun in his hand.

is just making sure the everything runs smoothly. The other guy on the bike is handing out the bags and the guy standing some is collecting the money. I get up and I go to hand the guy my money and he looks at my skin and he just refuses to take the money. He will not take it. And then another guy comes up and tries to take it. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.

The third guy with the gun who's making sure everything runs smoothly literally puts the gun to my head and said, white boy, I'm going to get you out of this neighborhood. One of two ways. You choose which way. and he walks me back to the car, gun to my head the whole time, get in the car and fucking leave. Never took your money?

Never took the money, nor served me the heroin. I mean, racist, but very principled too. There's ethics. They stick to their racism, you know? That's West Baltimore. All right, you guys, listen up. I need a minute of your time to tell you about the best new product on the market. That is not hyperbole.

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order the journey pack and stop those bad habits today. Thank you so much. much to fume for sponsoring us. That is wild. So I, I mean, they do it differently in every city. They do. Because you go to New York or you go to Philly or Newark, if you are a white person there to score drugs and somebody

robs you, the kingpin, whoever owns that corner will fuck that guy up because they're like, we want you being nice to the customers. Yeah. We don't want them going back and telling their junkie friends, hey, don't go to this corner. They're very business savvy. And Philly, I started copying in Kensington at the end when I'm like living with

and can't get back to Baltimore. And I remember the first time I went to the block. And in Baltimore, it's all blacks. In Philly, it's all Puerto Ricans for the most part. And all of a sudden, on this one block, I have like five Puerto Ricans coming up, offering me the same heroin. I'm like, who's trying to rip me off here?

But that's how it works. In Baltimore, it's one guy that has the specific heroin. Wow. Like, it doesn't branch out. And is that because they're so ready to use violence that one guy is able to, like, monopolize, a corner? Yeah, yeah, definitely a stronghold. But then there's also people in Baltimore you have to look out for that'll burn you, burners. In Philly, they're not burning you, just like you said,

really good business ethics. Did you ever get burned badly? Oh yeah, yeah, lots of, dude, what would that be like? Losing your money when you're dope suit? Dude, it's a new chapter, it's a chapter in my book and it's, one night I'm in this abandoned house and I'm, I'm renting the abandoned house. I rent a room from this guy named Slim for $10 a night. We're leaving. It's like four in the morning and I have a room upstairs and in the living room, uh, there's milk crates with a piece of plywood on it and some candles lit and there's about four people around this plywood smoke and crack. And there's a woman there with a baby in a stroller, right? And me and my two friends make it Alexia and Caleb are their names in the book.

We're leaving. It's four in the morning and they call me back in. And they know that I have $10 stashed in my sock. And they're trying to get the tax. I don't have the money. I don't have the money. Finally, two women, fucking strong army, yoke me up and give me the money, give me the money.

This money is like my lifeline. There's no way I'm coming off this. I will be ill as a research monkey really soon if I give this up. And I hear the one lady say to the other lady, four in the morning, baby in a stroller, smoking crack by candlelight, and I hear the one light say, give me the knife, give me the knife.

What I think is handed a knife to the woman, starts stabbing me in the head. I find out they're stabbing me in the head with a fucking ink pen. I give the 10 bucks up and then just run out. Oh my God. It took me getting stabbed in there with an ink pen four times before I gave up $10.

Yeah, because, I mean, look, that's, that's like your relief. Yeah, that's. That's my everything. It's everything. It's a $10 bag of dope. The $10 literally dictates the terms of my day and what direction it's going to go in. How much money were you spending a day at your height? As much as I could come up with.

Talking $100. A good day, a few hundred. Like what do you need to stay well, I guess? What's your minimum? 30, 40 bucks. Yeah. And they sell $10 vials of heroin? Or how does it work?

Bags of heroin? Like glassine bags. In Philly, yes. in Baltimore, like little kind of zip lock, you know, like real tiny little. Yep. But now the game has changed. I've been sober for over eight years. And I hear there's like the bags of heroin are $3.

Wow. Three and five dollars. I mean, I imagine. So if you fucking can't come up with three or $5 a day, you have no business shooting dope. Dude, junkies are some of the most resourceful, energetic go-getters I've ever met. They're always fidgeting. They're always fidgeting. And they know how to like make heroin rigs.

Like, that's not easy. Like, you take skill to know how to shoot dope. Like, did you have somebody to teach you how to, like, get the cotton ball wet and, like, tie your arm up? Well, the irony in that is I didn't have a teacher, but at first when, so like it's a progression that happens. Start out with the pain pills. You're buying them. Hang on. You know what?

Actually, I need to know the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, how people can sit around an abandoned house with a baby in their stroller. Yeah. smoking crack on night. That's, it didn't start that way. No. It started with deep pain, I assume, right?

Yeah, it's all connected to a much deeper fucking issue. It's, it's because I'm in these like sex addict meetings now. And it's, you know, I'm learning so much about it. I don't know. That's what I told my girlfriend who caught me cheating trying to, you know, trying to get back in her good graces. Right. Honey, I'm an addict. I got a disease.

But it's a displacing. The addictive act is just displacing. hopelessness, right? What it is, is, is, so the, the fucking masturbation, the heroin is the solution to the problem. Right. Right. The real problem lies in self, the thinking, the attitude,

and the behavior. Right. Right. It's the behaviors that lead me to a needle in my arm or a cock in my hand. Right, right, right. So, okay, let's start at the beginning. So you're a good kid, you're a skateboarder, East Baltimore. Yeah. Your mother is, is like a genius. Yeah. A nuclear physicist.

Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Father was the outlaw. Yeah. Hell's Angel. He was an arly guy. Yeah.

Amazing. It was around just enough to let us know he was not around. Like just pop up every now and then. Yeah. Just to make you miss him, right? Yeah. Exactly. Right?

Just kind of like sticking just the head in, if you will. Did he provide support financially? When he could. When it made sense. So was he actually running with the angels like doing illegal shit? Yeah. He spent a lot of his. his time incarcerated as well.

You know, so... Was he selling dope or... Dope, meth, Coke. Yeah. Growing a lot of herb. Yeah. And just kind of caught up

in that lifestyle. Right. So as a matter of fact, at a really young age, I recognized the psychic change that takes place upon an individual once they ingest a drink or a drug. Because my father was like the nicest guy in the world.

But when he didn't come home to make dinner at 5 p.m., because he was in like an excellent cook. And we heard him, and his biker buddies pulling at three or three 30, we shook like leaves because we knew as a direct result of drugs and alcohol, his behavior would come erratic and sporadic to say the least and unpredictable.

So I could see the difference take place. So I actually live with that after school special or cautionary tale of what never to fucking become. And I excelled it most things I did in my life to prove that I would never be that man. So your motivation is to be different than your father. Yeah, yeah. So your skateboarding is like an outlet, right?

Skateboarding at a young age. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, total wine and more is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total wine and more. Your Memorial Day made easy.

Shop total wine and more in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. Skateboarding for me at a young age did what drugs and alcohol did for me at a later age. Right? Like you give me a skateboard at the age of seven and put me in a room with the world's prettiest models. I'll not only believe that they've been waiting for me, but that they're dying to marry me. Right? Like drugs and alcohol later on down that row would create that same delusional narrative.

So it gave you power. Yeah. It gave you an identity. Exactly. Give me something to like fucking rest my morals and values on. It's not talked for me. And on the surface, it's not a bad thing because it's skateboarding, you know? And I did really well with it. So were you pro? Because I don't know anything before Jackass. I don't know your background. Yeah. Did you become pro? I was designing my pro model for Powell. So Bucky Lysick, who was pro for Pau, also from Baltimore, took me under his wing.

And he is the guy that introduced me to Pau, got me sponsored. And we'd come out to Cali all the time and stay at Hawkshouse and, you know, tour with all those guys. How old are you at this time? 14, 15. Yeah, you come up young. That's the thing about skateboarding is like you can go pro when you're a teenager. Yeah.

So we had met Bam going to this skate park in Pennsylvania called Sheepskates. And at the time, Bam was not sponsored. I was sponsored by Powell. Bucky was pro for Powell. Bam wanted to ride for Powell. When I met him, I knew he was going to be a fucking problem, right? Because, like, we were the exact same. We dressed the same.

We talked the same. We act the same. We skated consistently. We were outside the box kind of trick guys and rode miniram. So all of a sudden, we clicked up, became thick as thieves. And every year, we'd practice for this contest. the NSAs in Bricktown, New Jersey. And he would win or I would win, religiously.

And one year, I didn't show up to this contest, but Bucky did. And Bamb goes to Bucky, yo, where's Novak? And Bucky says, I think he's on heroin. And Bamb's like, what is that? Such a young age, like, he didn't even know. And at this point, Bama got sponsored career, continued to fucking excel. Mine, I chose to pursue heroin and steady decline.

At 15 years old? At end of 16, 17, I was a full-blown heroin addict. Wow. So before then, it was, was it smoking weed? Yeah, I would steal it from my father. Yeah, yeah, the typical progression, nothing different. But the thing is, would allow me to get a little further out to see to where I wasn't like, kind of salvageable or preventable from going down this path, was that I was already

successful. So people believe that there was a method to my med. and it looked like I knew what I was doing because I, you know, I'm touring the world with Powell Peralta. I'm designing my pro model. I stay at Hawkshouse in the summer sometimes. Yeah. So you're kind of a star in this world at a super young age. No accountability in my life. Like most people at this point are getting jobs and there's a boss to be accountable to. And sure. And my boss looked like this guy, Todd Hastings, who was the team captain for Powell. and I would skate to the 7-Eleven

and pump like $3 worth of quarters in the pay phone and call him and tell him like the new tricks I'm learning and the videos I'm trying to film. That was it. It's rad, though. I mean, so it's almost like being a child actor. You know what I mean? Dude, I always say like if I... You don't really have a childhood. No, no, it was that. You went straight to pros.

And it was made truly is my god-given talent, right? Like, you could be the best ping pong player in the world, but God might not see fit to put a pad on your hand. When I was given that skateboard at seven, that night, my mother put me to bed. She said, Brandon, what would you like me to do with this skateboard? And I said, I want it in bed with me. She said, why? And I said, because if I die, I want it to go with me. Like, no, I'm not even fucking about. Like, the moment that board touched my hand, I knew that I was going to skateboard

for the rest of my life. Wow. I knew, like, there was no plan B, a trait, an option. I wasn't focusing on school or fucking getting a. So, but yet you let this drug or drugs kind of destroy it. I believe in my case that I was genetically predisposed. My father was an addict and his father was an addict. My mother and- So do you feel then that your addiction was simply genetic and not you trying to displace from like pain that was caused by your father or something else?

I think it was all of that, all of the above, right? Like it was genetics. It was me trying to escape a fucked up reality that my drug addict father created for us. And it was me also being allowed to check out. of a life that was kind of like very climatic, right? Like a high energy, high production. Yeah.

A lot to live up to at a young age. Right. So it allowed me to kind of just check out for a little bit. So you were stealing your father's weed from a young age? Like how old? Like, probably 10, 11. Today's episode is sponsored by Hello Fresh. America's number one meal kit.

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You got to take care. This is the only thing that truly matters is this thing up here. Okay. So go over to BetterHelp right now. BetterHelp.com. promo code connect for 10% off of your first order. Thank you, BetterHelp. So are you getting high as you're doing? all the skateboarding and here and there, right? Like it was a really gradual thing. But my father, my mother started out at Mercy Hospital. She got a job at 15, drawing blood for $5 a pop. She was a phlebotomist, literally worked her way up the ladder to become a nuclear

physicist on the board of Mercy Hospital. But in doing all that, it required fucking time and energy. And she needed to be places that didn't consist of watching us. So she would either two things, like take me to the hospital and I would just skate in the parking garage all day or have to leave me with my father. And when she'd leave me with my father,

he would take me with him to like all the strip joints where he would conduct his business and he'd be in the back doing business and the dancers would sit me on a stool at 9, 7, 8, and poor shots of ginger ale and Coca-Cola in these shot glasses.

So I would do the shots, the girls would applaud, my father, you know, so I was kind of being like molded into, unbeknownst to me. Yeah. I remember riding around and my father would be smoking herb in the car with their bike buddies and a cop would ride and they'd kind of lower the joint. Yeah.

You know what I was just learning it unbeknownst to me. Totally. So it made sense. And my father would like. So when did the heroin come into play then? And how? Like did it go, did you move to Coke first or did you just go straight to smack? No, it was like a lot of, it was herb and then the pills, kind of the part of the

But what happened was I gotten to contact with this guy who was selling large amounts of herb, you know, boxes of 20, 50 pounds like that way back in the day. And I was really intrigued by him. And he sought me out because, and then I started like smuggling money for him out to California to his Mexican people because I was this little kid who was really innocent. I lived in the airport traveling and he knew that I'd be great for his business. So they'd wire me up with like, you know,

100,000, 200,000 at a clip and I'd fly out here and this little Mexican woman would meet me at the hotel. I'd unload the money. And he was super successful. And I really started getting into the way he lived. He was really disheveled, drove a fucking Lexus, nice Rolex, beautiful fucking girlfriend, eating at like Ruth Chris.

And I kind of bought into that, but he was a heroin addict. And I was so fascinated with the way that he lived and the respect that he got with like such minimal effort. But he always had one of those little bags with a Ziploc and he always had a pen top. And he would just stick the pen top in and hit it. Right. And in the beginning, he would pay me a hundred bucks just to ride into the hood with him to buy. And I just do it because why not? And then, you know, it's kind of like you keep going to the barbershop.

sooner or later you're going to get a haircut. One day I found it fascinating and appealing enough to give it a try. But before I bought it with him, I sold like one night I sold like 20 pounds of herb to this guy. And he paid me, but he was short like 500 bucks. And he gave me a couple grams of raw heroin. And I wasn't even thinking about it.

I put it in my sock drawer. I'm still living at my mother's house for Christ's sake. And are you also skateboarding? That's fading out. Okay. So you're getting a little bit old. Now like. Why did you let the skateboarding fade out?

What happened? You know, I lost interest, right? I really, my disease started to progress in a way that I had no idea how powerful it was becoming and I was really underestimating the severity of the situation. And the further I got out, the more disconnected from reality I became and the things that I genuinely loved in the beginning that provided this happiness unlike anything else started to become an inconvenience. Yeah.

Right? And now I wanted to like have no responsibilities, adhere to nobody's schedule or time, not break my body off creating this awesome video part when I could just hang out with B and fucking make, you know, whatever. All this money. Whatever. Yeah. It's such a young. I thrive on like, you know, being told not what to do. Yeah.

Totally. Right. Fuck that. Yeah. Well, this all makes sense with skateboarding and jackass. And you, you know, your father being. outlaw. Which, and then ultimately, if you think about it, then fast forward, ending up in Viva, Alabama and Jackass and CK.Y, the role that I played was literally a junkie's dream, right?

The more outlandish my behaviors were, the more outrageous my antics became, the higher in demand I was, the better the ratings were, the more money I made. Right. That's a fucking junkie's dream. Right. I know. I know. But you're also like, it's weird watching some of those clips. You were kind of the guy. I mean, everybody was trying to up the ante. Everybody was trying to do the most outrageous shit. Stevo had a lot to do with that, you know, his energy. But you were the guy that Bam was like picking on.

For sure. Like the butt of a lot of those bits. Absolutely. Where he threw water in your face on one cheek. So you turn the other way and he just fucking whops you with a boxing glove, dude. So did that, I mean, I assume you were on dope then. Like you were, you were. So if you look at the scales of justice, it played in my favor, which the majority of the public sees that and they say, oh, this poor guy, right?

I don't know if you're a heartless fucking sex addict ass would say that, but I think, you know, a lot would. Well, I feel bad. No, no, no, no, I'm just totally fucking with you. I assume. No, no, no, you can hurt me. All, all true. But did that hurt your feelings, though? Like, did that accelerate your bitterness?

No. And make you use more. What people don't see the behind the scenes that majority of people are privy to is that like prior to that, right, Bam, and offered me an opportunity because, again, I pursued a career in heroin. My life went to shit. Yeah. I became like a homeless heroin addict in Baltimore City. I was prostituting my body, letting men blow me to get money to buy heroin.

Like fucking basketball diary straight up. Okay. To a team. So let's not, let's not skip ahead then. So he, Bam, kind of saved you. Okay. So to bring it back. Yeah.

So we'll bring it back to when you first got into heroin. So Bucky and I would go to that contest. Yeah. Right? Right. In Bricktown, New Jersey, where Bam would show up and either he'd win or I'd win. One year I don't show up. Bam does.

Ask Becky where I'm at. Buggy says heroin. Bam's like, what's that? Around 17, 18. A few later, a few years later, I pursue the career in heroin. I go to complete shit in Baltimore. Right? Like I'm literally eating out of trash can.

I'm letting men blow me for money to get heroin. So is that a market, by the way? Contracted hepatitis C at that point. Right. Like, I'm out there. From popping? Banging, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the chapters in my new book is called the AIDS needle I shot up with. Like, that's kind of where I took things to. And it wasn't that, but it was me talking about being in this abandoned house, right? Do you have HIV? No. Okay. Thank God. Wow.

Here's how, here's the insanity of my identity. addiction, right? So there was this clinic that would pay you, a harm reduction clinic. If you'd go in and you'd get your blood taken, they'd pay you 35 bucks to take your blood, right? And while you were there, they would give you clean water, clean cookers, clean cottons, clean needles. But then they would give you $40 if you came back and got your results, right? Just to kind of let awareness know. So one day I'm sick, I go in and I get the fucking blood, 35, go up, cash the check. And I have no intention to go back to get the results. I don't want to fucking know.

Because like it's a very real possibility I had contracted. Like I live like that. Yeah. And one day I got so sick, the pain became so unbearable. My, my hustles fell through. I'm like, fuck it. I got to go get the results. I go back.

They give me the check for 40. And as the doctor, so I said, doc, please, please, please, please do not tell me what these. And I try to run out the door. I swear to God, totally try to fucking run out the door with the, a check for. 40 bucks you thought I just fucking robbed the bank of a mill. He puts his foot in front of the door. Bam, the door won't open.

He said, Mr. Novak, by law, I have to tell you. You can thank God. You don't have HIV, but I regret to inform you. You do have hepatitis C. And I fucking gave him a high five. Not even fucking around. Like, that's the reality of life. That's true.

That's like when it's like every man who goes in there, you know, after he's just gone raw. and he finds that he only has chlamydia and you're like god thank i just hit the megal millions i love this calamity i'm back tomorrow exactly dude so but to to clear the record later years later after i got sober they came out with this miracle drug called harvone yeah you can get rid of it now it's not yeah yeah you can get rid of it now yeah yeah yeah that was like a big blessing for me but so um so how did you so you're you're rolling around so i'm in balsmore i'm fucking doing the most ungodly things to come up with money but you first first you start sniffing i start sniffing i start sniffing

Right? And then, you know, you sniff a bag as $10 a bag. Let me ask you this, because it seems like, and I could be, I don't know the stats, I'm going off of anecdotal evidence, but it seems like there are more heroin addicts that come out of places on the East Coast. Do you think it's because they have powder heroin? Like back in the day, the West Coast was strictly Mexican black tar heroin. Yeah.

And you can't sniff that shit. So you have to go. You can just like liquefy it and drip it down. You can smoke it, but like, you can't. shooting it's tough too. Right, exactly. Because it's black and you can't see when the red comes up to know that you're on the vein. Oh, interesting.

It's a tough thing. But do you think the fact that that China white that was basically just an East Coast staple back then, do you think that got a lot of people hooked because it kind of looks like coke? Sniffing seems a lot easier to do than a lot less gnarly than shooting it into your veins. Do you think that's how people get into it easier because you can sniff it and you, you can rationalize yourself, well, I'm just sniffing it. I'm not really a junkie. Do you think that's what makes more heroin addicts over in places like Baltimore and like Philly? I mean, that could be a narrative. Yeah. I don't discount or discredit that. Okay. Absolutely. But there's a

million reasons that you can justify or rationalize why I'm doing a bag of heroin makes sense if you're a drug addict. Right, right. You know, I'm only sniffing it, not shooting it. Right. I do it because whatever. So how, so you start sniffing it. And what was that euphoria? What was it like? It's like, it's it's like a never-ending orgasm while fucking fingering God at the same time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like if I could put it into any kind of word. Sure. That's beautiful.

It's poetry. That'd be a great painting. That's just fucking visual. I want that painting. Yeah, you are Irish, dude. That was poetic. Oh my God. I just shed a tear. Finging God. So I start out sniffing it and sniffing it's amazing. It's the kind of drug that like

makes reading the Bible the funnest activity in the world. Yeah. You know, it just makes anything like not only manageable or tolerable, but like desirable. So then why the progression to shooting it, to smoking it, sure,

whatever. It's all financially backed, right? Like I'm first $10 a bag. I'm buying $10 at a clip, so it's like $100. What is, sorry,

what? 10 bags in a, in a pack. Oh, okay. So you actually buy a pack of 10. Yeah, give me a pack or a bundle. And how much is that? A hundred bucks or 90s.

But what is a bundle? What's the weight on that? I don't even know the weight. It's just $10, $10 bags. Gotcha. And I, you know, I buy that and that's great. But the more I sniff, the more I need to kind of reach that climatic feeling I'm shooting for.

And then one day, you know, I only have $10, right? The money is fucking draining. And someone says, look, if you shoot, not even half that bag, you're going to get high, if you just sniffed 50, right? So, of course, I shoot it, but I don't shoot it at first. I have to pay somebody to do it because I don't know how, right? So I pay a well-versed IV drug user, give him a little bit of it. He shoots me up.

And then all of a sudden, like, I don't have extra to give. So I become real fucking curious to learn how to do it myself and figure it out. Oh, yeah, because he charges you to show you. That's the progression of that. And so there you go right there. So what are some of the hustles? Now, I know you letting guys blow you. Yeah.

Which is a market. Right. That's a thing. That's wild. So there's guys driving around just looking to suck cock. They just want to suck cock. Damn. They don't fucking jerk off.

They don't want to fuck you. It's a good excuse for sucking cock. I know. It's for heroin, I swear. I've sucked the dick wants to prove that I wasn't gay. Dude, that's so. Live on air in Australia during an interview. That's some jackass shit

Take that stevo You push Anybody can shove a car in their ass A plastic car in their ass You fruit Dude I uh we were We were band made this band called Fuck Face Unstoppable

And uh He was the lead singer And he would like Get these other guys from these other bands Like big guys and they would play their instruments And I'm touring with them And I'm like his best friend I'm like the most important person in the band

But I'm not in the band I'm just this fucking and drug addict of a mess guy who he brings everywhere with him and everyone kind of has to listen to me because I'm his best friend feel. And the band just gets so annoyed with me that they're like, Novak,

we gotta get you something to do. So they come up with the concept that Phil Collins in the air of the night, the song, I'm gonna open for the band, but I'm pill Collins. And I come out naked with a bottle of wine and I'm lip singing, smoking a cigarette. I'm singing the song,

in the air of the night in the heat of the night, but totally butchering it. Like G.G. Allen just fucking fucking pissing, Sigs, wine all over the crowd. And I intro the band. And then as each member comes out, then when the big do-do-d-do-do-do-do of that song, I then intro bam and he runs out and like fucking flying drop kicks me

and then the rock show just kicks in. So when you're doing stuff like that, does that, is it embarrassing? Is it exhilarating? or are you just thinking, this is going to get me my fix? So, yeah. So that kind of goes back to what you were saying before how I was treated. So, but to tie up that story, we're on this tour in Australia and just fucking doing

a lot of shit like that. And we're sitting down and we're being interviewed by this broadcast, this newscast. And they said, Novak, we've heard and we need to ask that you perform some homosexual acts during your set. And I look at them. And I'm fucking, I've been up for days. I'm fucking, coaked out of my mind. and I'm like, and I'm with the drummer from gutter mouth.

We call him Rubbish Heep, but he's crazy Australian. He's as insane as I am. And I look at it and I'm like, are you fucking, you just call me a fucking faggot? You call me a fucking faggot? And I jump up, me and rubbish holds him down. I pull his pants down. I do two pumps on his cock and I walk away. And I'm like, fuck you faggot.

Like it's so wrong. And that was like live on, I'm sure. that never saw the light of day. Right. But, well, that story's going to see the light of day. And that'll be the reason.

And that'll be the reason you do not work in Hollywood. So, so again, doing all these insane things. And you can look those acts up on YouTube, Pil Collins, but FFU tour, literally just as I explained.

But, um, then cut to me being the brunt of the joke, bun of the jokes on, on there and people like feeling bad. If you look at the scales of justice, I'm in both. Baltimore. I'm letting old fucking married men blow me for 10, 20 bucks. Yeah. So are they driving?

Like how? There's this corner. And it's known for that. Yeah. And the fun, the irony in this is I used to walk past that corner and make fun of those young boys. Right. I'd be like, what the fuck's wrong with you? Yeah. And, you know, there go I. Yeah. Later on. And I remember at the peak of my addiction and at the bottom of my addiction. Because there were times where it was a fucking blast and I was like up here. But then there were times where I was on the corner of Eastern Avenue in Patterson Park in Baltimore City, praying to God that that attorney who drives that burgundy Cadillac gets off at 5 p.m. as opposed to 5.30 because he pays me good money to blow. Wow.

Like, how the fuck did I get there? It's crazy. It's crazy. What are some of the good hustles when you're not at your bottom of the addiction? Well, the good hustles later on were like getting fucking. paid through Warner Brothers and Paramount. Totally. That was a hustle. Yeah. That was so full circle. So now you see me like I was the guy that would step up and do any stunt, any stunt. And here's why. Like prior to this, I'm homeless. I'm sleeping in shooting galleries and abandoned houses. Benches outside on the streets. Legit legit eating out of trash cans. Like sleeping with old rugs that people put out for trash as blankets. cut to the next day, I'm like,

On Viva Vam and Jackass, and I'm willing to do any of these fucking stunts. What was the, what was, becoming a household name? Yeah, what was the, uh, Bam got, uh, what was the first,

what was it called? CKY. CKY was the first thing that Bam did that got him. Correct. On, basically, right? Yeah, and then. Were you involved in that?

Yeah, I was in that. Okay. Um, not the first one. I think it was the second or the third. Yeah. And if you watch the ending of that, they kind of, so this documentary that's coming out in the future started taking place back then because Van was always intrigued with my junkie stories, the positions it put me in, the people

it surrounded me with. Yeah. And he would always hide cameras around his house and you'd see me like withdrawing and him interrogating me. So we had all this like real footage and it's all kind of being. That's kind of brilliant of him to recognize that as like a way to make content. Yeah. Did you get him into? heroin? No. Did you get him into any kind of drugs? What I did do was I was the guy that was always down for the party and I absolutely like wasn't. I would actually try to sometimes like, not now, this isn't the time. But in reality, I was an untreated addict and alcoholic and look for any excuse to party and bring anyone along with me. So I was never the guy like,

I was always for getting blow. I was always for keeping the party going. So how did you mix blow with heroin. So in West, so Bam, fast forward, Bam, Bam's career like excels and takes off and he's like a household name, millionaire. Overnight. Over night from the CKY's. Before like YouTube was a thing.

Yeah, he was that guy. I remember those videos. Yeah, that's kind of like the beginning that gave birth to like the Danny Duncan's and these guys of that world. And my career went to like legit shit. So Bam had gotten, sponsored. He was touring as a skater because remember in the beginning, he wasn't. We were.

Right. And he goes to, so at that point in my life, I treated skateboarding like the love of my life that I allowed get away, right? I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to see it. It hurt that bad because that was my God-given talent. Yeah. So I would avoid any confrontation with skateboarding or in any means. And one day, things got so bad. I couldn't pointy hustles. I went into this skate shop, which I never did to try to get money from. And little did I know, Bam was there the day before. And he said to them, he's like, yo, do you guys ever see Novak? And they're like, rarely ever occasionally he'll stop in and try to get some cash. And his fate would have it. I literally stopped in the next day to try to get some cash. And they said,

we're not going to give you fucking money, Novak. But Bam was here yesterday and he left you his phone number and said, if and when you're ready to get off heroin and start skating again to call him. and about a week goes by and I go to a pay phone and I put my only 50 cents in which is like a fucking million dollars to a home was heroin out of it. Yeah, yeah.

And I remember I dialed the number and I have my hand on the receiver because if a machine picks up, I can't lose the fiddle. It's like life or dad. Only people are age get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he didn't give me his house number.

He gave me the number to a skate shop in Westchester. Right. And I'm like, Oh, it's Novak. I'm looking for Bam. They're like, Bam was just in here a minute ago

and he's actually next door eating sushi at Kuma. We'll go grab him. So all these things started to align and they go grab him and he gets on the phone and we pick up where we left off and that night,

I was on a greyhound from Baltimore to Westchester, which is where my life took place and kind of root it then. But they didn't understand addiction. Rightfully so. Why would they? So to them and everyone,

one we went out with, it was socially acceptable and okay for me to do cocaine and drink because I don't like fall asleep in mid-conversation, steal your wallet, your car, your bank card to go back to Baltimore to get it. But it was widely known that no one was to give me any kind of opiate or downer. So there I could do tons of blow and drink, but just no heroin of downers. So again, another positive thing for me being the butt of the jokes, the punching bag, if you will. All I ever wanted was to fucking get high on downers. That's what I do. But I wasn't allowed. So if I did the stunts that nobody wanted to do, odds are I'm going to break some bones. I'm taking to the hospital. I get a fucking big script. And now everyone

condones me eating these pills. It's a fucking, and I'm getting a paid. I'm getting a nice paycheck. I'm becoming like a household name, which allowed me to justify my behaviors. And your addict brain is consciously thinking this. Oh, dude. And you're probably like, I'm getting over. One time we did. I'm outsmarting all of them. But I went even like I was trying to outsmart them.

I was just so fixated on a way to get drugs. You guys, it's football season. And if you like firing on action every Sunday, you've got to head over to prize picks. Okay. If you're kind of a half of fruit like me and you don't really love sports, but you want to put a little bit of money down and make double, triple, sometimes 25x your money, plus stay engaged in the game. I know when I am watching sports,

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And on one of the episodes, we got the second highest ratings ever, right? Friends reunion was the first highest ratings. We came in second. I went on there and I was so sick that morning. I was withdrawing. And we did blow and coke alcohol all night because you have to be there like five in the morning. So you stay up all night partying. What do you sick from?

What kind of pills? I just don't have any heroin. Right. Okay. Oh, so you were sneaking heroin even. Whenever I could. Heroin or pills? Right.

Like, what are we talking like oxy cotton? Well, then it was Percocet's and Xanax. Oxi's really didn't hit the market at this point yet. Okay. But this particular morning I go in and I'm not fucking feeling good. And Artie Lang is there and, you know, he's a self-proclaim addict. And he's, you know, you spot it, you got it. And he slides me as sub-u-texts.

And this is before sub-utex were even in the States. And he, which got me right. But while I'm on this show, still kind of loaded from the night before, but not on what I want, which is downers. Like, I made all these sides. with all these business owners that I knew in Pennsylvania and Baltimore. And I'm like, yo, I'm going on the Howard Stern show. If you give me a thousand bucks, I will plug your business.

So walking into the episode, I had already pocketed 10 G's. I hadn't got paid yet because I hadn't did the show yet. And you hadn't even agreed that you could do that on the show. No, no, no, not at all. And then I proceed to like lick Richard Christie's asshole because he had this protruding hemorrhoid. And I'm like, I'll fucking lick it and I lick it. And I'm just,

do the episode naked. And that killed? I fucking, they still run it like crazy, crazy, crazy. Did you do your plugs? Yeah, fuck yeah.

Faithful, Junkie, dude. I fucking prevailed, for sure. Wow, so you just got 10 bands. So that, my mind was always wired that way. Yeah.

But underlining, and again, I hate to keep selflessly plugging this book, but my new book, The Streets of Baltimore, which was the sequel to my first book that did insanely well.

That was the best seller. Yeah. Okay. Now plug away. Go, go, get these. It was recently revised in its 12th edition. And for anybody in the literary world, like I have no high school diploma. I got my GED in the penitentiary. Um, but I wrote a book during active addiction and it became this bestseller recently revised 12th edition.

98% of books that are published don't make it past their first. Yeah. This thing is like stood the test of time. Um, and I actually just did the narrations for it. So they just are coming out on, uh, audio as we speak. States of Baltimore just came out, just did the first one, I finished it last week. But the streets of Baltimore, I really talk about the psyche that I possessed throughout that whole process, knowing that I was being handed the keys to the castle, like literally. And I could have really made a life that anyone would have dreamed of and capitalized off all these fucking things that we were doing. Out of jackass. And I had the wherewithal to know how to do it. I'm a pretty intelligent guy.

Yeah. But my disease. And how did, how would you have done that. Like, in terms of, like, the stunts you were doing. Well, it's just the marketing aspect. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? The merch. And, and just fucking promoting myself in the right way to signing, like, contracts that made sense as opposed to give me 500 cash out of the gate. Right. You know, just like... How did Steveau avoid falling into that trap? Because he seems like an addict as well. Like, how did he avoid, uh, you know, opioids and falling into the trap of like, you know, ruining himself? He ruined himself in his own way for sure. His end and my end just looked a little different

because we were in two different places. I think externally, but internally, I guarantee we both felt the same fucking pain that kind of disconnected, disassociated, isolated, homicidal, suicidal kind of vibe. But in the streets of Baltimore, I really get into the psychology of like seeing that I'm presented this amazing deal

after I just come from doing undisputable, ungodly things for, $10 and knowing that it's, it's, it's going to be short-lived and that my addiction is going to, to over fucking take this at any moment, like, knowing that, you know what I mean? Knowing that I couldn't control it and that the inevitable was going to come. And every day was just consumed with fear as like today, the day that it blows up on me. So you knew. I knew.

The end was coming. I knew. I fucking knew. And that, that was a tough pill to swallow because I had burnt every bridge. known to me when when i got sober this last time at 38 years old i walked you know uh may 25th 2015 i walked into my 13th inpatient treatment center made 23rd i came to after being on life support for seven days at the very same hospital my mother's a nuclear physicist at in baltimore city my mother had sold homes to pay for treatment centers for me um i had been medevac to like four

different hospitals in four different states and four different overdoses my mother had had bought me a plot, people had taken life insurance policies out on me. Like I was expected to die, including myself. And I walked into my last treatment center, a 38-year-old homeless heroin addict who just wanted to fucking kill himself on a daily basis. I was terrified to hurt myself in the process. I was terrible with suicide because I kept fucking waking up. And everything that I owned, right, despite being this successful escape,

order, this published author, this guy that was in these movies. At 38 years old, everything that I owned consisted of eight scarfs, two jackets, three socks, a stick of deodorant, that all fit into a bag that doubled as my pillow, a needle, a spoon, and a restraining order. At 38. You know, like, that's, that's kind of where it took. You're literally a character on the wire. Yeah, legit. you know legit and were you getting high trying to overdose to kill yourself no i would not intentionally but i would have been very happy to not have woken up so every time you went to cook and shoot you were ready yeah like i put it this way i wasn't like going in that direction but i was really

upset when my eyes opened you know like because i'd wake up and i was like literally sleeping in this abandoned garage that i would kind of sneak into at the middle of the night because people still lived above it and I had to be really quiet to lift the fucking garage door without alarming them and knowing like the opportunities and the advantages that I had, the things that I had done, the people I've met the, you know, I'm this fucking published author who had written an autobiography addiction memoir that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. I receive hundreds of thousands of pieces of mouth from people saying they read my book and it saved their life and yet I can't keep a lot.

fucking needle out of my arm. So tell us, how did you go from, like, the number one movie in the world to your fall? Tell us about the fall that preceded all of this. You know, it wasn't just one thing. It was a series of events that took place that allowed me to see for the first time of my life, what my life really looked like. And again, for the first time, I was unaccepting of the outcome that I continuously fucking created for myself.

So although I had been in 13 treatment centers, and I had thought at the time that they were awash, it was a failed attempt, why waste my time or their time? Little did I know. It was all a success, right? These seeds were being planted unbeknownst to me. So even when we were filming Jackass and Viva Labam, I would go to meetings, right? We'd rap for the day.

The cats and the crew would go out to the pub and I would meet them, but I would go to a meeting beforehand. Not every day, but like a lot. And I remember I'd meet everyone at the pub and we'd blow, we stay out and bam's like, yo, why the fuck do you go to these meetings and then meet us to get loaded?

And I knew that my story was going to end one of two ways. I had the wherewith the auto. realize like the end all wasn't to just be a junkie. Like I wasn't cool with that. Right. I knew that I was either going to get sober or die in the midst of trying to. So I would go to these meetings and I'd acquire this knowledge and information that I didn't know what's happening.

Walking into that 13th facility, the pain had finally become so unbearable, right? Unmanageability for me is a fucking Monday morning cup of tea. Yeah. Right? the pain has to be so unbearable that I have literally no other option then you get my attention. And it became so unbearable

that I was able to like look at myself, see the part that I played in this creation and outcome and realize that I'm the common denominator in my problems and maybe if I just get the fuck out of my way, I might stand a chance. Because see, addicts and alcoholics don't end up in the position that they do because they took the fucking short bus to school.

Right. Quite the contrary. We end up here because we're too smart for our own fucking good. It's way easier to be stupid. Yeah, it is. And that's how I landed me today. I dumb my way into it. But what happened is I would end up in these places and these chairs and these meetings that literally had the ability to save my life.

And I would outthink myself right out of it. Right? Because they would suggest to me what I could do to save my life. And I'd suggest why you should fuck off. Because I know. And my resume states that I do know because I've done some things by society standards that say I'm successful. And walking into that 13th facility, literally a series of events had taken place that I just went out on time to get into. But I was attempting to cop some dope before I boarded this flight to Fort Lauderdow to go live with this stripper who was going to pay for everything.

She said she had read my book and it saved her life. That's so awesome. So I'm like, all right, fuck it. I was out of options. Bam, it kicked me out, and this is at the end. And I go to cop before I board this flight to Fort Lauderdale. When I go to cop, I'm like a homeless fucking junkie.

And I have these, at once point in time, nice pair of dress slacks, if you overlook like the cigarette hole burns. I nod out while I fucking shoot it open. And I don't have any underwear on because I'm like a homeless heroin addict. I don't wash underwear and find imaginary dressers in these alley. It's not what the fuck I do. and I have this like decent button-up shirt

because I have to go to the airport and I got to make sure they allow me access to this flight. So I'm trying to look presentable but I have these shoes on but I lost a shoe string along the way because I was shooting up with it. So I got,

and when I go to cop from the boys, the boys see fit to rob me as opposed to serve me. So when they rob me, they ripped my front and my back pockets completely out. Now my dick in my ass are fucking 100% exposed. They rip my shirt open and the only button that stays button

is this very top button. And I got these shoes on one shoe string. And I'm now like roaming the streets of East Baltimore looking like a gay East L.A. Cholo gang back. And I rushed to the airport because that plan didn't fucking follow through. And I tried to board the flight

and this TSA airport security agent. Two things I've learned in my career. I never went into argument with a judge or a TSA airport security agent. Like what they say goes. Really? Because I find the opposite. Really?

Those guys don't have any power. They're like, no, they're not law enforcement. They're literally just like they're working like they drive a bus. I talk big shit to TSA, dude. Do they ever fucking adhere from what they're telling you to do? No, usually not. You can't out yet. So have fun.

Like, fuck, I've never won. Cheers to you. No, I never won either. So I get to the ticket, the counter. And this is one. takes one look at me and she says, are you under the influence

of anything? Right? Because I still have the same outfit on. All I own is the eight scarves, two jackets, three socks, needle, spoon, restraining. That's all I own to my name.

I'm trying to board this flight to Fort Lauderdale and I literally have this outfit on. And I say no. And she said, I believe that you are. You will not fly for three days. Not like the next flight

or tomorrow morning. Three days. Wow. My life, what I've learned is all in retrospect. Live forward and learn backwards. right so what I know to be true today that I did not see at the time that was the very first moment in a series of events that took place to this outcome that created a change what happened was

I didn't want to get on that flight if I got on that flight I knew it was going to end really bad I didn't want to be homeless in Fort Lauderdale it's hot it's sandy I don't know the hustles I'm living with this fucking dancer who lives in a hotel like it's going to end bad that's how you overdose yeah I know it's drug out of it's bad I'm sorry I got it's drug out of My heart is beating 10 million miles an hour. Like, I just shot 20 kilos of cocaine. Like, I know it's going to end bad, but the severity of the disease that I possess does not allow me to have the say-so and the matter of what I do, right?

Like, I lost that luxury. Okay, that's interesting. So your body, the disease would carry your body, even though your mind is saying bad, bad, bad, bad. Everything in my mind is like, do not do it, do not do it. And my disease is like, bitch, when I want to ask how you feel about something, I will. Till then, fucking act accordingly. Literally a slave.

Your disease is the pimp. Dude, I swear, I was standing at the... You know, I have nothing against homosexuals, but the nothing in me screams finding a cock attractive. But like, when a man wants to suck my cock for heroin, where are we going? Like, I lose the privilege to have a say-so. Absolutely the pimp in my deal.

Yeah. And what I didn't know then that I know now is that was the first time I recognized that I was divinely inconvenienced in just such a way that the God of my understanding created just a big enough gap between me and the last speedball I had shot into my arm

to have that moment of clarity to see what my life really looked like was and for the first time in my life I was unaccepting of the outcome. She denies me access. I get out of line, I call my sponsor. He gives me a list of things to do to get back to recovery, which I'll get to.

Now, mind you, I did not want to get on that flight. I did not want to go. I knew it was going to end bad, but I didn't have the power to say no. And what happened was the God of my understanding dressed up in the form of a TSA airport security agent and did for me what I was incapable of doing for myself. And I get out of line, I call my sponsor.

I said, I'm stranded at a BWI airport and I want to fucking kill myself. And he said, no. And this is Memorial Day, 2015. He said, you're going to get on a train. You're going to come back to Philadelphia. Those fucking AA weirdo cult-like fucking Jesus preaching. I'm not drinking your Kool-Aid people that I want to know part of

are now the only people that will fucking accept my cause. And they make matters worse, they don't even give me $10. I'm like stuck with these fucks. Yeah. And they leave their cookouts, they leave their families, their loved ones on Memorial Day. And they come pick up this hopeless, helpless alcoholic, who's deemed unfixable.

My track record states that I have no chance of obtaining fucking sobriety in any fashion. But people believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and they left their cookouts and they came and picked me up. They allowed me to spend that night with them. And the next morning they took me to this assessment place. And I had burnt every bridge. I had no insurance.

I had no money. And I was granted a free bed through the county ran, a state ran facility that cost me $2 to get into. Right. And, uh, sounds like hell. It was brutal. It was. And, and, but I'm the kind of guy that comes from the school of like, you can get sober in a crack house if you're ready.

When the pain becomes great enough, when the students ready to teach you will appear mantra. Did anybody recognize you? Like, were there any jackass or bamfams? Like in these recovery centers? A lot. And it was cool. It was great throughout my whole process

because in the beginning I would use it to fucking play my game. And prolong the end of my run. And just capitalize and monopolize and monopolize. off these fans, if you will. And at the end, it was cool because everyone was very welcoming to me. Because I was really like, I didn't want to be looked at.

I didn't want to be talked to. I didn't want to be asked a question because I was like a stranger in my own skin trying to figure out who the fuck let me in and why. Everything was abnormal to me. And I ended up in this facility. And in this facility, I had been to four previous. attempts out of my 13 overall. Yeah.

And what happened was on May 25th, I was 2015, I was finally demoralized in just such a fashion from drugs and alcohol. I was beaten into that state of reasonableness. But I sat in the same chair with the same intake coordinator I had done this song and dance with four times previously. And every time without fail,

she'd say, okay, Mr. Novak, your insurance will cover you for 90 days. And my rebuttal without fail was, in theory, 90 days sounds great, but in reality, I'm more of like a 30 to 45 day kind of fellow. I have this woman to do, this job to fulfill, this state to go to. And she would always laugh and say, you fucking have no idea. And I'm like, you have no idea.

You haven't read my resume, right? Like I always thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. She said, anything you put in front of your recovery does not or will not matter because you will lose it. May 25th, I'm in the same chair with the same intake coordinator. Without fail, we pick up where we left off. And she said, Mr. Novak, your insurance will cover you for 90 days. But the difference on this day is that when she gives me that offer, for the first time of my life, I couldn't come back with a counteroffer.

Like, because if I said no, it literally entailed an explanation. And for the first time in my life, and thank God, I was beaten speechless by my disease of addiction. All I could do was shake my head, yes. She laughed to me. She said, sweetheart, you're in no condition to do your intake. Get up to detox. I'll see you in four days. I take my, I still have the same outfit because my sponsor is very big with you,

never get between an alcoholic and their bottom. So he wanted me to endure that fucking unbearable, unfucking pleasant note of this game. Withdrawing from heroin. Tell us about withdrawing from heroin. Dude, it's, I mean, I would, okay. And this is, this is, I'm not cut from that cloth. I'm not a violent guy. I cringe at the thought of confrontation, deep-seated issues from my father.

two of my biggest problems is I people please and I hate confrontation. But when I'm withdrawing from heroin, I've pretty much done anything in my life that exists in the world of crime to come up with money to acquire a bag except for homicide. And the only reason why I didn't is because the opportunity never presented itself. Which, by the way, we're going to hear about those hustles on the Patreon. So go to patreon.com slash The Connect show. for a shameless plug.

God damn it. Teach me. I'm good. He didn't skip a fucking beat. But that's, you know, and that's just to kind of... Like you felt you could kill. You were in such pain. You felt like you could kill for a bad. That's heroin withdrawal. You catch me at the right time on the right day and I'm sick enough.

There's nothing I won't do. And as a matter of fact, anybody, any person, any place or anything that attempts to stand between me and it must and will go. And it's not personal. it's just business. And probably a lot of murders have happened like that. Oh, in the dally. And I'm not like,

I'm telling you, I fucking cringe at the thought of confrontation, but if you catch me sick enough and a situation arises where I have the opportunity to capitalize off something like that and believe that I can get away with it, which my alcoholic brain that lies to me,

my own voice that makes me believe the unbelievable will, I will do it. So where do they, where were you? Where do they put you in these centers or where do they send you to just go through that? So I go to this particular facility. I'm sitting in the same chair with the coordinator, and she sends me up to the detox unit, right?

So I legit, at 38 years old, I walk into my 13th treatment center after being this pretty successful guy. And I have everything that I own, 38, eight scarves, two jackets, three socks, stick a deal order, needle, spoon, and restraining order. It fits in my bag. And I'm walking up this long, fucking corridor kind of driveway. and I still had that gay East L.A. Cholo gangbagging outfit.

My dick and ass are exposed, fucking got the one button on my shoes, one shoe string, because I lost the other one while tying up at one point in time. Wretched. And I walk up to the detox and I'm met by this 19-year-old tech. And I'll never forget it. He's smiling from your ear to ear. He said, Mr. Novak, you're back. And I said, aren't you a fucking genius, boy?

You don't miss a beat, do you? And immediately he responds with, Mr. Novak, I regret to inform you, but your clothes aren't rehab oriented. You need some underwear. You need some sweatpants. You need some slides. And I had heard those fucking call it like people saying shit like a grateful addict will never use again. A grateful alcoholic will never drink again.

And it didn't make sense until it made sense. And when it made sense was when I was standing next to a 19 year old boy praying to God to come up on some underwear. But I wouldn't say it out loud because God forbid you view me in that mess. and he looks at me and he's smiling from ear to ear. Again, I cringe at the thought of confrontation, but there was never a point in my time where I wanted to fucking knock someone's head off more in my life. And it wasn't because I didn't like him.

It was because I didn't fucking stand me. I couldn't stand me. And it had been so long since I smiled or was optimistic about anything in my future. And if you did it in my company, I took it fucking personal. Because how fucking dare you smile? Have you seen how I live and what my, you know?

Yeah. And he said, Don't worry, Mr. Novak. Come with me. We're going to go to the basement and we're going to see if we can find you some used underwear.

My fucking mother's a nuclear physicist. My brother's an attorney in the White House. Skateboarder fucking touring the world with Powell Pratt, designing my pro model, hanging out with Tony Hawk. In jackass,

Viva'a Bam. It's quasi-celebrity. Yeah. Fucking autobiography, addiction memoir, bestseller, fucking hundreds of thousands. I mean,

doing the deal and now I'm in the, basement of this Catholic Charities rehab that cost me $2 to get into with this weird fucking little boy as he's digging through a box looking for some used underwear and I'm praying to fucking God that he finds him.

Yeah. How the fuck does one get there? And that's the bottom. That's the bottom. And I'm praying that he finds him and he does not find him. But what he finds is a parasite 40 women's sweatpants with no drawstring,

a woman's tank top and a parisize 13 Jesus. sandals. And at that moment, on that day, that I really believed nothing could ever get worse then, unbeknownst to me, was shaping up to be the best day of my life. Better than any fucking jackass day, Viva, Bama, but I was so consumed by the mess that I was incapable of seeing the message that was fucking happening. And what happened is when he handed me the women's clothes and the shoes that didn't fit, the first thing that I realized

is that for the better part of 20 years, I possessed that job that consisted of knowing everything. And it landed me in a lot of places I didn't like to be in and allowed me to feel a lot of feelings I didn't like to feel. And at that moment,

this 19-year-old boy in this weird fucking basement with no electricity digging through this donations box and the box is like ripping apart from all the fucking wet condensation on it. And I realized that you know what I know

is that I have no fucking idea. All those attempts at all those facilities that I thought were a wash and a failure turned out to fucking prevail and be a lifeline. Because at everything they told me, it was like the sky was parting and I was walking across the sea. I saw it.

Like fucking rain, man. All these numbers just hit it, that computed and made sense in my mind. And I was like, what I know is I don't know. My best thinking has me in a weird basement with a fucking boy who's giving me women's clothes and I've never been so excited to fucking wear him in my life.

And when the clothes got to my hand, And I was overcome with a sense of willingness, unlike anything a human has ever produced or the capability of putting on me. And what I know to be true today that I didn't see then is that at that moment, I was met face to face by the God of my understanding as a direct result of that gift of desperation.

My pain turned into my purpose. Right. Which is? Fucking my defects, becoming my assets, using my sickness and my disease as my medicine and my lifeline, right? I, like, literally, but I didn't know I was doing it. I just didn't know, but I bought into this concept. So with that, come to Jesus moment, that knowing, that enlightenment, did that make the next four days of withdrawal bearable?

Yeah, like, I had done interviews and they're like, how depressed were you in rehab? And I'm like, dude, in detox, fucking day two, day one, I'm shitting, I'm pissing, I'm throwing up, my nose is running. You're sweating out the, like, you know when you're in county jail, all the junkies, they first hit the main line, and they're screaming. You know it. You smell like the detox of heroin.

It's got like this sweet smell to them. It's a body odor, but it's also like, it's weirding from every hole of their body. Yeah, yeah. At the same time. It's one of the most filthy things you can witness. And all you normal fucking inmates who kind of like run the joiner, have a say so, put all us junkies in the fucking corner. Yeah.

You know, create this barrier. Or they're like, you know what I mean? We get treated nasty. Yeah. Because that's, we're living on this like animalistic level. Yeah. You know, where we literally live to use and used to live. And that's what our life consists of.

And then you guys who are your white collar criminals who are trying to fucking win a million overnight have to endure our detoxes. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. No, don't worry. It makes us feel bad too. I'm like, I don't want to be here with these people.

You do something different. I'm so glad I found a slice of humanity in your fucking heartless ass. I fucking love you. So as you're as so. But yes, it makes that process. Like I felt like I'd hit the mega millions at that moment. Wow. So you're feeling pain, but also you're like, it's just physical pain.

Yeah. Right. Anybody can live through that. And because all I've ever wanted was security, stability, some kind of structure. Because as an addict's life goes, it's unpredictable and it's sporadic. and you never know where you're going to be with. Right. So I just wanted some accountability and predictability and just some structure.

I wanted to have a bed. I wanted to have a meal. I wanted to have a shower consistently, the same one. And so I like hit the mega millions. And I knew, I knew, although I was the boy that cried, well, a lot of times, I knew that it was different this time. I didn't say it. What I did was, when we talked earlier, right? Like the masturbation, the heroin, the alcohol is the solution to the problem, right?

The problem is the thinking, the attitude, and the behavior. So for the first time, I stopped fucking writing letters to my people. I stopped calling with all these grand illusions of how things have changed. These deals are back in play. I'm going to fucking rule the world. You quit hustling. I shut the fuck up. I stopped talking.

And for the first time of my life, I let my walk do my talk. My behavior started to change. So I didn't have to reach out to these people once they believed and trusted in me, which was about a year into my process. So for the first year, like I wasn't getting invites to family. Like, no one, the jury was out and not in my favor that I'd stay sober. But my behavior started to change, right? And I started, my people got me a job washing dishes at a diner for $6 an hour under the table.

And at 38. And I had thought at the very least I should have been the president of the United States. Not fucking, under that table next to a 13-year-old kid, man. And little did I know I bought into the process I surrounded myself With some really fucking genuine people That I wanted to emulate their behaviors

And create what they had And trusted in their process And would have fucking followed them To the firing line If that's what they suggested And my life started to get really good Really quick I lived in a sober living house

For a year Is in Philly or Baltimore? This is in Philly In Pennsylvania Like the outskirts And I I started from that job, washing dishes for $6 an hour.

I'd opened up my own checking account and I started to become self-sufficient. Because I lacked self-esteem that was evident. And I didn't know how to get it, right? That's why I ended up in this fucking weird fellowship because it was like-minded people who felt the way I felt.

It was relatable. And there's power in numbers because if you could do it, it made me believe that I could do it. So I get this job and they're like, you show up early, you stay late, you take pride in washing these dishes, you open a checking account,

you start becoming self-sufficient. You buy your own cigarettes when I smoke. You pay your own 165 a week. And I started doing all this, right? I was doing these esteemable acts because I believed in what they were suggesting. And in doing these esteemable acts, becoming self-sufficient, one day I realized these esteemable acts taught me how to obtain self-esteem. But it happened without me knowing it.

And one day I held my head up a little bit higher. I stuck my chest out a little bit more. And the checking account turned into a pre-secured, credit card and that pre-secured credit card turned into a credit card. And I lived in that sober living house for a year. And then I was provided the ability to end up in this world of treatment that I had no idea existed. I literally tripped and fell into this shit. And I opened, I vowed that like when I found myself in a position where I was financially capable, I was going to recreate that sober living house I lived in for a year that did for me what no other place was really

able to do. And on my fifth year sober anniversary to the day, I opened up my first Novak's house in Wilmington, Delaware, one house with 10 beds. Today I have six houses with 65 beds. And I travel the world, throwing events, raising money to provide a scholarship fund. Because what I refuse to accept is that finances are a deterrent as to why someone can't follow the content. of care after successfully completing an inpatient treatment center stay. So I provide scholarships to any fucking body in need if they're a man because I only have men's housing and they're willing to adhere to the guidelines that we've set up. So you actually, you thought this was your run club era.

Turns out it was more of a thinking about run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit, and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now.

Deepop, where Taste recognizes Taste. Actually give addicts money so they can... Not money. I give them free rent. You give them free rent. In a very structured, safe environment with accountability. Wow. And what I've learned is that this was never like

a financially driven motive. It was just a byproduct of me really buying into the process of recovery and knowing that if I can do it, there's no reason why you fucking can't. And in doing that, I've became a really wealthy man and not financially,

spiritually, right? And internally. And I have this, this, this relationship with a higher power that you couldn't fucking put a price tag on that I know that that's then transcended into me opening my own treatment center. Redemption Addiction Treatment Center, also in Womington, Delaware.

Right, which we want to plug, and we're going to put the link in the description. So let's plug that. Yeah. So if you want to interested in, so if you want to generously donate to the scholarship fund that provides scholarships for any men coming into Novak's house, there's a Venmo account. It's at Novak's house. You can go to my website, Brandonovac.com, and that will take you down all the other rabbit holes or redemption addiction treatment center.

Right, right. Okay. And I've been blessed with this life that I always say today that sobriety has given me everything that drugs and alcohol ever promised me. And literally the thing that used to kill me on a layaway plan, one bottle, one bag, one needle, one pill, one pipe at a time is now the thing that gives me life. What is that thing? It's this, the why, it's the motivation, it's the internal drive and fire that gets me

up out of bed with the lust of life knowing that I am on fucking borrowed time, right? If justice was due, I'd be fucking dead years ago. And the fact that I'm not is because I believe I was brought through what I went through to be this, this, this, this fucking part and a much bigger play to let people know that there is a way up and out of their position. And I can get you to that place. I can draw you a clear cut, direct, precise map. will 100% get you to the place that you want to be,

provided you stay the fuck out of your way. Right? And that's the complex. So knowing that the wheelhouse, the demographic of people that I work with, addicts and alcoholics, when I say I'm, Brandon, I'm an addict, I'm an alcoholic, all that means is that I'm defiant by nature. I hate authority and I refuse to conform.

Because I possess that job that consists of knowing everything. So knowing that those are the people that I'm working with, right? The odds are already against me. But what I do is I use all my platforms to share with them my life This really rad appealing life that doesn't consist of a drink or a drug And I deliver my message in a way that I hope people find so so appealing So desirable and so attractive that they like want to fuck it Right if I can get you to want what I have so bad that you're willing to do whatever it takes to obtain it

It then becomes your idea like it did mine you excel at a rapid pace Right? I provide a number to that. And that number is 610-314-6-7-47. That number goes to me or my teammate, John, and we will do the best that we can to get you the fucking help. They're not what you need, but fucking deserve. What I didn't know then that I know now

is that the moment that I admitted complete defeat was the exact second that I secured the ultimate victory. But it's just like... And that's what they mean in the program by admitting your powerlessness. Legit. Legit. And it's such a peaceful place to be.

And the cool thing is, the longer I stay sober now, the more that I know I really don't fucking know. Yeah. People that aren't even addicts can benefit from listening to that and to listening to you. Like I like going.

I used to have to go when I was locked up just to like get out of my cell. I used to go to AA meetings. Not even alcohol. Like I just like the message. I like that because that's motivating. Like, you can, you can benefit from life from the 12 steps. Absolutely.

Russell Brandt wrote a book for the general public. Because people think that you need to be an addict or an alcoholic to experience the 12 steps. Not at all. No. No. Because everybody is, in a way, dissatisfied with where they're at, you know, and everybody has a suffering. For sure.

Some kind of suffering. Everyone has a sickness. And it exposed differently, whether it's porn, shopping, food, drugs, alcohol? It's just, yeah. You know, I always say, right, the 12 steps allow me to have a spiritual experience. The definition of a spiritual experience

is simply a psychic change, right? So I, Brandon Novak today no longer think how I thought when I was licking Richard Christie's hemorrhoid asshole on Howard Stern show or letting that man suck my cock for heroin, right? Like, because what I've learned, I'm armed with the facts, right? I have a proper understanding and respect for what I'm up against.

The reason why I got beat to fuck every time I stepped into the ring in the ring with my opponent was a deal with addiction is because I always underestimated the opponent. I always underestimated because I knew. And finally armed with the facts, giving it the attention and time and respect that it deserves, right? Like I'm in a really good place and I'm not susceptible at this very moment of having a drink or a drug because I'm proactive in my recovery. And that's a freeing place to be in. So I guess it'd be silly to ask this, but I'll ask anyway, do you miss the old life? Do you miss Jackass? Do you miss the gang?

I see the gang. You can see him. When it works. Like I talked to Steve O a lot. Steve O got, Steve O's one of the guys who got sober and like, through his story, allowed me to believe in me. And there was a point in time where I was going to like ask him to sponsor me in that program.

He's like, but it just, it just didn't, we didn't go there with it. but he's a guy that like I want to be like. He's one of the most fucking sincere ethical human beings with this like intelligence unlike anything that I ever saw coming. But I totally understand how it took place and it's just through this magical program of ours. Yeah. And what we have to do to get.

Were you in the last, the most recent jackass? No, not the last last one. So that's the thing, right? I see them and, you know, when you get sober, or I don't know if you do, but when you go to treatment, they say you have to change people, places and things. Yeah. And it triggers. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't have to change any of the people, the places and the things, right? Because what happened was I bought into the process. And in buying into the process, my interest had changed. Yeah. So I was no longer interested in doing what I used to be doing with the people I used to do it with. And they were no longer interested in doing what I'm doing on this newfound journey that I'm on.

So I love them just as much, but just like two, ships crossing in the night. And when our schedules work, we say hi and what up. Yeah. Yeah. I have this life that, you know. Well, have you, have you thought about reaching out to Bam, who's in a real bad way? He is almost like where, where you were, you know, 10 years ago. He's, uh, he's a sick guy right now, you know, and I love me with that. Did he move to heroin? No. What's, what's going on with him? He's just got a lot of fucking demons in his closet. But I mean, like, what's he using? Is he, oh, no, he said he was going to, I don't mean, I'm not trying to go for clickbait here, but it's, it's a way to wrap that I think brings kind of the story

back. Like, he said he was going to smoke crack until he died. Unless he got his child. You know, so he's in a, you know, he's a perfect candidate for having a spiritual experience. For sure. Have you tried? Yes. I've played a part in like several interventions, uh, helped get him to treatment multiple times. But again, when the students ready, the teacher will appear. And that's the, the really, one of the many fucking dynamics of addiction that just make the

fight look so unwinnable. Right? Because it's not a black and white one size fits all. It doesn't come with an instruction manual. Read this, you get this. It's case by case. And individual to individual. So he just hasn't hit his bottom yet.

Yeah. And when he does is between him and his higher power. Right? Like, what's so fucked up though is like, you could die before you ever get it before you ever meet your higher power. Sure, sure. But that's the thing with the disease, right? Our disease riddle brain will allow us to,

it does. It minimizes and justifies the severity of the disease that we have. It prolongs the inevitable. And what I learn is procrastination is like masturbation. You only fuck yourself. So the longer I stayed out, the deeper I got, the harder it became willing

to look at the reality I created for myself because it was so undisputable and undesirable that it was so much easier to just shoot a bag of dope, escape farther, longer, but go deeper. It's that never-ending cycle that just... What percentage, like, you know, you hear, like, out of a room of 30 junkies or addicts,

one kicks the habit. Is that true? What's the stats on that? I don't fucking do that, because, again, if you look at it from that perspective, you feel like, why, Bob? It's hopeless. Yeah.

Like we're fighting an unwitting fight. But here's what I do know is that someone took the time to help me. And in helping me, I found the solution, right? Now the two people go help two. Two turn into four. Four turn into eight. Eight turn into 16. And before you know, you're changing the behaviors and the narrative.

So it's no longer a wash, rinse, repeat. And you're starting to see a systematic change. Right? But it's nobody wants to hear it starts with fucking one person. if any of us had the answer I'd bottle up I'd sell it I'd be a billionaire a billion times over we don't In this only answer though

In this fucking area of addiction and harm reduction It's the only thing in the world That there's no margin for error Yet it's impossible to do perfect Yeah I know Try that for science And it just feels like it's getting worse I mean I don't know if that's a news or whatever

But just with the opioid crisis Of the past 10 years and you know Who will largely disagree with your statement My mother Huh How's your relationship? with her now. Fuck.

Be careful what you ask for because if you stay sober, you're gonna fuck around and get it. My mother who, who prayed for me when I didn't pray for myself, she fed me when I didn't feed myself.

She loved me when I didn't love myself. Showed up for me when I didn't show up for myself. At the end, served me with a restraining order. Fucking literally don't come back here. Now she's like an 83-year-old woman and there's days where I have to drive from Philly to Baltimore to like put her in the shower.

And there's nothing I'd rather do. You know, because she's getting older. and I took her to the dentist. She's kind of, she's, I got joked with you before, heroin, kind of like Benjamin Button me and aging backwards. My mother, crazy, intelligent woman, but is aging backwards and kind of reverting to like a six-year-old childlike mentality who just doesn't feel like showering or brushing her teeth.

And like I took her to the dentist and you had to have eight teeth pulled. Wow. I fucking, I come out, right? And she's fucking insane. She's my spirit animal. All she cares about in this world is is cigarettes, Pepsi. Rod Stewart and I forget what the fucking other thing is

But I take her to get her teeth pulled I come out I go in to get her prescriptions filled She's still all fucked up All high on all the shit Galls in her mouth bleeding I don't smoke I'm like really into health and wellness

And I I come out of the grocery store She's in my fucking pageant's seat of my range rover Windows up fucking cigarette Knotted out With a cigarette The bloody gall gals falling out of her mouth.

And I'm like, if I don't fucking deserve that, I don't know who does. Like full circle. Damn, dude, that's a gal from East Baltimore. You know what I mean? Tried and true. That's old world shit. Tried and true. Like that's not, we better enjoy that because that's not going to be around.

You're not really going to see people like that anymore. Dude, she didn't give a fuck about it. I don't smoke. Like, nothing in my car screams like, let's roll the windows up and light a cigarette. Yeah. Like, fucking brand new, clean, taking care of. Yeah. Bloody galls falling out, nodding out, cigarette burning, no care in the world.

Yeah. So she's amazing. She's so funny. She's like, you're fucking sick. You're perverted. All you do is follow me around and take pictures of me. And I'm like, you know what? You're kind of right.

Like, I film all this content with her. Yeah, yeah. And she's just hilarious. So, oddly enough, you're never going to believe this or see it coming. When I stopped drinking or drugging, everything in my life got better. My relationships, my workmanship. I fucking everything. Except my relationships with women.

If I, when I wasn't a relationship, I was always questioned and presumed guilty for cheating. And then I got to a point where like, being with a woman is such that if you were an addict, it would push you to fucking drink and use. Yeah. Like, I swear to God, it's so difficult now. Like, I don't know, maybe I'm just bad in relationships.

But if like, what I've been through the last two months, well, you are in bad, you're bad with relationships. Bad with relationships. Yeah, not in. Barry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that about you. Yeah, about, I got a fucking salary for 20 minutes. I know that. You're actually our last guest said the same thing. There's a fucking pattern here, genius. It was like an old lady. She was like, wait a minute. Because she was a co-kid. She was like, you're addicted to money and women. So, but like she, like if I was an addict, I would absolutely

would have relapse these last couple of months. So. But then when you get into the work of these fucking essay meetings that I hope you're attending if you want some kind of change, you're going to learn that it's it's not the relationships to take you bet there there is no their part right like what i can control in this world is me that's it the moment i place an expectation on you it's not a matter of if but when you'll let me down and then when you get into the book that we live by it talks about resentments are the number one offender that take us back out key people's to hear that yeah so so the moment i place an expectation on you to do as i think you should do say as i think you should say or feels I think you should feel. I've just set myself up for a resentment, unfulfilled, because it hasn't

even happened yet, but it's coming. Knowing that and that resentments are a number one offender that will take me back out, what I do know, right, I can't control your actions, but I can control my reaction to your action, which makes my world easier and lighter to move through, because I'm not trying to fucking rearrange the furniture on the Titanic to make a specific outcome happen. And that's what I mean when I say everybody can benefit from these teachings, because if you're trying to make it in business, in whatever field. That, knowing that you can only control yourself just makes the world easier.

Dude, so much easier. It's like, dude, it's... And acceptance is the answer to everything. Yep. Radical acceptance. I accept, I use this example with people like that. You had to deal with this throughout your incarceration. You had to.

Of course. Because if a guard insults you, some big corn-fed fucking guy with a swastika on his neck, he calls you a bitch or fucking, you know, pushes you against the wall. What are you supposed to? to do. Yeah. You know, he's going to kill you. You can buck all you want. Yeah, exactly. So, and even in show business, like, I use this example, I use radical acceptance. I was like,

you know, the business isn't going to choose me. So I just, like, made my piece with that. I'm not going to be like one of these, like, like, Dave Attell, who's like the comedian's comedian. He's like smoking cigarettes and he's fucked the world. And I'm an artist. That's not who I am. I'm built different. So, like, we took, we took our fate into our own hands and, you know, my life changed. And now I'm getting a lot of. And now I'm getting a all these things I wanted. Because we take accountability for our actions. We look at the part that we played in it.

I stopped playing the fucking victim. Exactly. It all kind of, it aligns in this weird synchronicity. And now, looking back at all these positions where I was divinely inconvenience that I thought things didn't go my way,

what I see is the synchronicity in life's events that have led me to the right here right now, good, bad, or indifferent than prove to me my higher power is so much bigger and so much fucking broader than my future. feeble mind could ever conceptualize. And as always had, like, good, bad, or indifferent, I've been fucking gotten good. Man, you went from sitting on a toilet seat with your ass out and your tramp stamp

tattoo going down a half pipe ramp, right? That day was a bitch, dude. So I fucking, I do that. I wasn't going to wear a helmet. And Knoxville was like, you should wear a helmet. And when he said it, I'm like, maybe I should wear a helmet. And I put the helmet on. And when I go down, I fuck.

split the helmet open. Oh my God. He hits his head. Go watch this on YouTube, the clip. He fucking, you smacked your head so hard. I made a bounce back up. I get a concussion and I break almost all my ribs. Check this out. I then get put into an ambulance, right? Ambulance is rushing me to the hospital. There's a state trooper following. And they're like, no, like, there's a state trooper. I'm like, yeah, it's just to get us there quicker. I get to the fucking hospital. Concussion, broken ribs. I'm in the emergency room with state trooper walks and he said, are you Mr. Novak? He said, yes, sir.

He said, we've been looking for you for a year. A year prior, we were at BAMS and we were filming BAMS on Holy Union. And I woke up ill one day and I didn't have any shit on me. So I go through, I had a leather jacket with his pockets and I find a friend of mine in Baltimore had stole a Dennis script pad.

He ripped one out. He wrote me like 10 oxy-15s Because it's a tennis script. You can't get an abundance. It looks shady. So I take it to a Walgreens. I get up to line. I have this black leather jacket on.

I have a black fedor. And I get up to line and I hand the script to the lady. The lady goes in the back. I'm thinking she's filling it. She comes back out and she's on the phone. She said he's wearing a black leather jacket, a black fedore, and he's driving a black Mercedes. I go out, fucking leave.

Never pay any mind to that again. A year later, filming the jackass in the emergency room. cop comes in. We've been looking for you for over a year. I had a fucking felony warrant for a prescription fraud from that go directly to jail. Wow. That's wow. I was actually during that movie, there's a scene where Don Vito does the Lamborghini tooth pool. Yes. I was supposed to be that, but I was locked up and hadn't got bailed out. So Vito did that. Wow. That's, that's, that was an epic. So that's like what a Monday morning look like for me. That's great. It's so crazy. So, dude, okay, well, we're going to switch over to Patreon because I want to hear Baltimore stories

and then I want to hear some some more fucking jackass tales. You know what I mean? That was an unbelievable episode. Just plug it one more time, the name of your new treatment center in Delaware. Redemption Addiction Treatment Center. Yeah, yeah. 610314-6747. Damn, hit them up, people. Thank you so much, bro. That was incredible. I really appreciate that. And go over to patreon.com slash the Connect show. we're going to do a little bonus episode hang out for a little longer sick man take care guys