We're Out of Time - Lamar Odom's SHOCKING Sobriety Journey

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Join  @RichardTaiteOfficial  as he dives into a conversation with Lamar Odom about his near-death health crisis that was coupled with his addiction issues. They also converse about sobriety, faith, the Kardashians, Lamar's time with the Lakers, losing his son at 6 months, losing his mother, and more. For all things Richard Taite, the We're Out Of Time podcast, and Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa: https://linktr.ee/richardtaite For more on Lamar Odom: https://www.instagram.com/lamarodom/ Key moments from this conversation with Lamar Odom & Richard Taite. Intro 00:00 Who is Lamar and Richard's favorite NBA player of all time? 00:23 How did Lamar feel when he was traded from the Lakers? 01:47 Why was Lamar raised by his grandparents, and how did SIDs impact Lamar's family? 04:03 How did Lamar get sober? 05:48 What were the circumstances around Lamar being in a coma and how many strokes and heart attacks did he have? 09:55 How did Lamar deal with his relationship with Khloé Kardashian being exposed publicly on Keeping Up With The Kardashians? 12:09 What wisdom does Richard share with Lamar to encourage long-term and continual sobriety? 15:26 How is Lamar's relationship with his kids a big element of his sobriety? 16:28

12 stroke and six heart attack. You were in a coma, right? For three days. They told me I wasn't even going to talk again, let alone walk. I've done a lot of drugs in my life. How'd you get sober? Wrong will. God, 15 minutes or high, your life.

Lamar Odom. That's me. Dude, you've given me so much joy in my life. I don't even know where to begin. Okay? He must be a liquor friend. Not just that. My brother and I followed you at, um,

Rhode Island. And we thought, we used to say, that guy's match Johnson. Yeah, that's my favorite player growing up. So I tried to emulate the moment. Me too. Commerce. It's just, it's your peak. I don't know how about it.

I thought I knew everything about you, but the truth is I didn't know anything about you. I knew about your basketball life. Yeah. But I didn't know anything else. I knew that you were married to Chloe because I, I've got a 14-year-old daughter. Okay? And the only way I could ever connect with her is to watch the Kardashians.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Which, by the way, I love Chris. Your ex-mother-in-law, coolest woman alive, right? She's the boss. She's the best. My father-in-law loved her.

Oh, yeah, they knew each other. Okay. But he passed away last August. I was sorry to hear that. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. No problem. Here's something I really wanted to ask you because you come off like a real genuine human being

and someone who's sensitive, something that somebody feels a lot. I don't know how you felt about this, but I always assumed that because the Lakers were like a family when you got traded to Dallas, I felt like you were heartbroken. and it made me heartbroken. Oh, I definitely was. Because I was, you know, I've been through so much, you know, like you said, off the court. And, you know, I filmed the reality show there and in season, won an award.

So I came with it. But I guess that maybe that was just me being into me too much. And not really, everybody's really susceptible to trade. That's just the part of the business. You aren't into you too much. No, I'm just saying, but, you know, if you, you know, take a look back and think, take a step back, you know, everyone's susceptible to trade. Right now, as good as he is, even LeBron James right now could be traded. He's got a no trade clause, but.

You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? But it's just like that. You got it. You got it. Hey, can we talk about something that, and if you don't want to, you don't want to. to talk about it, man. We don't have to talk about it.

That's all. Because this is the most unnatural thing that anybody can do is bury their child. Yeah. Like, see, like, that's some of the things I went through as a Laker. Like, you know, so they were on that journey with me. They supported you. Yeah, that, yeah. They all, yeah, they did.

You got a good relationship with them now? Yeah, I can call Jeannie and ask her for things if I need them. I can call Jeannie too. She gave me your phone number. There you go. She looked at me like I was a weirdo. I was sitting at Courtside and I met her. And I said, listen, if you want me to deal with this Westbrook thing, I can deal with this for you and get his head right.

Because he's, I love him. Yeah, I do you. He's definitely one of my favorites. Yeah. And she looked at me like I was on glue. Yeah. Yeah. You were brought up by your grandparents like I was.

Yeah, my grandmother raised me. My mother passed away when I was 12. It's so it's cool crazy because I just celebrated a birthday on November 6th. How old? 45. Nice. But then it hit me like, damn. I've lived 11 years more than my mother.

My mother passed away and she was 34. Wow. Yeah. And she died of cancer. Yeah. The big C took out. I'm so sorry, man. Yeah, sorry.

You learn? You know. It never goes the way though. How old are your children? My daughter is now, I said she was 14, but she just turned 15 a couple weeks ago. And my son's 11. How old are your children? My son is, my daughter is 26 and my son is 23.

And their brother that passed away, he was six months. I'm sorry, what? happen? My child that passed away. He was six months old. He died from SIDS. I don't know if you ever pretty sure you've heard of it. Yeah, I'm so sorry. You were a shitty student just like me. Yeah, but you know what? After my mother passed away, I'll just, right, I don't know, I'll just fly like, spirals. I block school out mentally. I don't know if it wasn't for like me being a good Like respectful kid and having this extreme talent, I probably wouldn't even graduate high school. How did you get sober? How'd you get sober?

Wrong will? Like, did you do therapy at all? God. Oh, God's always. Plant medicine, I think helped me a lot as well. Pot? Pot. That helps me daily. And then took an African. plant medicine, which is used to help people with anxiety, depression, and that are addicts.

My African ancestors used to use it to get in touch with their lost loved ones with the people that weren't here anymore. So it's a hallucinic. It's a hallucinic. Yeah. Yeah, but it also has those qualities of those healing qualities that I just told you about. Sure. What's it called? Ibrahim. Ibergay, sure.

And I've done a lot of drugs in my life. I could say that that was the strongest shit I ever took in my life. It might have had fentanyl in it. No, no. Did it toxicology? No, yeah, this is on the doctor's supervision in Mexico because it's illegal. Oh, no, no, I was talking about the hardest shit you ever did. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, prior to that before that. It might have. But the ibogaine was the strongest shit you did? Tell me about it. I was wishing it when I was, you know, going under influence over it. It was so strong. It was over, and it was just fucking strong. It just kicked my ass in every which way.

You had to like just totally submit to it. And then you get to see all these visions come to you. And they said they used the first vision you usually see is like the person that you can sit closer to you and your family. And I saw this big picture of my cousin. This big. It was like that big. And it was my cousin Sierra face.

Sierra was my cousin. I helped raise along with my grandmother. Then I kept hearing my mother's voice and my grandmother's voice. But I think the coolest thing is I got to see my son again. So I got to see him at the age like at six months. I got to see him like around 12 or 13 and then the age that he would have been now. So I think it's just a combination. of ketamine as well.

A good combination of treatments and, you know, me just realizing that life is, you know, it's too precious, like, especially like now. Like, you just talk about, like, fentanyl. I couldn't imagine me sniffing anything up my nose with that type of shit out there like that. And then it's like, no, like, think about it, like 15 minutes or high, your life.

That's why you're here. Yeah, it don't even really balance. They don't even really equal out. So that's why you're here. This podcast is called We're Out of Time. And the reason I call it We're Out of Time is because when we were kids, we had a right of passage. We could do drugs and alcohol. Okay.

I mean, we could. There was no fentanyl in it. Nobody was dying from this shit. I mean, if you overshot the mark with some heroin, yeah. Okay. You took too many pills and you overdosed. Yeah. but not like today because today you go out and you buy some cocaine and you're you're buying something that you're not bargaining for you didn't know there was fentanyl in this thing and then people are dropping and like I said there's nothing more unnatural than burying your child and so one of the reasons I wanted you here was because people listen to you

dude, nobody gives a fuck about what I say. Don't give a rat's ass. You're fucking Lamar Odom. Okay? Yeah. People listen to you. And you have experience. You were in a coma, right?

For three days. Okay. That's scary shit. Twelve strokes and six heart attacks. How many? Twelve strokes and six heart attacks. They told me I wasn't even going to probably even talk again. let alone walk.

You're so lucky. You've got to be grateful because your life is good, isn't it? Come on, dude. Are you happy or what? No, I'm here. It's the alternative.

Even if I was sad and depressed every day. Yeah, but if you were sad and depressed every day, you couldn't space over. You're right. My glass is always, I look at life, my glass always half for my grandmother's home.

Why do you feel like you're not the lucky, man on the face of the earth. I'm definitely one of them. You are. 100%. You are. So what would you tell any kid today who was buying drugs

on the street? If it's not marijuana, they ain't your boy. They ain't your friend. Even marijuana on the street is no good because they're spraying it on the weed and on the paper. Do you remember last year during the AFC

championship game up in Kansas City. They found four kids the next day, face down in the snow, frozen to death, with pot laced with fentanyl. They all died.

Pot was laced with fentanyl? Yes. That's why you can only get shit at the dispensary, okay? That's what I was just thinking about, too. Like, I never heard of that. And I give my, you know, I get my, you know, my mind,

from California. But I told myself, once they, like once that's become a regular oil fat, then I guess it's just going to be some mushrooms for me because... Well, wait a minute. You can do that.

You can get the weed. You just have to get it. From a dispensurate. I know that, but yeah, because the cultivations, of course, they're not going to lace their shit with no fat and all. But, man, that's too bad, man.

How did you deal with your life being exposed the way it was on the Kardashians? Because it seems to me like that wasn't really your thing. That was my wife's thing. That's right. And I'm going to be down, you know, for my wife. And, you know, I make me a lot of money. I'm in L.A. I don't think you could never be too famous in L.A.

because you're going to take advantage at all the opportunities that come to you. But I was down with it. I think a lot of people get misconstrued with like that's where my drug usage started. I used to try to have to try to hide that shit from Chloe. Your arm is so long, you could smack me in the face from there. My daughter and I watched the Kardashians

and I didn't know about them like three years ago. It's so crazy because when I first, met her. I didn't know who the fuck she was. She's the coolest. Your ex-wife is the single coolest person. I heard the name before. I'm not going to lie until I didn't hear who, you know, but I didn't know who Chloe Kardashian

was. And then we was married 30 days later. That's awesome. That's awesome. And you guys are still close. She still cares about it. I don't speak to her, but she cares about me. Damn straight. She does. But I don't speak to her. Why? I don't know. It's life.

Really? I mean, I could text her. She'll reply. Mars. All right. I'm going to ask you something a little embarrassing. If you don't want it in here, I'll cut it out. Well, I mean, you can ask me anything.

Dude, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen. You know what? It's so crazy. I went there and I was just thinking about it. It's some of the weirdest, like, when you're really thinking about it, like a doll. Yeah. But then you think about, like, mental health and how important that is. Not just in today's time, but just, you know,

from the beginning of time. A sex doll that looks like your wife is about mental health? For me, it would be, yeah,

for me, it would be, yeah. I mean, it's sick, but I think we're all a little awful, a little weird, a little bit.

Don't ever embrace your insanity. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's awesome. That sex doll, dude, does it look like her?

Yeah, they're gonna make it to look like her. I need, I need like a harrum. Can you get to Two of them? I could have, I got to sell them, I got to sell these things.

Ask you a question. What do you do now that you're retired with your days? Like, just give me an average day. Well, wake up, call my manager. Beware and how we can make some money. Meditate. I don't work out as much as I should. How often you work out?

I haven't worked out. Well, I don't think one time in the last three or four. four months. Dude, you'll feel so much better. I already know that. If you just wake up. And that's where all my blessings come to when I work out. Yeah.

And it gets your head right. You're right. You don't make me feel bad about it. Dude, I ain't shaming you. I got no, you do, be kidding? I just want you to, you know, be happier because I said,

you know, are you happy? And you went, okay? And you can't, if you're not happy and, you know, you don't find something that's more important and more valuable

than you can't stay sober. There's only so long that you can be unhappy for until you need your medicine, no matter how good our intentions are. So I work on self-love and a joy of living. And I get it wrong, dude. Okay, why was that? Because when you said self-love, I masturbate every day.

Dude. I definitely love myself. I mean, you know what? No, I like the movies. I like video games. I compete with my son in the video game every day. Really? Yeah.

You close with the kids? Yeah, my son especially, my daughter, yeah. I know. They live with me. They live with you? Yeah. Dude. How are you not the luckiest guy in the world?

I think that's what makes me lucky. That's what keeps me sober, right? Because I miss so much time with my kids because of my career and then my extracurricular activity when I wasn't playing. So now that they're 23 and 26, like we can, we're like friends. Did you make a repair with them because? And it happened naturally, too, we're like, yeah, wasn't forced. They got to the time with like, you know, I'm like, I want to come live with me or, you know, it's time.

And it just happened. How were they dealing with the fact that you were doing drugs, especially when you were in that. coma. And I just want to tell you what you. But you know, I don't know. I was in the coma. No, no, no. After. Yeah. But they were, even when I was going to the rehabs and they got to the point where I couldn't hide it from them anymore, they were like getting older. They were always been supportive, especially when they see me fighting. But they must have been heartbroken. I'm pretty sure when the doctor told them one to two times, like, there's probably going to be your father's final hours. They probably were like more than fucking.

up. Well, now we know why they live with you. They're like, Jesus Christ, we almost lost them. Yeah. But they got strong resilience as well. There must be an Odom Gene. My daughter wants to be a model. He's really, really good. I went to the first time she ever walked. And it was kind of like the same time, like the first time I ever played basketball in the NBA. She had a 30-point gain. Shut up. She was like, she was like, she did, she's done it before.

Like it was easy for her. She was, uh, I hope, you know, I hope with enough, um, attention to myself, I can bring some attention to her with that.

And I think my son is basically just kind of like, you know, I'm going to have to groom him and get him start and push him wherever he wants to go. but you're in love with your kids yeah yeah good for you man you talk to your uh their mother yeah no not really but you don't but it's all right good relationship yeah good

you know as the kids are good then she's good yeah yeah that's the way they are good deal but we gotta you gotta get me down to your um to Carrara yeah dude I love you I'll tell you to be the first and I'm not even a little bit sorry My grandmother, I got a grandmother in Brooklyn. She's 97. Really?

She's been living in the same apartment building for 70 years. I got one more, another story for you about my grandmother. My grandmother passed away June 29th, 2001. My son passed away June 29th, 2006. But for me, I think that was the only way I was really able to resolve because I'm spiritual. To me, that was like her telling me that she got him. Yeah. Same day.

Come on, that's fucking trippy. And my grandmother passed away on her 80th birthday. That was her 80th birthday. I am so sorry. That's all right. Give me a favor, bro, okay? It was so nice to have you here today. Oh, no problem.

I'm so appreciative. I make sure to get my numbers so we can link up. Bro, I already have your number. All right. I wasn't going to call you and put you on blast. That ain't the way I do it. That's all good. But do me your favor, will you?

Look into that camera and say, see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. That's so fucking good. We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube, click the thumbs up, and leave a comment. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast and Spotify and leave a rating and a review. And share the We're Out of Time podcast with others you know who will get. get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.