The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #63: Battling Addiction with Faye Evarts and Johnny Cheek - A conversation about the struggle of drug addiction

Episode Date: May 16, 2017

Lauryn's sister Faye Evarts joins Lauryn & Michael to share her personal journey with battling addiction. From a teenager who never thought she would ever use drugs, to becoming at one point and time homeless & dependent on illegal substances, Faye has completely turned her life around and is here to share her story. We also hear from Johnny Cheek, Faye's significant other, who has battled addiction as well. Johnny shares his story in-which he battled drugs, had multiple stints in jail and has since turned it all around, and now has a beautiful family and a business of his own. To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn’s latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you’ll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

Thanks for downloading this show from PC1. Before we get rolling, here's a word from one of the folks who helped bring you this podcast. The following program is a PodcastOne.com presentation. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Greetings from France. It's Lauren and Michael. Howdy, howdy, howdy. We are in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to have Michael tell you exactly where we are because I'm not the best with geography. So it's not that difficult to figure out, Lauren. Just use Google Maps. We're in a small town called Vance, France. It's in the hills up in the mountains a little bit outside of Nice in Cannes in the south. And we didn't know we were going to be out here till late last week and we hopped on a flight, shot over, a little bit jet lagged and we wanted to just give a little bit of context of where we are before we give the introduction to the show. So as we get into the show, this is definitely different for us. I'm kind of putting something

that is been a hardship for me out there for starting with the podcast and I'm going to follow it up with a blog post. We are going to talk about my little sister's addiction and we're also going to talk about her fiance who struggled with addiction as well. They actually met in rehab. So this is going to be something different. And I'm very careful with what I share because I feel like I don't want to tell other people. I don't want to tell other people's story. So to bring her on the podcast and allow her to tell some of her story. And then for me to give my perspective on the podcast and allow her to tell some of her story and then for me to give My perspective on the blog is kind of the way we decided to do it

The reason being that it was important for us to talk about this issue is because I feel like i've gotten a lot of emails About people that are struggling with addiction So I think that maybe this podcast will help if you're out there dealing with addiction or you have a family member who's dealing with it. I'm just hoping that this will bring some kind of light and help. So before we get into the interview, I wanted to give a little context. When we recorded this a couple weeks ago, and I'd say this is the longest period of time since we've actually recorded an episode. This is the one that took us the longest to release. We recorded about close to a month ago now, but we've kind of been going back and forth

with how to release it and how to provide context behind it. So when you guys hear it, we're basically just jumped into a conversation with both Johnny and Faye. So bear with us. It's not going to be like a typical interview with a lot of questions.

You're kind of just coming into a conversation and we're basically letting you guys be like flies on the wall and just share in that conversation. So it's not interview style. It's more of like, Hey, you're listening to a group. We'll talk about the struggles with addiction. So there's going to be some things where maybe you get a little bit confused in terms of context. And so I'm hoping that this introduction will kind of give you a little bit of preview of like, okay, this is a conversation that you guys are listening to. It's two people talking about their struggle with addiction.

Both have been clean and sober now for years. They have a beautiful kid together. That's also Lauren and I's nephew and I'm the godfather. I wish someone played the godfather music, Kevin, if you're listening. And his name is Daxton. And so both of these people have really turned their lives around and struggled immensely with addiction. And I'm hoping that this show will either provide some help or some information or some context for people that may also be struggling with addiction. stories and so many different things that I went through as a family member of an addict. It was definitely very hard to experience my little sister being an addict for six years.

It was something that was hard on our family as well as her. So we'll try to have her back on again to get even deeper. But with that, let's get right into it. You guys get to be flies on the wall. But before we do, I want to just personally from Lauren and I thank Johnny and Faye for coming on and telling the story. It's not an easy story to tell from either of them. And it takes a lot of courage to kind of put yourself out there like this and be vulnerable to the world and to an audience of this size. So I just want to thank both of them and tell them how proud Lauren and I are, both of them, for battling this and beating it and struggling with it every day. And with that, we're going to jump right into it. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

We're going to kind of do a different format here. We're going to interview both you and Johnny on this show. But first, I want to start with you, Faye. So start off, tell us who you are. Introduce yourself. Say hello to everyone out there. I'm Lauren's little sister, her blood sister. I'm five years younger than her.

And I suffered from an addiction when I was 13 on to 21. At first, it started off with, you know, the normal smoking weed, drinking at parties, drinking on the weekends. And I thought it was just partying just like everyone else. And it turned into a full-blown addiction with heroin and methamphetamine in the end. It got very dark and very ugly fast. And for that, I can say today that I am grateful that it got so dark so quickly because everything turned around. When I was 21 years old, I ended up in a homeless shelter called the Lynn House in Orange County. And my whole life has changed from there. I've been sober for

five years now. I have a beautiful seven month old son and a wonderful life, um, all through AA and working the 12 steps and the help of other women and believing in a power greater than myself. But before that, like I was saying, it started off just like everybody else. And I started dabbling in pills and heroin and very hard drugs. I stopped focusing on school, stopped focusing on friends, definitely stopped focusing on my family and caring about other people. And I was just in this really selfish tunnel, focused solely on getting high and not feeling or thinking about what was really going on in my life. So I want to heading nowhere and very lost. I want to touch on a few things that I really want to get detailed here and get some crazy stories from you. When you say you started like everyone else, I think that gets so far off.

Not a lot of people, maybe, I don't think a lot of people have had these crazy experiences. So what was the gateway? What was the first thing that you started doing? How were you introduced to drugs in the first place? I first tried weed marijuana when I was 13. And I didn't like it. I was very paranoid, never really tried it again for like another two years, maybe until ninth grade. And then I started drinking alcohol, like bar mitzvahs. We would take my dad's alcohol. Sorry, daddy. Or my friend's parents.

And then I tried ecstasy and Xanax and hydrocodone and somas and Percocets. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is like, how do you at such a young age even get access to all this stuff? Because like when I'm growing up, there's just, you know, there's obviously there's alcohol and there's marijuana, but we just weren't exposed to that kind of level of narcotic. Right. Well, today I think it's changed in that aspect. I think that kids have access to a lot of hard things, especially in even the more wealthier areas.

You're saying like you never had problems finding this stuff? No, I never had problems. It was always offered, always at our fingertips. And I think when people know that you do do it or you're looking for it, it finds you. I think that nowadays in high school, it's gotten a lot harder, a lot quicker. And I do hear a lot of stories being in the program and being involved in the AA community where people start very young. And some people even get it from their parents. So what do you think...

Or do it with their parents. What do you think led you to want to try these drugs? For me, for somebody who's never, you know, like, you know me, I don't try any drugs or anything like that. Um, cause I never had the urge, but what kind of, like, so what kind of emotional state or what kind of thought process leads you at such a young age to say, Hey, I'm going to try these things. Cause these are, you know, I remember going through like, you know, when you're a kid and you like the little, like the dare program comes in and like, basically someone says, if you, if you try cocaine, like

your life is over and you're going die and so like for me i was like holy shit i'm gonna die i better not do that so how do you how do you all of a sudden you make the jump like what kind of emotional state were you and you're like hey i'm actually gonna try this stuff well it's funny because when i was really young i was one of those people that never had i really didn't understand drugs i really really didn't like them. I never wanted to even party. I didn't know why my sister would have fun in high school or they would go to the movies on Friday nights. And I would always tell my dad, that's not going to be me. I'm going to be a virgin. And I, you know, had no idea where my life was headed. But I think also from a very young age, I just felt different. Like I just felt not okay in my own skin. You told me that

you said you felt off. Yeah, I felt I think I was very insecure. I don't know if that has to do with my genetics or my upbringing or my disposition, or medley. Yeah, it could be it could be a medley of many different things. But I think that once it was offered to me and once it was ingested in my system my body chemistry reacts with it differently than most normal quotes as you would say some people would say people I think that I am predisposed to alcoholism and addiction and I think that my genetic makeup um you know I think I have to be careful more than most people, which is why I don't even touch alcohol. I didn't have a problem with alcohol back then. I would say it was more drugs and downers and stuff like that.

But I don't even want to risk it today because my life is so good. And because I do have a family history of alcoholism, I don't even touch, you know, liquor. So I remember when I first started feeling suspicious of your drug use, I think I was like 21 years old and I was cocktailing and you called me and you said, Lauren, I need you to come pick me up. And I said, why? And you said, why didn't you tell me that we have aliens in our family? And right there I was like, huh, what's going on? So I went and picked you up and I could tell immediately that you had taken something. And I didn't know the full story, but I called daddy and had my dad come over.

And we sat you down and could tell that you were high. And I think what had happened is you down and could tell that you were high. And I think what had happened is you had taken something that was the wrong thing. Like it was like a, it was like an ecstasy pill laced with something. What was it? Yeah, it was an ecstasy pill laced with methamphetamine. So I was basically on a, you would call a bad trip or very, very paranoid. I was in a psychosis. A psychosis. That's what you called it. And it was really, really scary. And from then on out, I just remember like bad experience after bad experience after bad experience. And it started to get worse and worse and worse. And with you, I feel like it was very aggressive where it

escalated extremely quickly. Like it wasn't like a slow kind of addiction from what I saw. Right. It was a very aggressive, aggressive. Yeah, it was intense. So basically from there, I, I was in like a psychosis for many years. Like I still felt, and it was actually that I felt like I was an alien and it's embarrassing to say, but it is the truth. I, I tripped out on ecstasy and ever since then, you know, I had to numb myself because I was so paranoid all the time. I stopped being friends with everybody. I really cut my family off and that's when I would just isolate and invert deeper into myself and get high so that I could feel good about myself.

So what was the drug of choice? My drug of choice towards the end was Xanax. So it wasn't really, it wasn't like methamphetamine or ecstasy. It's just like you would do those things if you were under the influence of something else. If somebody gave you something, you just say, okay, I'll take that too. Right. I mean, there was no boundaries there. So it wasn't like you weren't seeking out ecstasy and meth.

It's just like if it was there, you would do it. Yeah, I actually hated uppers. I hated ecstasy and meth. So I would just do whatever was there, even though I didn't like it. And that's part of being an addict is you'd have no boundaries and you'll just do anything because you don't know who you are. So when, I mean, I know, but tell the audience when you, for anyone out there who's maybe struggling with this, when did you realize, holy shit, this is getting really bad?

Basically, when I lost everything. I say a lot, not for everybody, you can't generalize it, but for most people, they have to lose everyone and everything to get help. So the addict, of course, doesn't want to hear that. But for me, I had to lose my family. Like I said, my friends, the dealers had to cut me off. You know, I had to lose my house. My dad kicked me out of my house. He cut me off with money. He cut off my car. He cut off my phone. I mean, I had nothing. I was living on people's couches, you know, scrounging around like a homeless person. I was 21 year old girl who grew up in a suburban community. And my life took a turn for the

worst. I was living in a trailer in downtown San Diego with some drug dealer who even kicked me out of there. Yeah, I remember that time. It was really, really hard for my family to cut my sister off. My dad took a very long time to realize that this was really the only way. It was hard for my stepmom. It was hard for my grandma, my sisters and brothers. It was a really difficult decision. But finally, I kind of realized if everyone doesn't cut you off and stop enabling this drug use, like it's you're going to die. And I remember getting on a plane with Michael to Europe when I was like 21. And I remember sitting there thinking, I'm done. She has to this.

She has to figure this out on her own. And I'm such a control freak, as you know, that was really hard for me to have a situation that was so out of control. I think that that situation has made my control freakism even worse because it was like my little sister who, you know, I've grown up with my whole life, completely out of control and there was nothing I could do. I mean, we had interventions with you. We tried everything. We tried, you know, giving you a car, everything, and it just wasn't working. So finally we came to the decision as a family that the only way for us to kind of, you know, stop the madness was to just stop enabling

you. And the second that we did that, I think it was like a month later, you ended up in rehab. Right. And I don't, I think most people think that that's not going to work. I think that most people want to hold on to control because they're scared if they don't control it, that person is going to die or things are going to get worse. And that's why for parents that, I mean, for parents, now that I'm a parent, I just can't imagine like just letting my child go onto the street, kicking him out, cutting him off. I mean, that's so hard. It's so hard, but it's the best thing that ever happened to me. And it is what you have to do. If you know somebody that's struggling from an addiction, a loved one, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a sister, a brother, an aunt,

whoever it may be, you really got to just block their phone number. Stop helping them. The longer that they have any kind of help. I i mean drug addicts will leech and leech and leech onto any little last strand you have to completely cut them off and that is actually helping them more than anything and when my whole family and everyone around that around me did that that's when i got sober and sober ever since. Give us an example of a strand that maybe we as a family was giving you that maybe one wouldn't think about. Like what, what's something that we were doing that was enabling you? Because I know you, I've heard you say that sometimes the family's as sick as the addict

where they're addicted to actually helping the addict. Am I saying that right? Well, the way I look at it is the reason it's so tough to touch on what you're saying, and I'm not a parent, but I can just thinking about it is the way I look at it is the reason it's so tough to touch on what you're saying, and I'm not a parent, but I can just thinking about it, is the way I looked at you when you were going through this, and I talked to Lauren about this, I said, listen, she's either going to get help or she's going to die. And it might not have been, and it's hard to hear,

but it might not have been that year or that month or six months, but the way you were going, there was not a lot of road left. And I think what's so hard for parents is the only way, like you said, to help them is to really let them hit rock bottom and cut them off. But you're also throwing the dice saying, shit, if I let my child go, I might not see her again. And so that's what's difficult. But at the same time, it's like, it's a catch 22 because if, if you don't let them hit rock bottom and they don't get help, again, like I said, it's a matter of time before you run out of road. Right.

And going back to what Lauren was saying about that strand that I was continuing to hold on to, I would say that my dad's love, my dad would not, he couldn't, I don't think he could let me go as easy as others. I think that he was really scared to do that. And there's no, there's no, uh, harm in, in like, I don't feel angry or anything about that because now that I'm a parent, I know that, I mean, that's just gotta be the hardest thing in the world to do is let your child go and figure it out for themselves. Um, but he did enable me in a sense where he would give me money from time to time he did let me live in his house and you know there was a lot of pandemonium and a lot of chaos on my part he did give me a car and you know even I mean he wasn't like throwing me hundreds and hundreds of dollars a week or anything like it would just be maybe $20 here and there.

But even that was enough to to keep to fuel my addiction. OK, so Faye is going to tell us about the week that led up to her deciding to get sober. But before we get into that, I want to tell you guys about Blue Apron. Oh, boy. Who's ready for some baked spinach and egg flatbread with some sauteed asparagus and lemon aioli? Lauren, I know you're jonesing for it. Well, he actually did make this for me before we went to New York and it was actually really, really good. Again, he thinks he's a chef because of Blue Apron. So there's that.

Blue Apron is the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country, you guys. Its mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone, even Michael, who's not a chef. So Blue Apron has established partnerships with 150 local farms, fisheries, and ranchers across the United States, which is amazing because the seafood is sourced sustainably and the beef, chicken, and pork come from responsibly raised animals. And we are bonding. You know, I'm in there, I'm cooking up. I don't care what Lauren says. I basically am a chef. What qualifies a chef? Do you have to get like a degree somewhere

or you just got to cook up some beef teriyaki stir fry with some sugar snap peas and lime rice and then you're there because I'm there. All right. So now you guys can see what I have to deal with, but actually it is amazing because it's pre-portioned. Everything's all measured out. So all he has to do is basically just put everything in the pan and he pretends like he cooks the whole meal. Also, all their ingredients are fresh, high quality ingredients, which make a huge difference. Very TSC. And it's really affordable.

For less than $10 per person per meal, Blue Apron delivers seasonal recipes along with pre-portioned ingredients to make delicious home-cooked meals. It's going to save you all that time of messing around in the grocery store trying to figure out which items to get. Flexible, easy, with lots of variety. Check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blueapron.com slash himandher. You will love how good it feels and tastes to create incredible home-cooked meals with Blue Apron. You can be a chef too, just like Michael. that's blueapron.com slash him and her so walk us through the day or the week that you decided it's this is not gonna work anymore like walk us through the the whole week like is there is there does that week is that the week that's like the

darkest time you're like holy shit i gotta do something about this or is it leading up to that week or how to like how do you come to the point where i guess the question we're asking is how do you get to the point like okay i gotta fix this the week before i got sober in orange county where i had never been it was like a different world for me because i basically grew up in a bubble in san diego which also i had no idea about i never i never seen the ghetto or, you know, a homeless shelter for that, for that matter. But the, the week before I got sober, um, I was sleeping on somebody's couch. I was using in random bathrooms. I had using what, when you say you're using heroin, I was was using heroin or whatever I could get my hands on at that moment.

So the Xanax addiction turned into heroin. Correct. Which is a point that I do want to talk about after this, but go on. Right. So that week I had lost my car. My dad had shut my cell phone off. I was running around the streets of Claremont in downtown San Diego. And I had about I had one friend still helping me and it was out of the goodness of his heart. He was trying to help me and show me the light. But I was, of course, manipulating him and using him. And, you know, I had all the wrong motives at the time. I was just completely off my rocker. So with that being said, I was sleeping on his couch and using whoever I could

for money. And it just wasn't working anymore. I didn't have my suitcase with me. I had left that at somebody else's house. And my friend said, you know what? My friend's mom, Cyrus Monzada, is somebody that we had lost in the past from a heroin overdose. His mother has a foundation for her son. Maybe she can help you. So he called her and we went over to her house. And what's the foundation called if people want to look into it? It's called the Simo Foundation. that's what saved my life okay so we went over to her house and she said i have a rehab for you to go to we will give you a full ride scholarship we'll pay for the whole thing get your belongings together and i was at that point where i was finally like you know what okay i'm willing to go

even though all the while i'm smoking heroin in her bathroom. Like I was so addicted. I could not stop for anyone or anything. So I continued to do it until I got there. So you get there. I want to say something really quick is that even when my sister was this deep in the addiction, you guys, um, she still looked beautiful.

And I always, I always say this because I'm gonna say like you were kind of like a snake in the grass like everyone everyone was like nothing's wrong with her she's beautiful she looks great you didn't have like boils all over your face or like you looked like a totally normal beautiful girl but go. And the reason I looked like that is because all of my time was spent on the way that I looked and what I was wearing. And I had no goals, no job, no drive to do anything else, but get the next fixed. And when I was high, I would, you know, whiten my teeth and pluck my eyebrows and do everything. Cause all I cared about was my looks. Okay, so you're at Cyrus Moe Foundation House, and they say what?

How do they get you to rehab? So what's the intake process? You get there, you're like, holy shit, I'm in a rehab now. So my friend Hugo at the time drove me up to a place called Yellowstone in Costa Mesa, Orange County, and they scholarshiped me. And when I got there, I i immediately said i'll never forget i'm not staying in this house this is disgusting and the girl that ran the place goes this is disgusting where have you been living for the past year six months and i thought about it and i go oh dirty motels in downtown san die. It can't be much more worse. It can't

be worse than that. So my perspective and like, I just totally did not see my predicament at all. So I proceeded to stay there for about three and a half months. I stayed sober and I was really wanting it. That's the scary part is I really wanted to be sober. I was so happy that I saw my dad and my sister so happy and everybody was coming up and seeing me and I was starting over like almost like a baby. Like I was learning all these steps, you know, how to brush my teeth or how to take a shower every day or how to talk to somebody. And none of these things I could do if I wasn't on drugs, I could barely get out of bed. So you have to completely relearn your steps. And it's like starting, it's like

starting over. And I began to work with a sponsor. And I started as time went on there, I started to get very entitled and very antsy. And they didn't give me my cell phone when I wanted and things started to not go my way. So I figured, hmm, I don't really like it here. I kind of want to go somewhere else. And I began to break the rules. And even the little things like that in sobriety, when you start breaking rules and doing dishonest things behind people's backs, you get closer and closer to that next drink, to that next drug. You have to live a very honest lifestyle so that you're not living in any guilt that's

going to take you back out again. So did you go through withdrawals? When I was at Yellowstone, yes, I went through withdrawals. And what's that like? It was horrible. I mean, they had me on suboxone there uh for the first couple of weeks which is what if people don't know what that is suboxone is what people that are addicted to heroin take to come off the heroin and you slowly detox yourself off the

suboxone however we are seeing a lot of people are actually getting addicted to the Suboxone now. That's crazy. You said earlier that your drug of choice was Xanax. And a lot of people are on Xanax. A lot of everyday functioning people are on Xanax. Personally, I don't like Xanax. I don't like the way it makes me feel. But there's people, a lot of people out there that are on it. How did Xanax turn into heroin? Because I feel like Xanax is one of those drugs that it's extremely easy to get addicted to and you start to take more and more and more and more until maybe it's not enough. People don't think it's a big deal. Right. So how did that turn into that? So I really liked the feeling of Xanax. Actually, I loved it. It was one of my favorites because it just gave me not a care in the world.

You know, everything was fine. Everything was at peace. And that's another reason why I liked heroin. But the thing with heroin is it's so much more addictive. You need it like constantly. And with Xanax, it's scary because you do have to be careful with your brain chemistry and your genetic disposition, like we talked about earlier, whether or not your family has a history of alcoholism and stuff like that, because it is very addictive. And it actually takes a depressed person or an anxiety ridden person and makes them more depressed. So some people think they're taking these these pills for their depression and they need them and they're prescribed and this and that,

but they're actually not prescribed the right thing. It's like kicking the can down the road. Like the issue's still there, but you think you're getting rid of it because you get a short-term feeling of relief. Exactly. But it doesn't really solve anything. Like that's the problem is people say, okay, well I have this, so I need to take this. And they don't realize they're just getting deeper and deeper and deeper and they're not really solving any issue. Right. Exactly. They're masking it. So you're in rehab. It's three months later. Daddy and I and Julie and Miles and Mimi and Michael are so happy that you're getting sober. It was such a relief when you were in rehab for me. That was like, you know, just so hard to see you go through everything. And you had to call us all

and make amends. And I feel like everyone was really there for you once you committed to rehab. But then you're in rehab. It's three months later. You're starting to break the rules. What happens from there? So one day we woke up, me and my friend from rehab, and we made a decision that we wanted to go get high that day. Why? How do you make that decision?

Like you just look at each other. Someone suggests it like how does that how do you go from being dead sober for three months and then you just decide that you you know this isn't for you anymore and you're gonna go get high that's the thing about the addict is when you're not ready you're not ready and when you're not ready it's scary because you have to go keep getting your experience keep getting beat down beat down beat down, beat down, beat down, keep relapsing until it gets so bad that you can't function anymore. So we made the decision to go and pick up heroin in Costa Mesa. And I relapsed after three and a half months. I never thought the day would come.

I mean, I thought that I was cured for good. I thought that the problem was I washed my hands of it and it was time to move on. But I wasn't doing a consistent daily inventory. I wasn't, you know, keeping up with my honest lifestyle. So what happened from there? You do heroin and then what? I relapsed and I from there I went to the homeless shelter, the Lynn House. And I've been sober since then ever since.

And how does the Lynn? So like, how does that happen? What does the Lynn house do that's different than Yellowstone? Or you're just at that point like, okay, shit, I screwed up again. Like I'm done with this. Like where's the, when is there the mental switch that says, okay, no more? Because you think, you know, you thought it was the first time and then it wasn't. And then you get to Lynn house and you say, okay, now this time.

Yeah. I think I needed that last little, little hurrah, that last little kick in the ass to really drive it home. Like this is so bad. I have to take this so seriously. This is a life or death situation. I have to do a live and breathe it in and out. And I have to live an honest lifestyle if I'm going to stay sober.

That's just the way it is for me as an addict. Isn't relapsing is the most dangerous part, right? Because your tolerances go back down. You don't have it in your system and you go back and think you can still do what you used to do, right? Like that's where, that's where a lot of addicts run into trouble is they go and relapse. And that's where a lot of death comes from because they go and they go, Hey, I've had this out of my system for, you know, 90 days. And all of a sudden, boom, you hit something and it's too much, right? They tried to do the same amount that they went into rehab doing. And so did you get sick when you did it again?

Or like, was it like I did that? Okay. I guess what I'm equating to is like, you know, you don't, you don't drink for a while and then you, you drink like, man, that was a bad hangover. And you like overdo it and you get a really bad hangover. Like, okay, I'm fucking done with that hangover. Cause you get sick for a long time. Is it like that?

Do you like wake up? Oh my God, I'm really hungover. Or do you go on another bender? Yes yes you feel terrible after it's different for everyone some people go on a bender until it gets bad enough for them for me i woke up in a motel i used one day after leaving yellowstone i woke up in a motel everyone had left me with the bill and no one was there for me everyone was gone i was in a weird area i I didn't know Costa Mesa. I was walking around the streets of Costa Mesa with black trash bags by myself, no phone, no money. And I called the Lynn house and I was, and I was desperate to get in. I was desperate to do anything. I called my dad and I said, I can't do this anymore. I need help. And my dad

was done with me by then he said you know what you need to figure it out you need to find somebody to take you to the Lynn house up there I think that's the best thing he ever did because he was constantly enabling you and I think that that like just everything like clicked so you go to the Lynn house and from there you've been sober right which has been incredible so walk us like into your new life. People want to see how you've taken something that's been so uncomfortable and so painful and turned it into a positive. So today, my life is completely different in the sense of what I think, the way that I feel, my goals, my aspirations, my priorities. My son, of course, is my number one priority and living healthy. And that's why

I love my sister's blog so much is because it's so focused on wellness and health. And, you know, I love to cook now. I love to go to AA meetings and help other people. And my drive has really changed. You sponsor a couple of girls that are going through what you went through? Yes. Which has been really cool to watch you. I think as a sister to watch you sponsor these girls and help them through what you've been through has been amazing.

Yeah, it's been incredible. And you're a great mom. Tell everyone your baby's name. My baby's name is Daxton Gray. And he comes for short. He's so cute. And he's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. I'm not the biggest baby person, but he's so cute.

Speaking of the baby, he's also my godson. I'm the godfather. Let's talk about Johnny, the father of the son of my godson the real father not the godfather and how you guys met and then after that i want to bring i want to take a quick break and bring johnny in here because he's got a hell of a story too and i kind of want to see you know your guy's story is awesome because you've really taken a lot of struggle and you've turned it around and you have a beautiful family now and a beautiful son. But how, how does, how do you, how through all this in the midst of all

this, cause this is a short period of time, do you meet Johnny and end up with a son? So me and Johnny met when I got sober, I was 21 years old. I had just, like I said, began my time at the Lynn house. So about three months after staying at the Lynn house, I began to work at a telemarketing company for my first time in the corporate world. And Johnny was my boss. He's 20 years older than me. And he drove me to work to and from every day, me off at the lynn house after work and there was just an undeniable connection and this sounds really cheesy but uh we just fell in love really quickly and we proceeded to date for like another six months and things didn't end so well we did break up um he'll say that i wasn't mature enough and i needed it to grow up we brought that little squirt into our lives and we had to get rid

of him we won't even mention him but he wasn't long-lasted yeah you had a couple different guys that you dated yeah and now you're back together with him right you guys have been together for a long time we've been together for about two years now. You guys have a super cute house, beautiful son. Thank you. Johnny has a great job and you're doing your oils, which has been life changing for you. You just brought me the tangerine oil, which is my favorite to diffuse in the house. And you also brought me a thieves cleaner because you tell me that I need to clean my house with thieves and not my typical seventh generation. So I'm going to try it. I'm very excited.

Oh, yeah. Don't use seventh generation. No, I'm going to try. I'm going to try thieves. I'm very excited. So tell us a little bit about the oils because I know that that's what you're doing now because I know my readership is extremely interested in essential oils. The reason I'm so passionate about oils is because, like I stated before, I'm really obsessed almost with health and wellness and living like a chemical-free, clean, clean lifestyle, especially for my baby. So I even use the oils on my baby.

What I do is I use a carrier oil like an olive oil or a grape seed and I mix the regular oil with it and put it on the bottom of his feet. What's your favorite to do that with? I like to do it with thieves because when he was little, he would get colds from time to time. And ever since I've been putting that thieves oil on the bottom of his feet, he has not been sick, not once, not even a stuffy nose, nothing. So the reason why I love Young Living above all other oils is because they are chemical and toxic free. And they're the purest therapeutic oils in the country. So I've tried a lot of others and they're actually the only ones with their own farms. They're actually so pure that they have their own vitality line, which you can ingest.

And it's the only company that you can do that with. I like peppermint. Peppermint's really good for when you're sick or you have stuffed lungs or stuffy nose. You just rub a little bit with a carrier oil on your chest. You breathe that in and I swear your sinus is clear up in two seconds. Also, I like to put peppermint on the tip of my tongue because I feel like it makes your breath smell really good. Right. Okay, so where can everyone find you like if they want to check out your oils where can they find your instagram if someone wants to reach out about addiction where can everyone find you so you can find me on my instagram at evil arts vintage e-v-i-l-l-a-r-t-s vintage love it Vintage. Love it. Or my Snapchat is Evil Arts. You can see Dax. My Facebook is Faye Everett. And the link for the Young Living Oils is in the Instagram bio. Check it out. And we'll have you on the blog to talk about oils too. All right. Well, if that's not aspirational to how you can change

your life around, I don't know what is. And with that, we are going to bring Johnny on who has phased significant other, and he's going to tell his story and his experience about addiction. This week on All of the Above with Norman Lear, deep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus sits down with Norman and Paul. Well, you know, there wasn't a script when I was first talking HBO about it. There wasn't a concept. And my agent had said to me, listen, they're developing this thing at HBO about an unhappy vice president, an unhappy female vice president. And I thought to myself, well, I got to get in on this action because it's gold. And it's so amazing that nobody's done it before. Listen today on the Podcast One app or subscribe at Apple Podcasts or on PodcastOne.com.

You're listening to The Skinny Confidential, confidential him and her with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic. All right. We're back from the break. We're here with Johnny Cheek. I'm very excited to really get into this conversation because, you know, Johnny, you know, you and I have had a lot of conversations privately kind of, you know, about your story. And like we I think we've gotten to know each other pretty well over the last few years. You gave me the honor of naming me a godfather to your son, which I'll be forever grateful for. So kind of introduce yourself. Tell us how you met Faye. Tell us how you came into her life. Let everyone know what's going on. Okay. So my name is John Cheek, and I like to identify, since we're talking about recovery, I identify that I'm an alcoholic.

I've been sober for about five years now, but I had six years prior to that. I'll just tell you, I'm not going to start from the beginning right now, I'll just tell you where I met Faye, since you asked that question. Faye came to work for me. I was running, I was a GM for a big call center in Irvine, and she came to work for me. And we just hooked up. Let's put it that way. We just hooked up. Just get right into it. Yeah. And it took, you know, maybe a week or two, but we got into it.

We went to Knott's Berry farm on a little outing for the company and we you know that from there it's been history so it's been a little very rocky with us so up and down in and out you know uh we broke up for a while there and then now we got back together and it's been rocky this time too but i'll you, we have come a long way. We're getting through some of the big stuff that, you know, are rooted issues that come from childhood and new parents and everything. I mean, I can begin to tell you, like, these are root problems that people carry around their whole life and they don't know how to, you know, deal with other people on a, you know, on a common sense level as let me just put it in that way. But, um, you know, we've got over the big stuff pretty much. Um, we're getting along really good now. And, uh, you know, I finally, you know, it just came down to, you know, this is my boundary.

This is your boundary. Okay. I'm not going to step over yours, which I never do. You need to stop stepping over mine. Okay. So let's going to step over yours, which I never do. You need to stop stepping over mine. Okay. So let's, so that's kind of where it's went. Speaking of life, let's, let's go way back now because I want to hear, I think, you know, I've got bits and pieces with you.

Um, but I want to hear, I want to hear this, the full Johnny story. I want to, I mean, we don't need to go back to when you're in diapers and everything, but I want to hear kind of, you know, your life, your upbringing, you know, where you come from, how, you know, what you were doing, how drugs enter your life and how it's affected your life. And, you know, just kind of take us through your journey. Sure. So I remember the first time I got stoned. I was eight years old and I worked on boy crews with my father and he had, you know, kids on the crew that, you know, like to get little kids stoned. I was eight years old and I worked on boy crews with my father and he had, you know, kids on the crew that, you know, like to get little kids stoned and they got us stoned on

some hash. And I remember feeling like just laughing and bumping into my brothers and just that, that feeling that you get. And, you know, and I remember, I mean, I wanted to produce that again. That wasn't really when or where it started or anything like that. But you didn't know at the time what it was? I knew it was weed. Oh, yeah, I knew what it was. Oh, yeah, I knew what everything was at that point because I lived in a party family. My family were partiers, but they were responsible partiers.

They went to work every day. We grew up in la harbour heights which is a nice area i mean we weren't the rich kids up there but we lived in a nice area went to the nice schools and um you know um you know as i as i was growing up i was around i was uh around a lot of kids that were from the ghettos that's where we got most of our employees from because we ran, he ran boy crews. Okay.

So what's a boy crew? Boy crew is kids going door to door selling newspapers. Uh, and this is how they made money. So newspapers, candy bars, or just newspapers, newspapers.

And for my dad, he had, he had, um, subscriptions with, or he had deals with all kinds of big papers at the time. Um, back then it was legal.

Now you can't even do that shit with kids. So that was my first, you know't even do that shit with kids. So that was my first, you know, that's how I got started. So I learned how to hustle. I was going door to door, knocking on people's doors, getting them to buy things that they didn't want, right? So that's where my real hustling started. And of course, going door to door in Long Beach, Monrovia, Duarte, all the shitty cities you can think of, right?

You're going to run into the junkies and the alcoholics and the, you know, scumbags and the hookers and everything that you can possibly think of, you know, lower, you know, I was hanging around that and that's the area that I like to hang. You're in a tough area. All the time. We'd go work these areas and I'd be working in the worst cities and I'd meet these people. You know, again, I grew up in La Habra Heights. My parents, my parents broke up when I was very young, so I didn meet these people. Again, I grew up in La Habra Heights. My parents broke up when I was very young,

so I didn't have much. My mom was kind of the parent that was with us all the time. She's the softer one, even though neither one of them was soft. But my dad, he didn't really know how to give us love and attention and stuff like that. He just knew that he needed to take care of the bills. So he did what he was supposed to do.

That's what I think, okay? My mom took off when we were young for some other guy and just left us. And so that was my first issue with women, you know, abandonment from my mother, you know, the first person that I ever loved, right? So that's the beginning of the, you know, where I started having the root problems, right? That was one of them. So, you know, from there, having the root problems, right? That was one of them. So, uh, you know, from there we jumped around to a few places. We definitely went, we went from really good living to shithole living within a few months. It was like, we're literally really

riches to rags, you know? So, um, what I didn't mind that it was just the, some of the places we ended up. Finally, my dad got us another place and we uh i started ditching school at that point i started smoking weed more at that point i was like sixth grade fifth sixth grade um smoking cigarettes of course all those things at that point and uh from there we moved to the heights back to the heights again and i was living in lahabra and you know i started really getting it going then you know when we moved to the Heights back to the Heights again, and I was living in La Hab I got my first felony offense. I got arrested for possession of coke for sales, residential burglary, and possession of deadly weapons when I was 13. So let's slow down here then because I want to hear the story.

So that's a lot of charges. It's a very young age. Right. What were you doing that got you busted? Well, we did the burglary. I had the drugs on me. You know, stupid. I should have just kept selling the drugs, but I wanted to make more money.

So we went to the guy's house or this guy's house that went to school with us. But you got into selling drugs prior to this. So at what age did that happen? This was like the third time. I had sold weed selling drugs prior to this. So like at what age does that happen? This was like the third time I, I had sold weed and stuff prior to this long time before, but this was when I got into the heavy drugs. I met a guy at the bowling alley that I used to go to in, in La Habra and he was fronting me,

uh, eight balls of speed, really good speed. And I would sell it, come up and meet him there every two weeks. I didn't have a phone number for him. I didn't know anything about him. Meet there every three days or whatever. When I ran out at some, you know up, and meet him there every two weeks. I didn't have a phone number for him. I didn't know anything about him. I'd meet there every three days or whatever when I ran out.

He would meet me there. But that stopped happening after two times. So then I had to buy some Coke to try and turn that money into something else, right? And so I was selling at the park um coke and speed at the and weed at the um at the at the labanita park that's where all the bad kids hung out and so are you selling this to like kids your age or selling to people older than you because you're young anybody anybody yeah but a lot of the kids were older than me but i was a year ahead in school you know so my last name was cheek i used to get picked on a lot people call me butt cheek i was short you know so i learned how to fight really young so um anyway

so i was selling i would sell my drugs to them at that school and i mean at that at that park that's where everybody went you know the cops went there everybody knew all the cops knew all of our names you know i was cheek the freak you know having a weird fucking oh everybody had a weird nickname right um and that's happens to be one of the people i did the burglary with so three of us did a burglary we went to this other guy's name steve's house and we had all the stuff with us no car nothing we're doing a burglary with nothing right well you're 13 could you even have a car at that age no but we could have figured something out other than doing just doing a burglary on the cuff right going into somebody's house burglars

are bad right so you don't say, so we get caught. The cops go over and looked at it and knocked on his door. And, um, one by one, I was hiding in the back. I was one of the last ones that came out, you know, one by one, we call it, we got called out. They took us to jail and they arrested me for all those charges. So what happens at 13 though? Because you're still a minor. So you go to... Juvenile hall. I went to Orange County Juvenile Hall. What is juvenile hall like?

Juvenile hall is not that bad. In Orange County, it's not that bad. L.A. County is pretty bad. I've been all over the place. I've been all over the place when it comes to juvenile facilities. This is my first time going to jail. So, you know, it wasn't really bad.

We're dead carpet. When we first got there, they gave us a little cereal and stuff. You know, Orange County is a little nicer. I was 13. You know, the guys I was with were showing their buttholes and they were like, oh, these guys are going to take you up on it. The cops were telling them that just jokey stuff like that. But nothing like that happens. I had never seen it happen. Nobody gets raped in prison or jail anymore it's just nonsense it's uh that hasn't happened in a long time so anyway uh juvenile hall is uh you know you have to go you know get up at certain times you got to go to school you know you're locked in a uh generally a single cell depending on you know where you're at usually a single cell and so the school's in the

juvenile hall inside the juvenile hall correct okay i got out i got off on that case we went to court on that for about six months i got off on a technicality um and and what would have happened if you didn't get off on that technicality they were offering me 30 days 90 days whatever it was but that would have been a strike that we didn't even strikes then. Nobody knew about it. But if I would have gotten convicted for that, something bad would have happened. I would have probably had some serious problems here in the last 10, 15 years because that would have been a strike. Okay, so let's fast forward. So you're kind of in and out of the juvenile system until you're an adult.

Right. What's going on with school at this time uh i went jumped from i went from sonora they kicked me out of sonora went to lahabra they kicked me out of there i actually didn't go to any classes i got on their you know their you know um you know take home studies did that then i went to uh the levista school which is for all the dropouts went there for you there for a couple times. And then after that, I was just running away from home. So during this time when you're selling drugs and running around, I mean, you're a young kid.

Are you taking drugs at this time, too? Oh, yeah. What kinds of drugs are you taking at this age? Well, I was taking, at that point, when I got arrested at that point, I hadn't done heroin yet. Heroin, I did my first shot of heroin when I was 14. Wow, that is so young. Can you believe that? And the junkies that gave it to me were over the age.

I mean, one was 30, one was 25. I'm going to guess. How did you know how to do heroin at 14 years old? I was with older junkies. They needed $10. So I had $10 and I went with them to El Monte. They showed me where to get it. So I knew how to pick up now.

But the point is that these old junkies showed me how to get high on heroin, which is something I would never do, especially to a young kid at my age. I mean, they were so hard up for drugs. They allowed me to do it. They were using you to get their drugs. Right. So you get the drugs and they literally show you how to do heroin at 14 years old. Yeah. Wow.

Imagine that. I mean, imagine how fucked up that is. I've heard worse than that, but I would never do that. I can't even understand at, you know, cause I know what that drug does to you. I know where it takes you and how it controls you and we just never do it to anybody. So let's keep going down the path. So now at this point, you,

do you think at this point you're an addict? Uh, no. Okay. So this time you're, you're still dabbling around at this point. Yeah. I mean,

I haven't even, I'm close to addict thoughts at all. I'm not thinking I'm an addict. I just want to party, right? It's all about the party. So I'm drinking a lot. I'm running away from home a lot.

Uh, you're getting rested a lot. I've been, from home a lot. You're getting rested a lot. I've been, you know, I had a GTA, had a high speed pursuit at one point. And, you know, the cops chased me off the freeway with the helicopter, nine cops behind me. And how old were you when this happened? 14. Holy Christ. Yeah.

So, you know, from there, it just kept going south continually. I just kept getting busted for new stuff. I sold acid to a cop. I sold speed to a cop one time, directly to cops like an idiot. Just made some dumb decisions. Not the best drug dealer, are you? I'm a good drug dealer. Maybe not.

Probably not. Sometimes I am. It depends. You're a hustler. You're a hustler. I'm a hustler. So anyway, so from there, I had two GTAs as a juvenile. I had the residential, penny thefts, possessionsile Hall was in L.A. County. It's called Los Padrinos. They have three main county facilities for juveniles, Los Pad what we call gladiator school. That's the worst place to go. It's even worse than L.A. County Jail. It is the worst. Is it a youth place? For youth, yeah.

You're up to 25 years of age. So they send you there for three years, five years. So you can be 15 years old with a 25-year-old man. 13. Why is it so bad? No, they keep the 18-year-olds away from... Because in there, that's where you really fight, stab, the racial things. Everything that is, it's just really bad.

If you show any weakness in a place like YA, you're definitely going to have to stand up, or they're just going to keep punking you, because the cops really don't get involved very much. You almost have to be strategic, it seems like, when you go to a jail like that. You almost have to be like, you have to like, you can't, like you said, you can't show weakness. So what do you do when you go in there? You just like. You don't do anything stupid like go and punch somebody in the face or go stab somebody. That's stupid.

You're just basically showing how much of a lame you are when you do that. Once you've done some time, you know, you walk in there. As long as you, I like to do just the basic mandatory stuff. If it's something that we have to do, stand up for whatever it is, a fight, somebody, you know, whatever it might be. I mean, I can give you a million scenarios, but just basically being in the car, the white car, the wood pile, whatever you want to call it, doing the basic stuff that they want you to do is what I would do. I never raised my hand to go stab anybody or anything stupid like that, right? So we kind of glazed over it because we were just so infatuated with the story. But you, so the judge tells you if you keep-

If I get arrested again, I'm going to YA. And then you did get arrested again. No. No, you didn't. And you go to YA, thank God. Oh, you did not go to YA. No. I did my track

program this is when i realized i turned myself in for that by the way i turned myself in they gave me um what's called a track two program at the time they sent me up to a camp called miraloma in orange county i mean in la county and um i did about six months on that. Before I went to jail that time, I realized at that point, I was about 16, coming up on 17, I realized at that point that I was a heroin addict, that I had a problem with heroin, that when I do heroin, I can't do other things. It takes me places I don't want to go. Plus, you get strung out on it. So at that point, I knew I had a heroin problem.

I can go on to many more stories, but I met a couple of guys that, or I met a guy that was selling candies door to door. He had crews of candy kids and I went to work for them. I was one of their top producers, just killed it. But the first guy I worked for was a crack smoker. Okay. He said, I look 35 years old, you know, so I'm picking up crack for him in Dwarvey. Then I ended up hooking up with his two buddies, his other two buddies from St. Louis. They just came from Vietnam. You know, this is not, it not just came from Vietnam,

but you know, they were ex Vietnam vets. They're in their forties. I'm 16 and I know where to get heroin. So I started hooking these guys up with heroin. And that's when I got my first real habit where I knew I had to have it every day. So I would get sick if I didn't have it. So, um, when I went into juvenile hall that last time I, I made a decision that I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to drink or excuse me, I wasn't going to do heroin anymore. I was just going to drink and do speed on the weekends.

That's it. That was my wonderful plan. That was the plan to end all plans, huh? Yeah, dude. Let me tell you, I've had a million plans like that. I can go the plan to end all plans huh yeah dude let me tell you i've had a million plans like that i can go really take you through some plans anyway um that plan i probably tried horrible plan 30 times i i have to do drugs i have to do something to change my perception because my reality is at the time yeah not anymore but back then i had to have something

to change my perception i was fucked up so anyway drugs and alcohol in jail when you're in juvenile hall yes but it's not as it's not like prison or jail it's much different people don't start shoving shit up their ass when they're in juvenile hall yet you they start doing that in jail in prison but you know they do do it people will teach them but it's rare that you run into anything so what happens when you become an adult because at this point like you know you're I don't want to say you're skating by but a lot of these things you're getting

busted for a lot of things you're getting in trouble for if you get in trouble for as an adult carry a much more significant penalty sure but these are all still going to be priors if i don't get them expunged which i never did anyway um i i was uh waiting on my juvenile probation to be done i had stolen a moped i owed restitution on i wouldn't pay the restitution because i'm like

just give me the time but restitution they won't let you do the time on i was like so finally i paid the restitution i got off juvenile probation finally when i was about 19 and i was waiting for the paperwork in the mail that literally got that done paid off before i got the paperwork i caught my first felony offense as an adult so we were i was on the corner are you familiar with orange county a little bit by beach boulevard and ball yeah okay beach and ball is a really hookery drug area a lot of you know anyway so i'm on the corner i need to sell another half gram i'm hitting up everybody on that corner everybody literally and some dude comes out of the out of the it used to be about auto parts place there comes out and i said you need any speed said, well, yeah, do you have it on you?

And I go, well, yes, I do. And so he pushes me up in the corner, starts searching me. I'm like, I'm a fucking idiot. Pushes me up in the corner and starts, you know, searching me, finds the drugs on me, finds the drugs on the other guy i was with and uh when he turns around he has one of those big brick you know walkie-talkies in his back pocket at that moment i realized how much of a freaking idiot i was and he even looked like a cop needless to say i got arrested for that uh i fought that for a little while i ended up doing

like 30 days with you know basically like a joint suspended formal probation type of deal. I managed to run through that for about three years and almost a couple times almost get off. But I just couldn't get to the point where I wasn't doing dirties. So when I got out of juvenile hall that last time, you know, I kept to the fact that I wasn't going to do heroin anymore. So I didn't do heroin for a long time. When does that enter back into your life? How old are you? How many years after you decided that? I kept to the fact that I wasn't going to do heroin anymore. So I didn't do heroin for a long time. Um, when does that enter back into your life? How old are you?

How many years after you decided that? So, so I, I, about 18 is when I stopped when I got out of juvenile hall that last time. And I started doing it again when I was about 22. So you had like a good four year period or five years of not clean, just doing your plan,

doing my plan. But it wasn't just on the weekends. I was doing speed all the time. And I was getting arrested still. It didn't matter what drug I was doing, I was getting arrested. So then how does heroin enter your life when you're 22? Well, I'm living at this hotel called the Golden Forest in Orange County. It's right across the street from Disneyland. It's the Annabella.

Have you seen that? That used to be a shithole hotel called the Golden Forest. Anyway, I was in there with my buddy and he picked up some heroin and I was like, all right, let's do it. One shot, that's all it takes for me. Once I start doing it, I can't stop. From there, I really started, you know,

pushing my criminal career in overdrive. I really started getting in trouble at that point. I had already been in trouble many times. So once I did that, I wasn't very long after that that I got my first prison number. So anyway, I've been to all the different county jails, been all over the place, many, many times, in and out. I don't know how many times I went to L.A. County Jail, probably 10 or 15. Orange County, probably 40 or 50. I'm going to say that's not I'm not sure that's a low number, but I'm telling you, I've been arrested so many times. Right. But then you graduate to the big leagues. So all the all the county time, it's terrible doing county time.

They took the tobacco in the county shortly, you know, in like 91, and you couldn't get tobacco anymore. So, you know, basically you're just in there kicking heroin or whatever it is, and it's terrible. So the food isn't very good. So I get my first CDC number in 93. I had a J number, J-0-4-8-6-2. I'll never forget my number. You know, I had that number for eight years. It's a pretty old number now. It was 93 when I got the number. So I'd go in there and you'd see people with A numbers, B numbers, C numbers. These are really old people that have the numbers like that. Most of them are dead or whatever. Usually lifers with those kinds of

numbers. At any rate, so I have a J number. I couldn't get rid of that. I held onto that for about eight years. I kept getting violated. And really, you're only supposed to have a CDC number for four years if you don't get arrested for something new. But I always managed to figure out ways to make them extend things. So when you say violated, does that mean you're doing time and you do something against For a violation. It's not an actual new crime. It's just a violation of the terms of parole.

So what's an example of a violation? Absconding. That means you don't show up or you go and throw a dirty test on them or you don't follow whatever. Maybe you have a 5B you're not supposed to drink, whatever it is. They have all these different things that each person has different stuff based on what they are. But how do you get alcohol when you're in there? I'm talking about when you get out on parole. I know. But how are you?

You're in jail. Like how you, you said that people drink and do drugs. I get how drugs get in there, but how does the alcohol get in there? They have pruno. Okay. We make it ourselves. So we make it ourselves. You take bread, yeast, sugar, and you take fruit, okay?

And it'll ferment, okay? You make what's called a kicker. We make a kicker that gets it started. Once you put enough fruit and sugar and yeast in there or bread, you can use potatoes too. There's all kinds of different things you use. It cooks it. And once it gets cooking, it tastes like hell. But it's got some pretty potent stuff in there. But, yeah, we would make bags of it like this.

This is called pruno. That's what it's called. And how do the guards not know that people are drunk? Well, they do sometimes. Sometimes they don't. You know, it just depends. Like, there's some stupid stuff that happens in the cells when you've got a bunch of drunk people that are a bunch of anarchists in jail, right? So it happens.

Nobody listens to authority anyway in there. But it doesn't always happen. Okay, so eight years goes by like this, and you got bounced around to a lot of different places in those eight years. All over the CDC. The first time I went to Northern California, I went to Old Folsom. I've been to Old Folsom, New Folsom. I've been to Chino seven times. I've been to Sentinella, Calipatria.

I've been to CMC twice. I've been to Adelano. I've been to one more. The first one, Tachipi, twice. So I've been to a lot of different prisons. I was always waiting. Whenever they're getting ready to trans-pack you, take you to another prison, you don't know which one you're going to until you turn in your stuff. So I'm always looking to go to the good prison, right?

This is what I look forward to, right? This is what I look forward to. I was glad to not be doing counting time anymore. I had moved up to the big leagues prison, right? All right, we're going to talk to Johnny about his transition into sobriety. But first, I want to tell you guys all about Kopari. Okay, so if you guys follow along on Snapchat or Instagram, you know that I am absolutely in love with Kopari. Okay, so if you guys follow along on Snapchat or Instagram, you know that I am absolutely in love with Kopari. I really can't find anything wrong with it.

The other day I went to Create and Cultivate. It was like this influencer's dinner before we spoke and I was wearing Kopari body glow all over my chest with this super low-cut dress. And I am telling you, I have never been complimented more on my boobs. It's like this like kind of bronze shimmer, but like not too bronzy. And the tones aren't red. You guys know I hate red tones. They're kind of like cool tones, but they're brown and shimmery and perfect and dewy. I love it. Definitely, definitely in my travel bag. So also another one to try is Kopari's Coconut Melt. It's kind of the ultimate multitasker and it's definitely too in my bag while I'm traveling

because it can do everything. I rub it all over my body. I like it on my collarbones. It makes them pop. I also like it on my arms and sometimes I'll even use it as a makeup primer. Okay, but can we get back to the body glow? Because I'm just so obsessed with it. It's also amazing if you just get a spray tan because it gives you like the lightest shimmer in the world and it's just really, really light. So if you're going to try one, I would definitely recommend that one. That's the one that I put on my boobs. All right. Say hello to the best skin and hair of your life with Kopari. Go to koparibeauty.com slash skinny to get 20% off your order. That's Kopari, K-O-P-A-R-I beauty.com slash skinny for 20% off. Koparibeauty.com slash skinny. And make sure you check

out the Coconut Body Glow. You know, obviously you're clean and sober now. You're with Faye. You have a child. You're a hard ass worker. You've had success now. How do you start're you've had success now how do you start after all of that how do you start transitioning into sobriety like how does that come about how do you get into a sober living facility how do you get out of prison how do you how does it happen so i maxed out my cdc number okay so that means i did the maximum amount of time you can possibly do on on violation so what happened was um i absconded every time you abscond, it stops the clock. And then I, um, and they added a one year enhancement. So every time I got out, I'd report maybe one time. So all that time just kept accruing. So by the time I got to the eight years

or the end of that eight years, uh, when I, when they, I might've just maxed out the number with eight years on the same number. So, um, when that happened, I was like, woohoo, the cuffs are off, green light, I'm going to do some crazy shit. Started selling a lot of drugs again, doing my thing for about a year. Then right at the very end of that, two times in a row, I got busted for stuff that was about to send me back. I was about to go back to prison again and get a new CDC number. And one day I was just like, I'm beat. And just something happened.

Something broke inside me. I was like, I was on the street. Prison didn't break me. I didn't mind prison. You know, county jail didn't break me. Juvenile hall didn't break me. It's on the street that broke me. When I hit, I hit this bottom on the inside, something that you can't explain to somebody unless they've actually gone through it.

You know, I hit a bottom where I was just broke. I couldn't imagine living another day like that, you know, another day on the streets, strung out, dealing with any of that stuff. So I checked into a detox. I still had the plan, strung out, dealing with any of that stuff. So I checked into a detox. I still had the plan, by the way. I'm going to smoke. I'm going to drink and smoke. I'm going to drink and do speed on the weekends. That was my plan.

Going to my detox after I'm broke, right? I get there and the detox, you know, I don't have a really big heroin habit. So I get through that pretty quickly. I move into a place called the Rock Center. At the Rock Center, a lot of convicts are there. It's really easy for me to find things to do in there. Play pinochle. That's what I do in prison.

Lift weights. Go to their stupid classes. Pretend like I'm involved. Go to their meetings. Check out chicks. stuff like that. They fed good as far as I was concerned and they had rollies, you know, really tobacco. So, um, so I was happy there. And, uh, uh, about 30 days into being there, I realized one morning I woke up and realized

that if I drink, I will get strung out again. If I drink, I'll start doing heroin again. And that was like an epiphany for me. It was like the day of one of the worst days of my life because I had to swallow the pill of alcohol, no more party, no more weekend, no more nothing. Right. I have to give everything up now. Everything that I thought was cool, everything that I live for is now gone. So I've just lost everything. You know, my medicine. That's what it was. My medicine is what fixed me when I was feeling bad. So, um, from there I made a decision that I was gonna, you know, start doing some stuff and, you know, work, work on, uh, you know, staying sober. And I got loaded one more time at the Rock Center. After that, I remember the next day like it was yesterday.

I was on the freeway, driving down the freeway with this dude I knew from prison in his truck. And I had this junkie in the truck with me that had heroin on him. And I was thinking, I don't want to be sober. I don't want to be strung I don't want to be strung out. I'd rather be dead. Those were the three thoughts that went through my head that day. And it talks about it in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It talks about the jumping off point, which I didn't even know what that meant until a few years later, but that's where I was at. At that point, I made a real decision. Until you make a decision,

you can't go anywhere. Until you finally say, okay, I'm all in, you're not going to go anywhere. It's just going to be miserable. You might be able to get a few months of sobriety, but you're not going to be able to do it until you actually step all the way in and make a decision that you're going to do whatever it takes. That's what I did. So from there, things started changing. I started meeting people that were, you know, teachers that were teaching me what I needed to know, because I was completely out of touch with reality. I was institutionalized.

My principles and guidelines, my morals were everything was screwed up. I had nothing. And I didn't even know how screwed up I was. Thank God. If I did, I would have been like, you know, because I had to completely change. I mean, literally everything. So it was a slow process. You know, I had to start stop reacting and start, you know,

responding when people did things that I didn't like, you know, because that's what you do when you're in prison, you react, you know, somebody calls you a punk, you, you, you beat their ass, right? I can't do that anymore. Right. I can't live like this, which is now I'm in the world of the spirit, right? I'm trying to get away from, I know everybody thinks that, you know, it's not a God program. It's a, it's a spiritual program. Okay. But we have to do a lot of work and it doesn't look like a spiritual program from the outside, but that's really what it is. So I started changing the things about me that I knew were pushing people away from me, you know, acting like, uh, changing the way I cut my hair, um right, you know, all the different things that I had to change about myself so that I could become part of society as opposed to against it.

I did. They started promoting me. They promoted me. First, my first promotion was a training supervisor. I did that for a while and I killed it. They started sending me all over the place to train everybody else. Right. I killed it. They started sending me all over the place to train everybody else. I was going to Colorado and all these different places to train. The next thing was they moved me up to a pod manager.

So I had three different offices that I managed that did owner referral for timeshare. The next thing they sent me to was the Philippines. I was living there for about four months. And when I got back from the Philippines, they gave me enough was the Philippines. I was living there for about four months. And when I got back from the Philippines, they gave me enough money to open my own office. So I had my own business at the end of that. So how long are you sober for this time? Five years. Five years. So, okay. So you're doing great. Everything's going well. What makes you all of a sudden after five years, that's such a long time, you relapse.

How long did you relapse for until you decided that you wanted to get sober again and for good? Maybe two months before I wanted to get sober again. So it was only two months. So it wasn't a long period of time that you were using between the two times. No, let me finish. Let me finish. Okay. Two months is when I realized, oh, my God, what did I do? Am I an idiot?

Okay, first thing I did is i had all this money okay i'm driving a red corvette i've got my own office i've got about 20 30 or 40 employees i've got plenty of credit cards i've got everything i can possibly need right so um the first thing i do is buy a bunch of heroin no a bunch a bunch of heroin and a bunch of speed go home and do a big shot of it and then the next I'd take it back to the guy and sell it back to him because I was so paranoid. Anyway, so I went through these little scenarios a few times before I was like, oh my God, here I am again. I am strung out again. What am I going to do?

So I went to one of those cushy rehabs up in in um lake arrowhead that really doesn't help you get sober you're not going to get sober in lake arrowhead you need to be somewhere where they're going to tell you the truth about yourself you know these cushy rehabs the high end the money rehabs insurance money most people don't get sober there because they don't tell them the truth. They just want their money. If you go to a place that's low-end, indigent place, they'll tell you the truth. And that's what I had to do.

Obviously, I was indigent anyway when I got there. So I went to that rehab, found Suboxone. That helped me stay out there even longer. And I was just constantly on the fence. One more shot, one more time, one more time, one more time. Every time it was one more time. And that one more time kept leading me on. So it took me four years to come back after that relapse.

And I knew what to do when I got here. I just couldn't come back. I was physically unable to come back. Nothing in my head would not let me stop until God let me stop. I went to jail four times in a row. I got two DUIs, and DUIs are more expensive than armed robberies, let me tell you. Two DUIs are ridiculous. So I got arrested four times in a row within about a two- to three-month period,

and I saw where I was going the last time, I was in the back of the cop car I was out for five days and I almost cried, but I don't really cry when I get arrested, because you know you don't cry anyway, but I almost cried and I was like, dude I just, at that point I said a little prayer

when I got, right before I got out that time, I said a prayer. And I said, you know, God help me to get sober again. I can't do this. I had Xanax bars in my pocket, like 50 of them. And I was this close to taking one. I got a hold of my old sponsor. He came and picked me up, and I was able to get one day.

That was it. It's not about the thousandth drink. It's about the first drink. It's not about the tenth pill. It's the first pill. Once you take the first one, it's all over. You can't just take one. That's the problem with us.

So the insanity is the first drink. Okay. So he came and got me and got me into a rehab. I was able to get on track from that. So I was doing everything necessary, doing all the stuff that we did the first time, making amends, going to work, paying all my debts, you know, doing my DUI classes, going to my AA meetings, doing all the things that are necessary to keep me locked in and stay sober and sustained sober.

You know, so I did what I did the first time and i wasn't in as much fear as the first time obviously i was in fear the first time everybody's like if you fall down you'll get drunk you know you know a lightning bolt will have uh you know some heroin in it or something you know it's not it doesn't happen like that like you got to physically do that it's just ridiculous so anyway um the second time was much better much easier I had a lot of the training that I needed, you know, like how to balance a checkbook, how to go to work every day, all the real things that you need to know in life. I was able to move forward a lot faster and that's why I'm in the position I am now. So how many years have been sober now?

This time I got five years. I just took five years on March 29th. And so that's a total of 11 years. They say when you stop, when you start doing drugs, that's when you stop growing up. And let me tell you, when people come into AA, they're like 13 year olds. They're just completely out of touch with reality, selfish, self-centered, just, and it's really hard to work with new people sometimes because I see where they're at. So how many people do you think you've worked with now and helped?

Oh, thousands, thousands. I have employees. I have, there's just, you help people in a lot of different ways. You know, I don't, it's not. Does that help your sobriety? Oh yeah. When you see. Well, when I see them get loaded, it helps my sobriety.

When I see them stay sober, it helps my sobriety. Everything in it helps my sobriety and keeps me locked into this. So how often are you working the program now? I still work all the time. I mean, it's constant. It's not something you quit doing. So talk to me. It's not the same way as the, you know, in the first, you know, year or whatever.

You're not going to meetings every day. I go to meetings twice a week now. And I'm still working on my, you know, my character defects because we all have them, you know. And those are things that are. No, but I really like that you came here and shared this story because I think, you know, my, um, character defects, cause we all have them, you know, and, and those are things that are. No, but I really liked that you came here and shared this story because I think, you know, a lot of this show, we talk about a lot of aspirational stuff and there's a lot of people out there that are complaining when life gets tough and there's, you know, hard circumstances that everyone deals with. I think your story is, you know, much more significant than a lot of stories that we get. It's, I don't want to say significant. That's not the right word. I want to say you've had a lot tougher struggles than most

people have had. I mean, to start doing drugs at that young of an age, to be in the system for as long as you were, and to be in the position you are now where you have a successful business, thriving business, you have a beautiful son, you have, you know, fiance, you're, you really turned it around. And I just want people to like, kind of hear this and understand that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as long as you're willing to look for it. Right. And I see people that are depressed, anxiety, all the other things that go on. I mean, that's life.

Of course, people have troubles. You know, what I found to get through my anxiety, my depressions, my things like that, that happen, these come up, the stress causes it really bad, is I get up and do things. If I just keep my feet moving, my head will eventually catch up. Great advice. Clean stuff. Do whatever it takes. Great advice.

Right. And then I also just remind myself where I come from. It's easy for me to remind myself. No matter what situation I'm in, whether i'm on the bus with you know nothing going to my new job i don't even have a pack of cigarettes or whatever it is a cell phone had a flip phone when i got first got sober that somebody gave me right um you know five years ago it didn't matter when i was on that bus i could look and see somebody you know that had much less than me you know and i could sit your focus on gratitude gratitude and you know when that had much less than me, you know, and I could sit there on the bus. So you're focused on gratitude.

Gratitude. And, you know, when I'm driving my car, I look at the bus stop, you know, when, you know, whatever it is, you know, if I'm, if I'm fighting with, I mean, I can give you scenario after scenario. It's all about you, how your attitude is. So I always try to have a positive attitude. You know, I'm not always the most optimistic person, you know, I've definitely had the other shoe drop many, many times, but I try and stay as optimistic as possible. Pretty much, you know, that's how I, you know, live day to day. I wake up in the morning and pray for another day of sobriety and how can I be best benefit God, benefit him. And then at night, I thank him for another day, you know, and that's kind of my story. And then I go to a couple meetings a week.

We work on the book, and that's really what we're working on is our inner issues, you know, our real root problems that we have that a lot of people just pass over in A. Most people don't really get down to the causes and conditions of what their problem is. You know, where did it start? It started when they were usually young. You know, your mom left you. You got abandoned, okay? You know, your mom left you. You got abandoned. Okay.

You know, your dad hit your mom. Whatever. You see these different things and they mold you into the person you become. Okay. And then you start using a lot of these different things that have happened to you as excuses to go get loaded, to go get drunk, stay drunk, deal with that. And you also have those problems and they're deep-rooted problems that need to be dealt with. You have to deal with your issues or you're not really going to have a content and useful life. This is what I want. Content and useful life, continued sobriety. I never want to get drunk again. I never want to live the life I lived.

I've been in the bushes. I've been in the penthouses. I've been in everywhere you can imagine and everything sucks when you're on drugs, Okay. Except for the first five or 10 minutes of it. Then after that, it goes bad. If that's not a good message to end with, I don't know what is. So if you could tell, if anybody listening out there struggling with something, what would, what do you think, what would the first piece of advice you would give them be? Where can they go? What's the first step they can take? Who can they talk to? Who can they reach out to? Where, what should they do? Well, you can, they can take? Who can they talk to? Who can they reach out to? What should they do? Well, AA is really easy to find in Southern California. I mean, anywhere in the U.S. now. I mean, AA is everywhere.

So I don't know the hotline number or anything like that, but I'm sure you can find an AA club anywhere in Orange County, L.A. County. Or you can just look it up on Google. Let me tell you, it's on Google. If you want to save yourself, there is an answer. There's a solution to your problems. You just have to be willing to do the work that's necessary to get there. And, you know, if you're beat up enough, you'll try it. You know, most of the thing that stops people from moving into this and doing what's necessary is fear. They're afraid that they have to give away their best

friend, which is the drugs and alcohol. They're afraid to try something new. People are afraid of change. And that's one of, this is one of the things you have to do though, if you want to get out of where you're at, you know? So one of the things that I heard when I first got sober, I was about nine months sober. I was going through interferon treatment, which was for hepatitis C. And that puts you on this roller coaster of emotions that you could never understand. It was the most insane thing. I wanted to kill people. I could lady took a chip for 24 years or something like that. And she said, when I came into AA, she had this accent. I'm not going to try and do her accent, but it sounded like she was like German or something. She said, when I came into AA, I thought the gates of heaven were going to open up and let me in, right? She said, no. She said, when I got to AA, the gates of to open up and let me in, right? She said, no.

She said, when I got to AA, the gates of hell opened up and let me out. And for me, things like that are just, it seems like you hear these types of things when you need to hear them. And I was just like, that's where I'm at. You know, that is where I'm at right now. And, you know, so the main thing I say is don't panic. You know, when it comes to AA, when it comes to sobriety, it's one day at a time. You know, stay focused on the prize.

The prize is the sobriety. Everything else is a bonus. That's the way you look at it. If I lose everything, I'll still stay sober, you know, the way I look at it. Well, that was awesome. Thank you for sharing that. You know, I knew a little bit about the story, but you know, I learned a lot more today and I think you probably just provided a lot of benefit to a lot of people listening

and we thank you for doing that. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, Johnny. You're incredible. I appreciate it. And we love, love, love my nephew. Isn't he the cutest baby? That's another thing.

God drops little gifts like that on you. He's a big gift. Oh my God. He's like the cutest, the best baby. I mean, he is just amazing. cutest baby that's another thing god drops little gifts like that on you he's a big gift oh my god he's like the cutest the best baby and he is just amazing i'm so happy you can't there's nothing wrong with him all right johnny so what are you doing now where can people find you what are you working on what's going on so i own um a three-fold company right now i have uh we have three different things we're doing we're doing search engine optimization which is basically getting people ranked on google um we also do and there's a lot of different things that are involved in that it's very cheap we do it for

small medium businesses uh we sell interactive websites that are linked to facebook really helps with the social media and gives them a place to post and blog um we do sba loans as well so small business loans legitimate legitimate government loans. So, you know, they're good interest rates. You know, you're not getting a lot of the, there's a lot of bad loans out there, but we offer the bad ones too. If they can't get approved for that, they can get one of the other loans too. Uh, and then, uh, we are just starting a new project, which is, um, IMS classified. We're doing, we're using a Craigslist software so people don't have to constantly post on their,

people that own furniture stores, that type of thing, hate posting because you have to post over and over again. Our software, they press the button in the morning. They have a 24-7 employee that just keeps posting for them over and over again. So if their furniture store is posting 100 different things, it'll change out the ads every, you know, five hours's the main, what's the main site or address where they can find you?

Uh, so the best, the best one, uh, they can, they can find me on is, um, I, this is a long one. I local gurus.com. Um, so it's I L O C A L G U R U S.com. Cool. All right. L-O-C-A-L-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cool. All right. Well, I also wanted to mention before we go that if you guys are out there and you have any kind of addiction problem or you know someone with an addiction problem, you can

go to www.aa.org to seek help and you can put in your location and your zip code or your country and you can seek help. That's the Alcohol Anonymous website. Thank you, Johnny, for being on. Thank you, Faye. Thank you guys for having me. That was fun. We'll do it again soon.

All right, you guys. So I wanted to dive deeper into my perspective of the whole situation. So I've added a blog post to the Skinny, which is all about addiction and you know, my personal experience. And if you guys like posts like this and podcasts like this, please, please let us know either on Twitter or Instagram, because we will definitely do more. We just want to make sure that we're showing all the facets of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly with that. Make sure you're subscribed to the skinny confidential him and her podcast on iTunes rate and review us, please, please, please.

And we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic. Download new episodes every Tuesday at podcastone.com or subscribe now on the Podcast One app. Here's an interesting fact for you. There are nearly 1 million new books published in the U.S. alone every year. 1 million. So if you like to read, how do you choose what you're going to read? Well, that's where Fully Booked by Kirkus Reviews comes in.

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