#22 David Rodriguez - Overcome Bullying / Getting Sober 02:14:16

Celebrate the Black Friday sales event at Woodhouse Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Blair. Step into a new Jeep that you can count on. From the awarded new Grand Cherokee to the capable 2022 Jeep Compass, the Jeep lineup won't compromise on power, technology, or comfort, delivering confidence and convenience for 29 years. Woodhouse Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Blair is your trusted auto partner. Visit us off Highway 30 in Blair or online at woodhousechryslerjeepdodge.com.

How's everybody doing? I'm in downtown Franklin, Tennessee today. We're getting ready to release David Nino Rodriguez, former heavyweight boxing champ. One hell of a backstory. If you guys don't mind, if you like the show, please hit the subscribe button and then turn the notifications on all by hitting that bell.

All the shows coming out. All right, everybody. Love you. Enjoy the show. A lot of good stuff coming. Cheers. Have you ever looked into like some of the psychedelic treatment type stuff? I did it all. I've done GMT. I've done shrooms. I've done it all. You did do it with a shaman. A shaman. The whole universe opened up for me. What do you mean by that? I just started going down this wormhole. I got thrust into a different reality.

And I saw entities. Best way to explain it. I saw things that, it's like a veil was lifted. Did that help you at all? It let me know there's a lot more out there that I do not know. When I started knocking them out, it was like an orgasm to me. It was like a fix. It was like I was getting shot up with heroin or something. It felt so good. Every time I hurt someone and knocked them out, put them on the canvas, put them on their back, it was addicting.

It's powerful stuff man, and I took that and I drank the whole flask. And I went back to the VIP section and I remember his face just looking at me like you couldn't believe what I just did. I started telling my friends, your friend is dying. Your friend is dying. Look at him, he's dying. I was purple, my neck was turning purple. And I was gasping for, I was having cardiac arrest. - The El Nino, David Rodriguez. - What's going on Patreon?

Join me on Vigilance Elite Patreon for a live video teleconference. David Nino Rodriguez. In the flesh, baby. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Sean. You're welcome. What do you go by? Do you go by Dave, David, Nino? People that don't know me call me Nino, right? Yeah. That's like the boxing ring name I had, but people that know me call me Dave, so you can call me Dave. Where'd you get that?

They were doing write-ups about me at a young age when I was boxing. Nine, ten years old, they just called me Nino. And that stuck with me. Not a very intimidating name to have in the boxing world. It stuck with you the whole career? It stuck with me the whole career, man. It was just something that the newspaper gave me back when I was about nine or ten years old. And my trainer adopted it, Louie Burke. And he was calling me Nino, just Nino. Because at that time, I had a baby face. Now it's Viejo.

So, you know things change. David Viejo Rodriguez. David Viejo. Well hey, I got you a little something. Everybody that comes on gets a little present. Oh nice, alright. You got any guesses? Well never mind. This is, and you know I'll be wearing this on my show. Hell yeah. Absolutely man. Oh and this of course.

The coffee mug. So yeah, you know this is gonna go a long way with me, so thank you. And? Oh, damn. Oh man, you had to do it, didn't you? Dude. The gummy bears. The s'mores was amazing, by the way. I got s'mores. You want some s'mores? I'll take some s'mores. You want some s'mores s'mores? Yeah. Alright. Those are like unreal, but this is amazing. Thanks, Sean. Yeah. This is really cool. Thank you, brother. Hey, you're welcome.

But uh... Put on an extra... Yeah. So uh... 15 pounds of that. So you got a hell of a boxing career. You wrote a book. You were undefeated until your last two fights, I believe. Yeah. Now, we just had this conversation. What do you do now?

I'm a YouTuber, Sean. You know, that's a really awkward thing to say because, I mean, really, that's what it is. It turned into that. I mean, we were talking about that on the way up here, and honestly, it's a strange thing. It's very foreign. It's very alien to me. I've never really... I don't even know where to categorize it. You know what I mean? It's just like...

an alien on my doorstep. It's the weirdest thing. I've never thought I'd be on YouTube doing podcasts or anything of that nature. What happened for me happened very organically and very unexpected. It was not something that I set out to do. Basically, after boxing, I thought, well, boxing career's over. Getting in my older years now, I'm just going to go into commentating, maybe train some fighters here and there, maybe do some real estate here and there, but I really had no ambition to be into the podcast business at all.

So it hit me, it blindsided me. What made you start it? That viral video I had about in 2020 talking about the human trafficking. Really? That set it off. That was like the match that lit the forest on fire. That went viral, got millions of views. Yeah. And it happened overnight, honestly. Yeah. So it was, I was just doing a Facebook live interview.

and just casually talking about, oh yeah, there's kids in tunnels and there's adrenochrome and this and that. And next thing you know, that was on a Facebook Live. And then the next morning I wake up, I'm like, is this right? You know, I'm used to getting about 5,000, 10,000 views, but I'm like, 100,000 views? What's going on here? I go, this has to be, there has to be a glitch. Then as the day progressed, I'm like 200,000 views, 350,000 views, 400,000 views. And then I'm like, yeah, delete.

Delete that I'm gonna die Yeah, I was like getting very concerned for my safety So I took that video off but it was already copied and set out all over tick-tock all over Instagram and I was like, okay Well, oh boy, this is either I either embrace this Yeah, or I run from this go hide out in like Costa Rica somewhere. I don't know just on a rant. I

It was just, I was just, it was literally, I was having a cup of coffee and it was during the lockdowns and everything. And I was like, you know what's really going on here? And I started talking about it. And when that happened, it just, it caught fire. And then it was like, took on a life of its own, to be honest with you. And like I said, I prayed about it. I had to really think about what am I going to do here? Do I want to...

uh run from this or embrace this and i really did pray about it and uh i embraced it and i said you know what i but i had no idea it was gonna take me in a whole different direction with podcasting and youtubing and yeah you know things of that nature it kind of it took on its own life force that's the way i can explain it it's crazy you know that's that's kind of just fell in my lap too i just got tired of answering emails so i was like i had this bright idea i was like you know what

I'm going to make a video that addresses all of my frequently asked questions. And then I'll never have to answer another fucking email. And that video wound up getting like 5 million views. And I was like, oh shit, maybe there's something to this. And then it just brought on a whole life of its own. Kind of like what happened for me, Sean. I...

I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't out to do this. I hadn't, I didn't even know how to work YouTube a year ago. I didn't even know how to like work social media. I knew how to do a Facebook live. That was my extent of my social media. I had no Instagram. I was like barely ever on Instagram. And then when this hit all of a sudden, literally when that bit, this is what scared me the most about that.

was when that video hit that night, my phone was losing battery with all the followers I was getting on Twitter, on Instagram, on YouTube. It was just going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, all day, all night the next day for the weeks going on. I mean, it was stressful. I didn't enjoy it. I was like, this is not what I want.

I freaked out. I was freaking out on that because I thought I had a little bit of fame and taste of fame and celebrity quasi celebrity status in boxing until this hit. And I was like, this was a tension that I did not want to get. Yeah. I'll see with you. I did not have any desire for this and it freaked me out. Yeah. It freaked me out. It's weird. It's very uncomfortable, man, because social media is a different animal because when you put yourself out there, um,

Let's say like when I was fighting there was not really much social media. When you put yourself out there on TV and do stuff like that and you fight on TV, you have press conferences, stuff like that, your life doesn't have a magnifying glass on it. It does to an extent but not like now social media where people are posting every hour about their life, about what they ate, this and that. So people really get to dive into your life with social media and you're exposed in every category and you're very easily accessible.

That was not, that's not how it was when I was boxing. When I was boxing, the only way you could talk to me or I could talk to somebody was during an interview like this or, you know, you'd have to set something up. There was no DMs and emails like the way it is today. Like you're just that much more accessible and that's kind of uncomfortable.

It's funny because we found each other through my social anxiety video, which we both struggle with social anxiety. You have close to 250,000 YouTube subs within, what, two years? One year. One year. And it's weird being out in the limelight like that. And it's funny because you were talking earlier, we were talking, and it was...

I was a undefeated heavyweight boxing champ and now when people ask you what you do it's oh well I'm a I'm a YouTuber I'm a YouTuber I'm the same way yeah I'm an influencer I you know I can't get used to those terms man I don't want to accept them but yeah I saw your video uh I was uh I was just going through YouTube and said like oh you might like this video or whatever they do and I was watching her and that was during the time I was watching a lot of sobriety videos

And, um, cause that was what was keeping me strong through my, uh, sobriety was I had, I'd watched YouTube videos of people that were just sober, newly sober people that had been sober for six months, whatever. And yours was about social anxiety. And I was like, Oh, I suffer from that. Let's see what this guy's got to say.

And you were speaking on it and I was like, wow. I was like, exactly what I'm going through. And this guy's a former Navy SEAL. So I thought to myself, man, that's why I reached out to you. I was like, man, come on my show. I'd love to talk to you about this. And it helped me a lot, you know, reaching out to you and doing that video. Because this is where you feel really alone. Is whenever you quit something like alcohol, that was a lifestyle. Not just something I did, but a lifestyle change.

My whole thing was fighting, womanizing, drinking, gambling. All vices. I embraced all those vices. Once I quit out drinking, everything went away. And now the ups and downs that I was used to are not there anymore. So when I saw your video and how you deal with it, I had to reach out to you, man. I had to make that connection. So I did. Well, I'm glad you did. This is what, the third...

The third YouTube collab that we've done. But it's all been really good stuff. And yeah. But so just diving into your past. You started boxing at a young age because you were being bullied. Yeah. That took on a life of its own. Now you've, then you wrote a book on anti-bullying.

Kind of about your life. Yeah, and and you speak about it and Now you do this YouTube stuff and a lot of it's kind of I mean a political, you know And it's just you've crushed pretty much everything you've put your hands on it seems like in life to include your boxing opponents Yeah, but yeah but what I'd like to do is kind of dive into your childhood a little bit see what what happened and

why you went the boxing route and then kind of move into some of the struggles with social anxiety, PTSD, and how it is being sober, you know? So let's dive right in. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in El Paso, Texas, border town, border city of Atahuala. So I was exposed to two countries at a very young age.

you know um very highly Chicano culture in El Paso um very familia a lot of family but um you know you also have the disposal of another country next to you so at the age of 13 14 like I told you earlier um that's when the really what I thought was normal but it was alcoholism at a very young age and it was normal there you know going to Juarez and doing and uh

Constantly getting into fights, getting thrown into the Mexican jail was a way of life. You know, $5 drink and drown. I mean, you go to Juarez and you cross over the bridge, you walked over. This was pre-9-11, so there was no paranoia, terrorist paranoia. You could just walk over. Oh, American, okay, go. You just walk over. You could walk over with beer. I mean, it was easy. And you walk over and kids were vomiting on the side of the road over the bridge. You know, like, I mean, it was just a party town back in that time.

And starting at a very young age of 13 was how it all started. And it was rough. I mean, we'd go to clubs and bars and there'd be bar fights almost every weekend. And we'd be a part of it somehow, some way. Well, before we go into that, I think you started boxing at what age? Five years old. So at five years old? Five years old. So you were being bullied by a girl. Yeah. And your old man stepped in and said...

We saw where this was going. So we saw where that was going fast. What kind of stuff was happening with the bullying? Well, I got my ass kicked on the playground by a girl when I was like five years old. And that was like obviously very traumatizing for me. The way it happened, you know, I kind of hid it from my father. I was coming home every day with a bloody nose black guy. The girl was much bigger than me. I was five years old.

She was actually 25. Yeah. She was like 14. No, she was, she was like about eight or nine years old, but yeah, she was, she would beat me up every day and it was humiliating. I was coming home and, uh, hiding in my room and whatever. And my dad, uh, knew something was up. He knew the gig was up, you know? And he, um, one day said, my sisters followed me to the park and saw what was happening. And I had very protective sisters, older, younger, older sisters. And they, uh,

They stuck up for me and called her some really bad names and took me back home, told my dad what was happening. My dad was like, uh-uh, no son of mine is going to be bullied, much less by a girl. So he took me to the boxing gym. And when he did that, it was terrifying because he took me to a real boxing gym, not like this commercialized shit you see today.

You know, the real boxing days back then was in the ghetto. We were in, it was the slums of El Paso where they had like the city gyms. All the tough little Chicano kids would go and I remember the first day I walked into a boxing gym, I was crying. My dad just left. Walked me in, gave me to his friend Tom McKay, who I always called affectionately my uncle. And he pulled me aside and started teaching me how to wrap my hands and I was just looking around in this atmosphere and

Kids that were eight or nine years old, I could not believe, fighting like dogs in the ring. Bloody, fighting each other. I'm sitting there going, this is what my dad wants me to do. And like a little pussy, I started crying, bawling for my dad. Dad, come back, come back. At five? At five years old, I did not want to be there. And I saw these kids that looked to me like monsters. They were only eight or nine years old, but they're in the ring, punching each other, blooding each other up, fighting like two pitbulls.

And I've never seen anything like that as a kid. So it was like he just threw me into the water and just left me, you know. And being there, you know, I started learning the trade. And through the years, I still got picked on a lot. I didn't really come into my own until about high school. Even though I was excelling at boxing. You got picked on all the way up to high school? About middle, about junior high, junior high.

And we can just fast forward to that. Junior high. Okay, so junior high I was eating my lunch in a stall. Bathroom stall in the gymnasium. Because I didn't want to go outside and get my ass kicked. That's how many kids wanted to beat me up. They heard I was the boxer kid. But I still felt like a coward. I didn't really...

I wasn't really sparring yet in the ring. I was hitting the mitts and looking really good on the mitts and the bag, but I never really tested my spirit. I didn't know what kind of fighting spirit I had, so a lot of kids wanted to test me at school. And they made it a living nightmare for me. It was hell. I mean, I was a tall kid, but I wasn't a built kid. I was skinny. I was uncoordinated. I was going through an awkward phase in my life.

And there was just so many kids that wanted to kick my ass. Why did they just wanted to kick your ass? I was like the big weddle, the white boy. You got to remember, at my school, we had kids from the suburbia going to school there and the projects. So we had gangs.

And many times after the bus stop, man, I'd have to run my ass home. They'd be chasing me, you know. And they were down in the lower area like Machuca, Jackie's projects. We all went to school together. And so it was a different kind of element, you know what I mean? So I was constantly living in fear. I was constantly getting threats that they were going to whoop my ass. I did get my ass kicked a few times in junior high. And that happened consistently. But, you know, you can only kick a dog so much.

You can only punch a dog so much until finally just one day, just one day, like that I flipped. And I just, I was like, what took so long? Next thing you know... How old were you when you finally flipped? I was about 16. What were they saying to you? I saw a kid that beat me up in school, in Juarez at a club, at a bar. And I walked up to him, I go, remember me? And he goes, ah, you fucking pussy, whatever he said to me.

cracked him it was over one punch and then what's it he was knocked out and then after that i was like because i knew what kind of power i had and then after that i was like this that's never gonna happen again to where people mess with me then i was like a big guy six five uh two you know at that time 230 with a little man complex so it's like i had this weird combination of like don't look at me the wrong way i might get you you know what i mean like i was very uh

It was just the natural... For me, I look back and I think this was probably the natural response from being picked on so much and beaten up so much as a kid that, of course, the next thing over, now I turn into the bully. You did turn into the bully. Yeah, absolutely. I turned into... I was mad at everybody. Would you go out and pick fights? No, I would just punch people in the clothes. For a while, me and my friends would just...

oh that guy looked at you wrong boom and hit him you know what i mean like not even think about it yeah you know and then that's the way it was for a while only because it was insecurity man you know when you when you get down to it it was insecurity i was i didn't i was insecure being picked on all my life led to me becoming that person and then ultimately having a really stellar boxing career but that boxing career was based out of insecurity let's just be honest i'm gonna be honest on your show

That was insecurity. You know, whenever you see someone, you know, I was going to name my book, Bullied Into Champion. Because all of boxing for me was just the natural response to show that I wasn't a coward. Because I was terrified of being a coward. I hated living those years so much. So badly being picked on. Knowing that I didn't want to fight anybody. I was sick of being picked on. Yeah, you know, for years. That I had to hide away into a bathroom stall. That...

I had to, it was almost like my boxing career was to prove I was never going to be that guy again. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. Like I just, I had to prove to the world that I'm not that coward. And that's how that turned out. And my career was unblemished for 36 fights. I was knocking everybody out. I didn't know how good I really was.

And I was surprising myself with every fight. I was like, oh my gosh, another first round knockout, another first round knockout, another first round. And then it was freaking me out. I was like, how am I? I was going through people like a knife through butter. Like, I didn't know how I was doing it. And as that persisted and kept going, the pressure started getting to me. And I was like, holy shit, I'm 20-0 now. You know, 20 knockouts, 25-0, 30-0. Like, and I'm winning belts.

Then realistic expectations started getting put on me. Unrealistic expectations. And no matter who I was fighting, I started having this unrealistic expectation that I needed to knock them out in the first round. Like Mike Tyson, I've got to beat the record. I've got to hold the first. I'm the king of the first rounders. I've got to knock everybody out. And that was ultimately what added so much pressure onto me that led to alcohol and drugs.

That's a lot of pressure to deal with. And the Mexican culture in boxing is very unforgiving. Once they adopt you as one of their own, and you're the, I used to call myself the great white Mexican. It's almost like the great white hope, but now the Mexican people demand a lot more from you, and you're fighting for country and pride. And that is what ultimately, I believe, made me fold.

So were you fighting for Mexico? Basically. I mean, I was the Mexican heavyweight champ. I won the Mexican heavyweight championship, the WBC Mexican heavyweight championship. I mean, I was fighting for the pride of Mexico. I had that pride in me. I fought under Rodriguez, which was my roots. But it got to my head because every time I'd knock somebody out or come out,

and sign autographs, people were like, oh, we come to see you do one thing. We were all just betting on when you're going to knock them out, what round, you know, first two rounds, first round. That started getting to me, and it was too much pressure. Too much, because not only did I have to win, now I had to knock them out in the first round, no matter who I fought. And that, to me, it was unattainable. That's what ultimately, that's what made me crash and burn right there. Boom, that was it. I couldn't, I couldn't, it was, the world was on my back, and I couldn't do it any longer. Yeah.

And that's what I resorted to the booze the women escapism women booze drugs. What kind of drugs everything? Everything everything man. What have you not done? I've done it all done all of it. Yeah uppers downers pharmaceuticals Yeah, I What was your drug of choice Molly Molly Molly mixed with some alcohol? I would even pop an adderall I would mix drugs and

anything to get me out of my reality. And it got to the point that if I wasn't blacking out, then I wasn't doing a good job of partying. And you don't want to see a guy my size not control himself, start falling, swaying back and forth. People would get out of the way like getting rid of the old timber. It was bad. And I'd wake up on the floor at a bar sometimes.

In a jail cell not knowing how I got there thinking oh shit that I killed somebody Did I knock somebody out and hurt them? What did I do that this was happening more and more consistently, especially in my early 30s before we get too far into that Let's take it back to childhood. So your dad put you in boxing because you're getting bullied fucking Excel at that a phenomenal pace

Did your dad know that you had kind of turned into the bully? He would have been ashamed of me. Yeah? So, no. He never knew. He always wanted me to stick up for myself. But the point that I got to where I was just picking people out to knock them out at a bar was something he would have been ashamed of. But for me, I was trying to prove myself. Yeah. To me. At the end of the day, the race is with yourself. I was trying to prove to myself. That's really what happened. And it was...

Based all on insecurity, man. That's all I can say. It was my own insecurities that were making me do that. I felt like I had to do it. You know what I mean? Because I developed such a complex as a young kid that it cultivated into my later years into being a complete piece of shit asshole. All of it, all of the drugs, the alcohol, all of it were escapisms.

stemming from insecurities. And the fact that I'm able to come on your show now and talk about this and bare my soul to people who are watching this is because I realized what it was and I want to help other people deal with their own demons. And I could be used as an example of what not to do. I'm not ashamed of that. And I'm a Christian. I believe in God. And I believe I'd be doing an injustice if I didn't tell my story.

When you were in the bar versus in the ring preparing for a fight, was it the same for you? Or do you know what I mean? What would you use to kind of pump yourself up? Anger. Anger? I was mad. What would you think about? I was just mad all the time, man. I guess it just, I developed this anger. I was always pissed off.

I hated my life. I hated that I was picked on so much. I hated that I was eating my lunch in the bathroom stall. I hated it. I hated that person. I hated me. So when I knocked somebody out in a bar or something, I felt better about myself. But really, I hated myself. And that was even in boxing. I was always trying to prove something to nobody else but me. Every time, every fight, it was all stemmed from...

My turbulent childhood or like the trauma I endured in childhood I think a lot of I don't know what to call just say maybe overachievers or people that find success and Extreme success and what they're doing, you know, they feel that pressure and it is it just it never ends You know, and I mean honestly, that's why you know, no, but it's ended for me now. Yeah once I retired from boxing it ended and

Once that was put to bed, my life changed. Now, what about the competitiveness though? Dude, I'm not competitive at really anything anymore. Really? No, man. I'm chill. I did all that. I'm done. I know what I did. I'm cool. I fought. I was up there with the best of them, top 10. I'm over it. There's nothing to be competitive. I already did it. It's like you being a SEAL. You do it. You don't have that insecurity of having to do more. You're just like, fuck, I did it. I'm done.

I don't even care if I pick up basketball games or whatever. I don't care. I don't care if you beat me at pool. Cool. High five. I don't care. I just don't care. I just want to enjoy my life now. I do my little podcast. I do what I do. I tell you what I do care about. I care about the direction this country is going. That's, for me, another arena that I'm fighting in. Yeah.

For the most part, I'm really, I'm not competitive anymore. Not even close to what I used to be. And I have to take a piss. Alright, let's take a quick break. Hey guys, let me tell you about this subscription service that I've been working real hard on called Vigilance Elite.

patreon basically on patreon we have it broken up into three different tiers we got tier one tier two and tier three let's dive in our tier one patrons get all the behind the scenes footage of the sean ryan show

That could include behind the scenes photos, that could be side conversations that we have in between breaks, that could be specific questions that our patrons give us for the guest on the Sean Ryan Show, and a ton of bonus content that doesn't really fit into any specific category. For our Tier 2 patrons, they get access to our Tactical Training Library, which consists of well over 100 videos.

We've broken those videos up into separate categories and those categories are rifle fundamentals, pistol fundamentals, drills, tactics, driving, gear and weapon setups, and everybody's favorite, mindset.

Also on Tier 2, you will get a live update from me on the 1st and the 15th of every month where we talk about the upcoming guests on The Sean Ryan Show, plus all the benefits of Tier 1.

Our top tier, which is tier three, gets full access to all the other tiers, plus they get full access to me, where we do video teleconferencing, VTC, once a month. We discuss anything from tactics to current events to who's coming on the show. I take suggestions and it's very interactive.

No matter what tier you choose, the support is greatly appreciated and it is the only thing that makes this show drive on. So thank you for all the support. See you on Patreon. Alright, so we're back from the break. Before we kind of move into adulthood, you witnessed in your book a lot of kind of traumatizing type stuff going into Juarez. Juarez. Yeah. Juarez, yeah. Juarez.

What was going on back then? War is Mexico. Yeah. Well, you know, the friends that I hung out with in high school going into, well, they should have been going into college, but nobody did that, were pretty rowdy. We were a really rough group of guys. You know, we were doing a lot of illegal stuff, smuggling steroids over the border. And I'm talking about in the tens and thousands of dollar range.

i would you know high school i did a few drug runs where i would drop them off in albuquerque phoenix uh i would steal cars no yeah i stole a lot of cars man um to the point that uh we were making good money not only just throwing parties over in mexico but we were also like stealing cars and and i mean you get a fake id go to a car lot hand them your fake id let me take it out on a test drive

in mexico you ever ever see me again so you would you would know in el paso you would take the take take them from the car lot and just go drop them off in water no yeah how much money were you making out of that nothing 2 000 2 500 to give us but we were just kids so we thought it was the greatest thing so you would steal a car for two thousand dollars yeah but it was more for the adrenaline rush well i totally i i get the adrenaline yeah that's the only reason i really didn't need the money what were you

Hold on. So how old were you? Were you even 16? 14. 14 years old, running steroids and stealing cars. Yep. What else were you doing? Running drugs. Running drugs. Yeah. What kind of drugs? Weed. Coke? Coke? Yeah. How much coke? They wouldn't tell me. They would just pack the trunk and I would take it to a place in Albuquerque or wherever and...

A lot of my friends are doing the same thing. The way we were making money. Growing up on the border was way different than anywhere else in America. Sounds like it. Yeah. And it was normal. I didn't think of it as anything illegal. It was just what we did. All my friends were doing it. I had friends that were...

You know, I knew kids in Juarez that were already hit men that were killing people. I knew in the boxing gym people would talk. You go to the boxing gym in Juarez, Mexico or go to the gym there and you know who was doing what, you know? So let's go through each one of these. So you were running steroids, you were stealing cars, and you were running narcotics. Yeah.

Like, how the fuck do you even get involved in that as a 14-year-old kid? Who approached you? Let's go start with the cars. You know, well, my kids, my friends that didn't have parents, really. I hung out with a lot of kids that had broken families and they didn't have a way to make money.

so and they had cousins that lived in Juarez and this and that so I talked to the you know we talked to you know word got around and then oh you make money doing that I can do that let's go do it next you know you're making a fake idea at your friend's house taking it over to the dealership hey let me take this on a test drive oh no problem brand new Mustang perfect let me have that let me take that around the block I'll be right back well we have his ID gone

no yeah and it but you can't do it long because it gets out the word gets out kids are coming with fake IDs taking the cars you know yeah so we did it we would hit three dealerships in a day and then not do it again okay so walk me through every step of the way of how this happens so you run with a crowd you run with a poor crowd yeah they weren't poor a lot of my some of my friends had a lot of money and and but they didn't do this stuff I had two sets of friends

I had friends that had money that were mainly into doing drugs, right? Because they had the money to buy the stuff, so they were doing drugs. Then I had friends that were into mischief and problems because they didn't have money. So they had to do the legal criminal stuff to make money. And for some reason, that attracted me more than anything. But I will say this. Out of all the stuff that I was doing, all the stuff that I was doing, the thing that saved me was boxing. That saved my life. Because then I...

Started realizing I like to go into the boxing gym more so than getting in trouble and that's what saved me So I left that life through boxing boxing kind of so boxing did you know as Turbulent and as tough as boxing was it did save my life Interesting. So what the cars you you and your friends Roughly, how many usually about three or four of us would hit three dealerships a day. How many cars is that? Oh, we only did that We only did that twice

Okay. How many cars? I did about three cars. They did about four or five. They did more than me because they needed the money. I was doing it in one day.

Two days, but it would take about a day or two to do it. We did all the indulgences. Get them all knocked out quick so they can't, so they have no time to find out what's going on. Kind of, you know, everything's very confusing. And then don't go back and do it again. And then it got to the point where I go to the YMCA where my dad was playing racquet. This is how I got caught ultimately.

I went to the YMCA and my dad was playing racquetball. He played racquetball, you know, and they put all their bags out outside of the racquetball court. So all the people that he was playing racquetball with, and you'd go down the line, all the racquetball courts would be taken up and everyone would leave their bags out with their glove and their keys, their keys. So me and my friends would go and take the keys and take the cars. Well, everybody's car was missing except my dad's.

I thought you were going to say you stole your dad's fucking car. I did. Or one of your friends did. No, we used to... Well, the way we got caught that time was that all the cars were missing except my dad's car. So they knew like, oh, gee, your son was here earlier today. You know what I mean? And that's how I got caught. That's how ultimately I got caught. And I had to return all the cars, which I did. How many...

Like, how long were you doing this for? Years? Months? No, just months. Months. And that time at the YMCA when I got caught, I think we took two cars and then the rest, we just stole the stereo systems and did all that. Holy shit. And I was very lucky they didn't press charges on me. Well...

So who were you selling the cars to? You just take it to a warehouse and they strip it down. Oh, so you would drive them into Mexico? Yeah, you just drive them in and then you take a bus back home or a cab or whatever. How many cars would you bring at once? I could only bring one at a time because I was driving them. Well, I guess I meant like with your buddies? During the day, I'd bring like two or three. Two or three at a time. Yeah, and like I said, it was easier back then to cross over and do stuff like that. I did, you know...

but like i said if it wasn't for boxing i would have been i probably would have continued down that path and it would have been very ugly for me yeah you know what about the drugs how did you get roped into the drugs my friends are making good money doing that being runners and i only did that twice i didn't i didn't stick around and stay in that game because i was like man i was too scared i did it the first time and i felt like you know going through the checkpoints and like i just got i was nervous wreck

and i just did not want to keep doing it so i just did it twice are you willing to go into like a descriptive so walk us through it you go to mexico yeah you know you're going to pick up a load of coke or marijuana they wouldn't even tell me they'll just take this take this from point a to point b who's they the people i don't just the people i was dealing with over there i was a kid they always got young kids that do this because it's like they're more impressionable they need the money whatever

And then I would just take... It wouldn't have to go far. I would just go to Albuquerque or Phoenix or, you know, I never really went that far and then take a city bus back or a bus back home. Who would pay you? They would. They were always short. I was like, this is not what I was promised. But, you know, it was just the day in the life back then, man. That was like, I thought that was normal. I thought all kids were doing this. No shit. Yeah, because where I grew up, that to me was...

But we did, me and my buddies, you know what I mean? And all my friends also were like, they were, I honestly think they were crazier than I was. Way crazier than I was. All my friends were way crazier than I was. I feel like I was like, you know, I would step over the line, but I would come back. You know, I didn't really, you grow up on the border towns, especially at that time, seeing a lot of violence. Like we'd walk over a bridge and you'd see bodies hanging sometimes.

It was crazy over there man, like but that became normal though Just like you get desensitized to it. You'd hear of a club getting shot up You'd cook still go back to that club the next weekend and party I don't know how I got away with all that Wattis says as I got older got a lot more dangerous throughout the years and now I You couldn't pay me to go over there anymore I mean, I know some people that still go there and they could have more power to them, but I'm not going there Yeah, what about the steroids?

So what would you do? Just go to the local pharmacies? Yeah, to the pharmacies. I had a friend that, well, most of the time we bought him, right? But there was one time where he went and he robbed the place and duct taped the person onto a chair and the pharmacist or whatever and took about $20,000 worth of shit and put it in a box.

and he put it in the back of his truck and okay so when that happened i wasn't with him he dropped me off at a bar i met some girls i was having fun at the bar he went and robbed the place came back he said hey man let's go back over i was like all right i thought he was just gonna go buy me some stuff i look in the back of his truck and there's a huge box full of juice and then probably fifty thousand dollar range i would guess i don't know i'm just guessing

And all he did was throw a rag on top of the cardboard box. It was out in plain sight in the back of the pickup with a rag on top of it and a starter on it, like from a truck, a starter on it. And I'm like, what's in the box? And as we're driving over the bridge, he told me what he did. He robbed the pharmacy, and I was like, you're kidding me. And you have it just right there in the back of the pickup like this in plain sight. He goes, yeah, bro, it's obvious. They won't check it.

Because it's just out in plain sight like that watch. And I was like, oh my. I remember that was like an eternal trip. Going over that bridge. I was sweating. I couldn't get out of the car because then I'd be suspect out of his truck. And so when we were coming over, he just looked at it and go, yeah, go ahead. Go right over. I could not believe it. It was like, it was like, if we would have been busted with that, I would have gone to jail for a long time. Just being a part of that. And I didn't even go in there and rob the pharmacy with him. I was just, but I was with him, right? So...

There's been a lot of close calls that really diverted my path from going down a life of crime and then shit like that. And boxing was the thing that saved me. When you got the steroids back over, were you a part of kind of distributing them out? No, not that time. Because he did that all on his own, so...

I didn't, and in fact, when he told me, I was freaking out. I was like, I can't be hanging out with this guy anymore. I was, my conscience was starting to kick in. Like, I think I was about 17 at that time, 17, 18. I was like, man, this is getting out of hand. Yeah. You know, and I was already fighting amateur and I was wanting to go pro. So I was like, I started like stepping away from that crowd. You had a real career you had. Yeah. I was like, man, I got to promise. I could have a promising life here. And so,

Saw where all those guys were going and I was like, I just I just don't want to I started distancing myself from those guys at about 17 years old I thank God I woke up to it, you know, but it was like, you know, it took us It took us almost getting caught at the bridge, bro We were crossing over a lot and it was one of the light that was the last time I crossed over anything was um, we went to the pharmacy and bought a whole bunch of them well about $5,000 worth of steroids and I was in my dad's car and

It was a black Lincoln Town car with tinted windows. It looked like a mafia car. And the first thing that happens when we go to the... This is how this went down. I parked the Lincoln Town car in front of the pharmacy. We go in and buy all the steroids. We come out. Not noticing that someone ripped off my license plate. So they stole my license plate when I was there.

That's how we got. So, so I'm too busy putting the steroids in the back of the seat, the back of the Lincoln towel car seat, the back seat where you can lift it up and then shut it. So I put it all in there and I shut it and I get into the front seat and my friend gets in the front seat and I go, you want to drive or should I drive? I'll drive. All right. So he's driving my car and I'm my dad's car and I'm sitting there and as we're going over the bridge, I'm like, man, I don't feel good about this. And he's like, I don't either. I was like, fuck.

Hold on. I jump back in the backseat as we're driving over the bridge. I pull open the backseat and I grab all the stuff out of there. And I'm like, dude, I'm going to put it under this seat. So I put it under my front seat and I put it under his seat. And then we're sitting there. And for about another five minutes as we're driving over, I'm like, I don't feel good about this either. And he's like, I don't either. I'm like, oh man. So I take it out.

And I start taking the steroids out of the boxes and throwing the boxes outside of the car like an idiot. So now we're going over the bridge and we're dumping steroid boxes out on the bridge as we're putting this stuff in our pants. So now our pants are like this. Looks like that. And we're crossing over and if you just touch it, it goes like a clicking sound like the plastic. So we're like outfitted now with juice all in our pants right here.

But this whole time I didn't know that someone ripped off my license plate. We get over to the bridge into the American side and the guy goes, "Uh, whose car is this?" And I go, "It's mine. My friend's driving it. It's my dad's car." "Really? You guys didn't steal this car?" And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "You don't have a license plate." I go, "What?" And I get out and I look and I go, "Oh man, someone just ripped it off." He goes, "Yeah, I've heard that story before. They pull over." And I'm like, "Oh shit." So we pull over.

And they come up, they go, "What are you guys doing in Juarez, Mexico?" And I was like, "Oh, we came here to, we dropped our friends off at the airport." "Where are your friends going?" "Mazatlan." "Okay, and we're trying to act as cool as cucumbers, right?" And they're like, "Well, okay, so you guys smell like alcohol. What are you guys drinking too?" And we're like, "Oh yeah, we stopped at the bar, got some, got a little lit, you know, blah, blah, blah." And then we're just sitting there like, sweating. Both of us look pale, but we're still acting like, "Oh, no big deal."

And we both know we're stashed. We have tons of steroids in our shirts and pants. You know what I mean? So the guy goes, hey, you mind if I bring my dog in here? The dog, the sniffing dog. And I was like, I don't think they can smell steroids, but I don't know. And we're looking at him. I'm like, yeah, go ahead. We get out. They let the dog in the car. The first place they look was the back seat. They opened that up where I had them in the first place. Dogs in there looking around, sniffing. Then they go and look under. Like, they saw everything I did. They look under the seats.

and then i'm like oh it's only a matter of time before they're going to search us they go okay step out we're already out of people to step over to the side so we step over to the side there's a metal like a

Desk or something right there and they go empty out your pockets So we emptied out our pockets I am down my pockets and he empties out his pockets and I see the first thing that lands on the desk is a pharmacy card with the pharmacist number on it and I remember going oh I'm just staying at it. I'm looking at the customs guy and I'm like As soon as he looked away grab it put in my pocket and he goes alright, uh, he's looking through our stuff Then he goes I'm gonna patch you guys down

Oh shit. Yeah, and I was like and I looked at my friend and I go like we're going to jail So I put my hands up and he pats me down Well as he was patting me down he went over tried to go over the front I turned like this and he went on my sides and then I looked at my buddy and I go do the same thing and he patted him down and he turned and I couldn't believe it it both worked it worked for both of us he batted him down did the same thing and a guy was like okay, um

You guys can go." And we're like, "Alright, thank you. No problem." We get in the car and we take off and we drive about three blocks up. We get out and we're like, "Bleugh!" We were so fucking scared. I was like, "I'm never doing this again. God, listen to me. I'm never doing this again. This is it." And that was it for me. That was it. That was the last time I ever did anything really illegal, to be honest with you. That was it. I was like, "What am I going to tell my parents?"

how long am i gonna go to jail for yeah like you know everything was going through my mind as we were crossing over and all because someone stole my license plate while i was over there and and dude like that that that was like the shift that's when i just started immersing myself in boxing because i was like this this i'm too old for this i was like 17 18 i'm like i can't keep doing this this is gonna get me killed or in jail so that's that's how that ended right then and there

i don't know if it ended for my friend but it ended for me you keep in touch with any of those guys man i haven't talked to him in like four years you know we would touch base every now and then how's it going you know how are you doing but i don't know what he's doing um i don't know what a lot of them are doing a lot of them are in jail some are dead you know catches up to you you know uh you know it's it's uh let's just say it was a wild ride man it was a wild ride sounds like it yeah so how do you think boxing saved you that was

Now your fallback plan or? Because no, it wasn't a plan. It was just, I just always followed my heart and it just felt good to go to the gym every day and train. And, and, um, I just saw how I was just progressing and how good I was getting. My left hook was the best in boxing for the longest time. I was knocking grown men. I was knocking grown men out at 13 years old and I was 13 years old, cracking dudes that played football for UTEP. They would come and do like a summer training camp and my trainer would go, Hey, mijo, come here. And he glubbed me up. He goes, I'll knock this fucker out.

I'm like, "Okay." And then, bing, bing, bing, crack, and he's out. - Damn. - And I just had the way, I just didn't know how to throw a punch. I just, I had the, it's technique. Boxing is all technique. Nothing about strength, nothing about how big you are physically. It's about, it's like golfing. You hit a golf ball, it's the same thing. And I learned at a very young age how to have a, I had a killer left hook, and I could, I had fast hands, and I was, I had great timing. And I just, it just, I just blossomed into boxing.

Just took off. And when I started knocking out people like 13, 14 years old, 15 years old, 16, 17. When I started knocking them out, it was like an orgasm to me. It was like a fix. It was like I was getting shot up with heroin or something. It felt so good. Every time I hurt someone and knocked them out, put them on the canvas, put them on their back, it was addicting. The most addicting thing I've ever done in my life. Like that to me was just everything, man. It was like, that was my drug of choice was heroin.

Whenever I was it's almost like hitting a home run like cocky just that perfect boom when you land that shot And they're just out. It's just the most addicting feeling do you know when you I mean when you connect oh, yeah, like You just see their whole body fold and it's just you just feel it. It's the timings right the precision is right It's an amazing feeling and I became I was in I was addicted to it. I

So you said what kind of pumped you up or, you know, what got you in the mindset was you were just angry all the fucking time. In the beginning. Did you hate your opponents? Yeah. In the beginning. In the beginning. And then the hatred and anger and frustration turned into the love for the sport. And I really did fall in love with boxing. But that lasted 10 years. And then I started falling out of love with boxing and wrestling.

That's when my career went down the tubes quick because the pressure got to me, everything got to me, and I no longer wanted to train as hard. I no longer wanted to fight. I wanted to just drink and party and be with women and do drugs. Well, we'll get to that. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. But what age were you when you started fighting on the pro circuit?

Turned pro at 20, going on 21. And then you were a pro for how long? 15 years. 15 years? Yeah. All the way to 35? Yeah, and that's when I started going downhill. Because I was a very explosive fighter, and I was a big guy. So I had a Mike Tyson style at a 6'5 frame. It was weird. It didn't make any sense.

I should have been sitting back on my jab and throwing the right hand and boxing better, but I didn't do that. I was very, very explosive. I used my whole body to punch. And you only last so long with that kind of style. Because, especially being a big guy, I would have had a longer career if I would have sat back on my jab and thrown my right hand more and moved, pivoted, boxed beautifully. I didn't do that. I was explosive.

And that's the way I wanted to fight because I had a lot of inner demons that I wanted to get out into the ring. And that's why I had that style. And it only lasts so long. You know, it's a style that you have to have quick reflexes, cat-like reflexes. You have to be explosive. And once you get older, when you start getting older and that starts diminishing a little bit, you're a step or two slower. You start getting hit a little bit more. It's only a matter of time before you get knocked out. That's what happened to me. When you talk about inner demons...

A lot of the people on this show deal with inner demons, to include myself. I kind of describe it as more of like a feeling than an actual thoughts. How would you describe it and where did it come from? My demons? Yeah. You know, I've thought about seeing a hypnotist about this. I don't know. I think they had to have come from childhood. I do believe in a dark evil energy and I do believe demons are parasitic.

And I do believe if you let them, they'll rob you from everything including your soul. If you let them. So with me, I have a lot of demons. And I still do to this very day. I just named them. I've accepted them and said, okay, this is part of my life. I can live in denial and pretend like they're not there. But that's not going to do me any good. I'll just find a way to escape. Drinking, whatever. So now I just acknowledge them.

And I just listened to God. I moved forward to God. And the first step for me for beating my demons was to quit drinking. And that's really... It gave me the tools to better combat them. They don't go away. People need to understand that. They don't go away. It's just you have better tools to combat them and deal with them. That's it. Life doesn't get easier because you're sober. It's just better tools in order to face down your demons. Were they...

Like specific thoughts of specific instances or was it more like a feeling? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think they all go back to childhood at some point. I'd like to find out more, to be honest with you. I'd like to go see a hypnotist and see what the fuck really happened in my life. But I just don't know why I was more so than any of my friends that I know of. I was so dark or suicidal.

At times, like I don't know why I wanted to take my life. There were times I wanted to take my life. I can't pinpoint it to a time or anything like that. It's just weird. My teenage years, I was really fucking depressed. Like fucking bipolar, severely depressed. Did you know how you were going to take your life? Did you have it all planned out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was always going to do a gunshot to the head.

But the only thing that took me away from that was boxing. But it took something that extreme, boxing, to really pull me away from even thinking about taking my life. Because now I was already putting myself in danger.

I was already getting in the ring with these men I wanted to take my head off. So I was like, well, you know, I had, there was some kind of self-destructive mechanism in me that I didn't understand. I didn't fully understand why I was doing the things I was doing, why I was, why was I stealing cars? Why was I crossing drugs? Why was I doing any of that? Why was that? What is going on with me that, that I needed to do that to fulfill something? I still don't, to this day, I still don't know. I don't know. Have you sought any treatment?

Yeah, I saw a psychiatrist for a long time that was talking to me and he became a good friend. He would walk me onto the ring, believe it or not. No shit, so you started seeing him a long time ago. Yeah, I started seeing him at 13. Wow. I gotta say he probably saved my life. Him in combination with boxing. I haven't talked to him in the last two years. I think we have some differences with the whole...

vaccination thing and he's a doctor so he sees it completely different than i do and it's weird it's like we haven't talked just because of that that issue that dividing issue that sucks man yeah that's really strange um have you ever looked into like some of the psychedelic treatment type stuff i did it all man i've done you do it i've done shrooms i've done it all have you done it like through a uh

A shaman. I don't know. You did deal with a shaman. Yeah. Did that help you at all? It let me know there's a lot more out there that I do not know. Where was that? I've done it in different places. The first time I did ayahuasca, I was in, to the consequences, New Mexico. Strangest place to do that. And I did that with a shaman, but it was a group of us and we all drank it and

And sure as shit, man. I just... Like after about... After an hour of drinking that stuff, I really didn't feel anything. I thought, oh, this stuff is not working. And then all of a sudden I had to puke. And I went and puked. And when I came back... The whole universe opened up for me. What do you mean by that? I just started going down this wormhole. Like it just like... I got thrown in... I got thrust into a different reality. And I saw entities. Best way I can explain it. I saw entities. I saw...

sacred geometry just being thrown at me. I saw the Markaba. I saw the shaman when he was meditating. I saw orange coming out of his forehead, like a bright color orange coming out of his forehead. I saw things that it's like a veil was lifted. And when I saw that, I was like, okay, there's way more to this matrix than I even know. And that's when I was like, wow, like, you know, and the entities that I saw were

entities that didn't make they made total sense when I was looking at it, but I can't describe them to you There was colors that I saw that I can't I can't even describe the colors I'm really interested in this because I'm getting ready to do this treatment. I you know I don't know if it cures anything, but I know what does it what it did do for me was it um made me realize there's a hell of a lot more to this reality than we even know and

Yeah. It's almost like taking apart a watch and looking at the inner workings of the watch and saying, oh, that's how it works. It's almost like you kind of see this, you get this, you see the cosmic math of the universe. And that's what blew my mind was that whatever this is, the pineal gland opening up, whatever the third eye, there's something to it. It happened. And I know it wasn't me, um, um,

Having delusions or anything. It was real. I saw it. I didn't see it with my eyes. I saw it with my third eye. Your third eye is a real thing. And I saw everything coming at me. It was amazing. How many times have you done this? Three times. Same place every time? And the other times it was in Colorado. No shit. With a shaman up there, yeah. I'll give you his information if you want it. Yeah, I would love to have it. Yeah, he's a good dude. With that you smoke it. It's called Jirema. Jirema.

And you smoke it and then you lay back and he puts a cloth over your eyes and you lay down and you just get blasted through the universe, man. Same type of experience? The ayahuasca lasts longer and you get sick because you're purging and then you go into your... But this is a quick little 10-minute rocket ship. Boom. Lasts about 10 minutes and then you're back. Do you have a preference? I like the smoking it. Yeah. I don't like to get sick and do all that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Do you feel like that helped you at all or...

A lot of guys say that. I think the only thing that helps me now, honestly, Sean, is my belief in God. Yeah. That's it. I mean, you can do all the drugs you want. You can do whatever. But the bottom line is, do you have a relationship with God? And I do.

As much as I can, I can work on that. But my whole thing now is I have no desire to go do DMT again. I have no desire to do any of that, any of the shit I used to do. I have no desire because now I'm building on my relationship with God. And that's it. That's what's real. That's the silver lining, you know. And that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm trying to do. A wise old man once told me this. He said, seek, listen, obey.

seek, listen, and then obey. And that's what I'm trying to do now. Seek God, listen, and then obey. That's just the way I'm trying to live my life now. I don't want to... All the crazy shit aside, that's done. It's done. Now I'm just trying to build a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ. You know, that's it. Good for you. Back to boxing. Went down our own little rabbit hole there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But...

So you excelled. You became a phenomenal boxer and went from five to, what, 35 years old-ish? Yeah. The last five years for me was hell. I hated it. I was actually looking for a way out. And I think my higher self, or whatever you want to call it, found a way out. And I told you in 2011, I overdosed on drugs, flatlined.

They brought me back with a defibrillator. What drugs? Everything. Everything? Okay, let's put it this way. I just knocked out Matt Hicks and my friends in Dallas were throwing me a party at one of the clubs out there. Right after the fight, I went into my dressing room. I had a six pack in my locker. After the fight, I started downing all the beers. Then I went to the bars that night, got drunk.

shit-based hammer, taking tequila shots, whatever. The next day I had to fly out, wake up with a hangover, fly out to Dallas for the party, already drinking in the morning, get to the airport. They almost didn't let me board the plane 'cause I was so drunk. Get on the plane, they wouldn't serve me 'cause they were like, "You've already been drinking." I reeked from high heaven like a liquor cabinet. Get to Dallas, my friend's picking me up. What are they picking me up with? More alcohol and Adderall. So now I'm taking Adderall and alcohol. Well, I also had pain pills in my pocket.

from the fight because I think I broke my hand or something. My hand was fractured. So like, man, it's swelling up on me. So I took a handful of pain pills, a handful of pain pills and took those. Then I went with them and took an Adderall and just kept drinking Grey Goose and grape juice. That's what it was. Went to the party that night, wasted already, stumbling into the club. And I can't believe they let me in. They shouldn't have. They let me in the club and we have our own little section.

We get in there and I hardly remember anything that night. I just remember somebody coming up to me with a flask. And I remember him specifically saying he was a bodybuilder guy. He's like, just take a capful of this. It was GHB. Well, I didn't know what he was saying. And I just said, yeah, whatever. I grabbed the whole flask and I drank it all. And once I drank that, it was over. What is GHB? It's like the date rape drug. It's powerful stuff, man. And I took that and I drank the whole flask.

And I went back to the VIP section. I remember his face just looking at me like, you couldn't believe what I just did. And I went back to the VIP section and I sat there. And the next thing you know, I was... Now, from that point on was eyewitness accounts that were like, you know, third party, second party people that were telling me what happened to me. Because I was unconscious. I dropped out of the club. And this lady, this girl, her name is Michelle. It was a...

had a nursing degree or something, started telling my friends, "Your friend is dying. Your friend is dying. Look at him. He's dying." I was purple. My neck was turning purple and I was gasping for, I was having cardiac arrest. Yeah. Well, she's trying to tell everybody and my friends, friends, walked over me and said, "I'll just put him on the couch. He'll wake up." And then she even said a doctor came up to me, he was a chiropractor, the doctor came up and said, "I'll just, he'll sleep it off." She goes, "He's turning blue. He's turning blue. He's dying." She went and got the bouncers.

Bouncers came in and said shit we can't this is all what they told me they said well We can't have this guy dying in the club They picked me up like six of them when I don't have any recollection of this member I was unconscious pick me up walk me out of the back door of the club and threw me in the alley No shit. Yeah, and she saw that and went told my friends goes if he dies I'm blaming you guys so few of my friends came with her

from what I was told, came with their van or a truck or something, put me in there. They thought they already lost me because I wasn't really breathing. Pull into the hospital. They pulled me. I guess they called the hospital. I don't know how this worked, but they pulled me out of the truck and laid me on the cement. The hospital workers came running out and started giving me CPR and then put me in a gurney and took me in. And that's, and those are hours of my life I don't have accounted for.

And then I just remember waking up with this bright light in front of me and doctors standing over me and a blue light going off in the background. I do remember the way I hear them saying, we got him, we got him, we got him, got him.

And then I'm just looking around, I'm disoriented, not really understanding what's going on. I thought I got knocked out. I thought that I lost my fight because it was just days after the fight. So I'm like, oh, and that's all I cared about. I was like, don't tell me I lost. I got knocked out. I got knocked out. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. What are you talking about? You got knocked out. You overdosed, this and that. And I remember I had to vomit in a trash can or something. And then the doctor comes in and looks at me and goes...

what's your name i go david he goes where are you i go i'm in dallas he was right he goes okay and then i go what happened he goes we we lost you because we you were almost gone kid and i go man why didn't you let me go yeah and then that's when he said what i go why didn't you let me go that's when i knew i really had a problem because then he says okay and he called in suicide watch so now i have

I don't know who these people were. A lady, a nice lady, a nice black lady reading the Bible. And every now and then she would read a verse out loud to me. And I'd be like, shut up! Shut up! Like I was demon possessed or something. And she's like, mm-mm. She's like, you're going to hear this. And she'd keep reading more verses to me. I'm like, fuck! I couldn't get rid of her. And she was there. They'd have shifts because they thought I tried to kill myself. Which maybe I did. Maybe I did.

Because I was looking for a way out of boxing. Yeah. So that was the first time in 2011. Then I go back and I win the heavyweight championship of Mexico against Owen Beck. I knock out Owen Beck. Then I knock out Byron Pauly for the NABU heavyweight championship. So I won two belts coming back after that debacle, whatever happened to me in February. Win two more fights. Second fight, I go partying in Scottsdale, Phoenix.

Getting hammered again, drinking molly, taking molly, drinking beer, drinking alcohol. Walk out of a club and get my neck slit open with a knife. All that. Holy shit. And that's the same year. So when you ask me, you know, I was looking for a way out, you know. And when that happened, that's when, when I was in the hospital, I took 369 stitches. A cosmetic surgeon was on call that night, just happened to be on call that night.

stitched me up really meticulously did a great job and uh that's when i knew man i'm gonna die there's no way i can keep going at this speed do you know who cut your face no they never were caught um do you know why they cut you oh there was an altercation and i'm not saying that i wasn't at fault or they were at fault i don't know i was so hammered i was so drunk i could hardly remember anything um if there was confrontation i probably

I probably would have knifed me too, man. I'm a big dude. You know what I mean? I'm a fighter. I can't say, you know, I don't blame them. I blame me. The lifestyle you had. Yeah, I was living a crazy life. I'm not a victim. This was all self-induced. This was my doing to what I did in my life. I take blame. So whether they get caught or not, it doesn't matter to me because it was my fault. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing.

So that's how I handled it. And that's exactly how I'm getting over shit. Because it does no good to live in the past in that way or blame this person or blame that. I was drinking. I was under the influence. Shit happens. Bottom line. I wish more people in this country had that fucking mindset. That's a whole other fucking show. Yeah. That's a topic for your show. Yeah. Leave that one to me.

Holy shit, man. Where were you when you got cut? Phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona? Yeah. How long were you in the hospital after that? You know, surprisingly, it was only like a day and a half, two days, and I checked myself out, and you're not going to believe what I did. It was right after Christmas, and I had New Year's plans to party in L.A.,

My friends came in with a six pack and some Playboys and they're like, oh man, you're going to be in the hospital for, or I guess our trip's done. We're not going to be able to go to LA. I go, fuck this. I took off everything, walked out of the hospital.

with gauze and blood on my face and we went out and partied in la with 369 in my face 369 stitches in my face swollen up like a pumpkin i went out to la and i partied in la with bloody gauze on my face all the way my half my face gauzed up and i still had to party damn dude now you're telling me i didn't have a problem it's a problem yeah and all i cared about at that time was

Getting back in the ring. That's it. I was like, well, I guess the doctor when can I get back in the ring? When can I get back in the ring? It was like it was a problem man, and um, I don't you was there aren't you gonna see a psychologist or Psychiatrist try to get things worked out whatever's going on with you. No, no, no, no, no, no And at that time I had a bad breakup with my team that got me there that got me to 36 and 0 37 and 0 and I was going through a lawsuit they were suing me and

There was all kinds of shit happening, and I was just... I wanted to kill myself, man. Like, I just did not want to live anymore. Everything was just falling apart. Everything. This was pretty much the end of your boxing career right here, right? This was at the tail end of it. Let's take a quick break. Okay. When we come back, we'll get into the end of your boxing career. Yeah. So we're approaching the end of your boxing career. You just got stabbed in the neck or in the face. Neck. And, um...

which kind of led to the end of your boxing career so let's just continue going down the same path here all right so the only thing that was important for me at that time was when can i get back in the ring the wbc gave me a medical leave where they kept my top 15 rating but i had but there's only a certain amount of time to keep it right so i had to get back in the ring and fight so uh i took some time off i don't know how many how many months i took off i think somewhere over four to six months

Just partied, just drank, drank myself into a slumber. More drinking, more drinking, you know. Just a horrible existence, man. Not knowing if I really wanted a box again, but I knew I had to because I'm already in the top 15, you know. So it's like, I can't let that go. I'm already there. They put me on medical leave.

Do you think you were just boxing at that point just to keep an image? Yeah, absolutely. You didn't even give a shit about... I didn't fucking care anymore, dude. It was just all... No. In fact, it's almost like I grew out of it. I was like, man, I don't have the fire I used to have to really put guys to sleep. You know what I mean? That ambition to train anymore, run those miles. My back was starting to hurt. My knees were hurting already at that age. And I was just kind of tired, man. I was really fucking tired.

And, um, but I knew I had to, I had to attain my goal of being heavyweight champion of the world. And I knew I had the tools. Everyone knew I had the tools. I was the hardest hitter in the fucking sport. There was nobody that hit like me or as fast as I was in the division. And I knew that everyone knew it, that sparred with me or trained with me or whatever. So I had to get to that goal. I had to be heavyweight champion of the world or I, I, that alone, not accomplishing that would have been

devastating and probably would have killed myself because that's all I knew was that's all I was set out to do my entire life so not long after taking about four or five six months off I think it was about there I moved to first big mistake or many mistakes of many I moved to Hollywood and I started living in LA and I had a investor named Joan Dangerfield who started bought you know was paying for me and giving me money and supporting me out in LA

Then I told her hey Joan. I already broke up with my last team I'm not gonna. I want to go back into boxing and go win the heavyweight championship of the world She's like she goes we could do other things. You know I don't think your hearts in boxing anymore. I was like no no no she was let's try to do Let's try to do something else. You know like acting or something like that. I was like yeah, I was let me box I want to go back I can do this um so I signed with main events and

Remember now my old team's gone and that longing for my old team was eating me alive because that's who I wanted. If I was going to go for the heavyweight championship of the world, I wanted to be with my old team. That was all our dreams. That was all our dream. So not having them in my corner anymore fucked my head up bad. So I signed with this new company, moved to Las Vegas, moved from LA to Las Vegas. All I was still doing was partying. Two months notice without even being in the gym much.

I take a fight in Atlantic City. And when I signed for the fight, I was supposed to be fighting a guy that was 6'8", 6'9". So I was sparring guys that height and dropping them. So I still had what it takes. I was still dropping people in the gym. People were coming in to look at me. Mike Tyson came in to look at me, watch me train for a bit. He was like, wow, man. And things were going really good. Fly to Atlantic City, get ready to fight. They replaced my opponent. And they asked me, do you still want to fight?

I was like, wait a second, what happened? He pulled out. We got to a different fighter, but this guy was 5'9". 5'9". Compared to the guy I was preparing for, which was 6'8". So now I'm fighting a guy that's 5'9", 5'10", Darnell Wilson. And I looked at his record and I go, fuck, I'll knock this bum out. This guy's got no shot, no chance. But even one of my trainers, I think his name was Rafael Garcia, was like, listen, we haven't trained for this guy, let's take some time.

Let's get you some sparring against a guy like this. He's a tough guy. He's tough. He comes to fight. And I was like, how many rounds is it? Oh, six? Fuck it, I'm just going to go for it. I can go six rounds. If it goes a distance, it goes a distance. Sign the fight. I'm in Atlantic City and getting ready. Now I know I'm fighting Darnell Wilson. This was just days before. And get to Atlantic City. I remember it's a real cloudy day. Energy didn't feel right. Everything felt off.

i was like i started getting a real bad feeling in my gut like the sun's not adding up here nothing something doesn't feel right so i don't sleep i never slept before fights by the way two or three days out i'm a bundle of nerves i don't sleep i always walk into the ring seeing tracers and like i was always just sleep deprived get to atlantic city oh i'm in like city get to the fight get to the arena it's on uh nbc wide world of sports

So I'm like, okay, I've been out for a long time. Everyone's here to see what I can do again. You know, people, I'm the talk of the boxing community. Hey, he's coming back. I get into the ring. They announced Darnell. They announced me. Boom, bell one. First bell rings. Bam, we're going at it, dude. It's like fucking a street fight.

That guy almost took my fucking head off the first round. He broke my socket bone in eight places. My orbital bone in eight places. Broke my cheekbone. And I believe he broke my jaw. I didn't know about that. But I almost got knocked out the first round. So I stayed. I remember I knew right then and there, fuck, I'm in a fight. This is a fight. So we're going. We're brawling. I didn't even jab nothing. It was from go, from bell run, bell one to the end of the fight. It was an all-out slugfest.

So we're just throwing blows. Bam, boom, boom, bam, boom, boom. And the fucking crowd's going. A little bit of crowd that was there was going crazy. It was kind of an empty arena. It was kind of weird. But it was on TV. And I just remember I'm barely inching out the fight. Barely inching it out. I'm bleeding. I have a cut. I can't see out of this eye. My eye dropped down and was looking down. So this eye was looking at the floor. While this eye was looking straight. This eye lost all muscle.

capabilities and just started looking it just fell to the floor it was just looking down so I knew I was badly hurt I didn't know if I was ever going to see again fighting this guy and I'm barely winning this fight and then the 10 second sound of the last round where they go that sounds like the 10 second like you got 10 seconds left all of a sudden caught me I got dropped knocked the fuck out with 10 seconds left yeah I would have won the fight all the judges had me ahead

Next thing you know, I'm waking up on the canvas and I just remember the ref standing over me, waving me off. And that was like all the fucking demons that I had surfaced right then and there and were standing around me. And it was like, I'd rather have died, Sean. I'd rather have fucking died with a knife. I'd rather have overdosed that night, that year before, that same year. I'd rather have fucking died than deal with getting knocked out.

And when that happened, I knew my dreams were over. I knew it was all over. Went back to my dressing room and for like months after that fight, I couldn't think right. It was like I was underwater. I was knocked unconscious, right? I'd never been knocked out of my boxing career. And then all of a sudden it happened. Well, that was like a hard pill to swallow because I was 36-0. Now I'm 36-1 and I have suffered a devastating knockout.

I didn't know how I was gonna pull myself out of that. I knew I was boxing standards. I was old, 35 years old. I was old. But I still felt like I'm still gonna be heavyweight champion. I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna do this. So I left main events. I blamed it on them. I was like, "God, fuck main events. Fuck that promotional company. They set me up." I blame them this time. This time I'm blaming other people for my loss. And I take a fight with... Who was it? O-Ching from Africa. Another bum.

that I considered a bum fighter. Signed him, I was in a dude in my hometown of El Paso. How long after your first loss were you fighting again? About seven months later, eight months later, I think it was. Were you training hard? Did that humble you enough to... No, no, I still had the dream. I still felt I should have been heavyweight champion, but I'm not even training. I'm like getting really sloppy. Partying, running here and there, hitting the bags, but nothing...

Three weeks, four weeks before the fight, trained hard. You know, started training pretty hard. Not real hard. Not like what I used to be in my 20s. Yeah. So that fight comes around, bell rings, he knocks me out. Like first fucking few punches he throws. No shit. I drop to the canvas and the fucking ref, I just see a towel get thrown in. And I'm like, oh fuck. It's over. My career's over. This is done. The guy I used to be is no longer. I don't know what the fuck happened to me. I don't know where I went wrong. I don't know what happened to me.

But my life is now in shambles. Like, this is it. This is fucking over. And, uh... You've realized that, like, instantaneously? Yeah, instantaneously. It's over. And then at that point, my back was starting to really hurt. It was starting to really hurt. I wasn't able to train. But that fight didn't even stop me from... So then I signed up for another fight. Because now I'm behind eight ball. I gotta win. I gotta win.

I signed a fight, a guy named Dominguez. He had a good record, 25-3 or something like that. And at that point, I didn't even know if I was going to win. I was like, 36-2. I think I can knock this guy out. I'm going to go in there. I got laser focused for that fight. I put away drinking for like a month. Just a month. Trained hard. Bell rings. This is in Salt Lake City. Went out there. Boom. Knocked the guy out fast. Guy's out.

Like first 30 seconds, I knocked him out. I was so fucking ready, you know? As I'm running to the neutral corner and they're starting to count, I have a sharp pain go all the way down my back, into my ass, into my hamstrings, all the way down to my toes. And then all of a sudden my legs go numb. And right then I knew whatever I did, that was the ending of my career. I knew right then my back's done. This is it. I need surgery. This is not... And I remember he's counting...

And everyone's like, "Weren't you happy that you won?" I was dying of pain. They lifted my hand up and I was like, "Ahh!" I walked down the stairs, walked into the dressing room, pulled my shorts off, I laid on the floor and I was screaming. I threw out my back. I threw out my back. L4, L5, S1, needed an emergency surgery, got the fusion. It was never the same after that. That was it. That's what ended my career. But I look at it now.

as a blessing because if I would have kept boxing, who knows what would have happened to me. Punch drunk idiot walking around not knowing my left from my right, mumbling, stumbling, motor skills off, getting knocked out. It was over. The boxing career was over. At least I went out on a win, but it was over. And then following that came years of depression, years of severe depression, not knowing where my life was going to go. And I mean, I hit rock bottom to the point that I didn't know rock bottom had a basement.

And I was there. What age were you? 36? About 36, yeah. And it was, um... The best way I could explain it, man, is I was, like, left out in the middle of the sea in the middle of the night with no compass and no paddles. Yeah. I didn't know where my life was gonna go. I had no direction. All I knew was to drink. So I accepted that I was a loser, that I was never gonna bounce back. And I accepted my demise.

And I was like, well, if I'm going to die, I'm going to die on my terms. I'm going to do as much drugs as I want and as much alcohol as I want. And it was like a sorry, pity feeling. Like, I ruined my destiny. My destiny was to be heavyweight champion of the world, and I blew it. I fucking blew it. Now, I'm going to go out with a bang. Fuck it. I'm going to fuck as many girls as I want. I'm going to do as many drugs as I want to do. I'm going to drink as much as I want. And that's it. I'm going out with a bang. And that's what I did for...

yeah 44. five years after that about five years of just in getting another dui getting thrown in jail like i became that guy that i dreaded to become i became him i was a guy at the bar washed up talking about what i used to do and um getting two duis public intoxication i just started getting arrested all the time like it was always getting right like the cops saw yeah let's arrest him you know what i mean it felt like that not understanding

That in order to fix everything outside of me, I had to fix inside of me. And I didn't understand that. I thought it was everybody else. Oh, it's only fucked up because I'm hanging out with this guy or I'm doing that or I shouldn't have drank that last shot. Not understanding that it's completely all my fault and I needed to take responsibility for it. And that's when I got sober.

- Did you miss over two years and two months now? - Two years and two months. Coming up on two months. Two years and two months. And my life is nothing short of a miracle. - What was the final straw that you were like, "All right, fuck it, I'm done." - Getting kicked out of my niece's house for Thanksgiving 'cause I was the drunk uncle. - Oh, damn. - I showed up to her house. First of all, they had to go pull me out of a bar. I forgot about Thanksgiving. And this was in 2019.

They take me to her husband, my brother-in-law comes, finds me in the bar, says, come on, man, let's go to Thanksgiving, come on. And I'm like, ugh, I'm not going. You know, typical drunk shit. This is when I knew, one of the times I knew this was a really bad problem. Takes me to the house, my niece sees me and says, nah, he's not coming in here. Not like that. So now I just, they take me to the house, want me there. I walk up to the front door, she goes, I'm not letting him in, I'm not letting the kids see him like this. Your niece? Yeah.

How old is your niece? My niece is... She's 40 now. I was four years old when I was an uncle. My sister had her very young. And she has kids of her own. And she saw me. She goes, no, I'm not letting him in. And that's when I was like, ooh. I remember I felt this horrible feeling. And I felt sick. I go, fuck all of you. I'm out of here. And I walked my ass five miles all the way back to the bar. And I continued the drinking. And continued it all the way through December until...

But during this time, Sean, during this whole time, I'm feeling this nudge. Like someone poking me. And I believe it was God. Stop. Stop. Stop. I have something better for you. Stop. Stop. I have something better for you. I will give you the world if you just stop. I kept hearing that. And I'm like, fuck. I need to stop drinking. I don't want to stop drinking. This is it for me. I don't want to stop. I don't know anything else. It's scary. I didn't know what I was going to do. One day I'm in the bar. Um.

Day after Christmas. I fucked up on Christmas as well, by the way. And I'm there with friends at this bar. The Christmas after that Thanksgiving? Yeah. Okay. And I'm with my friends at the bar. And I'm looking around and I'm like, these guys aren't going anywhere. And I'm judging them. I'm judging them. And I look in the mirror behind the bar and I see me. Almost getting a double chin. You know, looking fat. Like fucking out of shape. And I go, fuck. I am them. I am that guy.

what do you mean you're not going to be that guy? I am that guy. I'm the fucking washed up boxer drunk at the bar. And so I told myself right then and there, I go, God, you take the wheel. If I leave right now, I'm giving it to you. If I leave right now and I put this beer on the bar, I'm giving it to you. Please take control of my life because I can't do this on my own anymore. And I put the beer down and I said, okay, guys, I'm out of here. Bye. Or I think I said, I'm going to the bathroom. I go, I'm going to the bathroom.

And they all said, "Oh, okay, yeah, whatever." Because I knew if I said I was leaving, they'd be like, "Oh, you're not going anywhere. Come here." You know? I said, "I'm going to the bathroom. I'll be right back." They go, "Okay." Walked out the door. I had never been back. And I, um... It changed my life, dude. Changed my life. Shortly after that, okay, three months into being sober, my dad gets put in the hospital. He needs a heart valve transplant. He's 80... At that time, he was 85.

My whole world was crumbling and I could have went back to drinking at that time. I stayed strong. I prayed the rosary, dude. I literally prayed the rosary every day. I was so fucking scared I was going to lose my dad. I didn't go to the bar. I didn't go drink, which I could have, but I didn't. I just stayed with, I stayed focused and in faith with God that I said, I'd give it to you, God. But I was being tested. Like I've never been tested before because I

Then COVID hits. Now I can't go visit my dad in the hospital. And he's been laid up in bed in the hospital for weeks. Where they're just deciding, is he going to have the surgery or is he? Is he a candidate for the surgery or is he not a candidate for the surgery? We didn't know. I didn't know if I was going to lose my dad. I didn't know if they were going to tell my dad, sorry, you're too old. We can't risk it. We're not going to lose you during surgery. And he wasn't going to get the surgery and just be left to die? Or if he was going to get the surgery and potentially die on the operating bed.

I thought I was gonna lose my dad. I fucking believed I was gonna lose my dad. And couldn't go see him. I had to drop food off at the front of the hospital because of COVID. And they said, oh, we can't let anybody up. COVID, this and that. All the while, I knew what this was all about in the first place politically. I knew what it was about, what they were trying to do with the election. I knew already. And he, I stayed to my guns. I did not drink. He got the surgery and he made it through, dude.

And I was like, thank you, God. Thank you, God. Now I know I'm never going to drink. You know what I mean? And I just stayed stronger. And then it just made me stronger. And if I would have folded, I think it would have been there. You know, there's more battles ahead of me. I know that. You know, my parents are getting older. I know anything can happen. But I'm just saying, like, I won that little battle. And it was a little victory. And then I said, I'm going to stay with this. Well, three months turned into six months. Six months turned into a year. Then the viral video hits. Yeah.

Next thing you know, I'm blowing up on social media and I'm wondering what the hell is happening to my life. It's all happening fast. Then a year turns into two years and my life now is completely fucking different than ever I could have imagined. Ever could have imagined. Ever could have imagined. That's how I know God's real, man. Because like I said, seek, listen, obey. That's what I started applying to my life.

And the alcohol clouded my judgment. It clouded my, what I like to call my instincts or my intuition, my soul, that I wasn't getting a clean connection to God. Now I feel I'm getting a clean connection. So I'm staying sober and I'm going to do my best to never fall back in that shit again. And that's where I'm at right now. Man, I'm on your show telling you that. Yeah. We're doing a hell of a job. That's for damn sure. Yeah.

How many years was it from your last fight to sobriety? Seven. Seven years? Seven years. So you went through basic risks. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. I went sober when I was 42 years old. Damn. How many, uh, I mean, what the hell were you doing for money? Um, taking it from my parents, living off the little bit I had from my mom, uh, from my, uh, boxing career. Um,

Managing properties because we have real estate in my my my family Managing some properties here and there not really dude. I mean look man to be honest with you I was on my way out bro. I didn't care. Yeah, I was on my way out and anybody who's watching this Yes, I knew rock I hit rock bottom and it does have a basement and I will tell you this You always can turn around your life. You always can no matter how bad it seems. I

if you're addicted to smack whatever it is you can turn your life around i don't give a what you're going through yeah but for me i had to go to god dude and that's what i did i couldn't do it myself you know you can't you know i tried to do it myself i was stubborn and every time i tried to do it myself i i fell apart or i failed um so so you got sober and then things just started

They just started happening. Blasphemy. You read, I mean, cause well, I first remember my dad was in the hospital. It was bad. Yeah. It was like a test. Oh, you sure you want to be sober? You think you can be sober? Let's throw this at him. Let's throw that at him. Let's throw this at him. I'm not, everyone's story is different. I'm just saying for me, there was massive obstacles when I first got sober. I thought I was gonna lose my dad and that should have been the reason for me to go to back drinking. Yeah. But I didn't. I stayed with my guns. I had faith. I let faith guide me.

That's all I did. I just said, "Man, I can't do this myself. I have to give this to God. I have to because I'm not strong enough." And I tell my friends that I don't... I lost a lot of my friends when I went sober. And there's a few of them I don't talk to anymore and they wonder why. Well, it's because they're still drinking and it's not that I don't want to help them. I just don't feel strong enough that I can help them to lift them up. Does that make sense? I need to just keep myself at peace.

take care of me because I don't feel strong enough to go down into their element and pull them out of that. So it's not that I feel like I'm better than anybody, it has nothing to do with that. It just has to do with the fact that I don't feel like I'm strong enough to put myself in that situation. You're just taking care of you. It's all I can do. There's nothing wrong with that. It's all I can do. Yeah. You know, and I don't have the expectation of boxing on me anymore. That feels amazing. The anxiety of boxing, having to fight, I don't have that on me anymore.

i don't have um it's a much simpler life it's a lot more rewarding but i'm like we were talking earlier i'm so used to the ups and downs and ups and downs of addiction and adrenaline and stimulation that this life now this even kill

It's pretty hard. It's a tough life. This is not for the weak because I'm used to a bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, yo-yo life. Now this even kill is like I got transported to another planet and I'm living among aliens. I don't know how to... I'm still learning how to cope. I'll be honest with you. It's hard. It has its own obstacles. Yeah, I can definitely relate to that.

I don't think it ever ends. I think it's a constant battle. You get those adrenaline dumps and the shit that you've seen, the shit that you've been through. It's just always going to be from everybody I know. This is kind of par for the course with my prior career. It's just something you always are going to have to keep tabs on and keep on top of or it will spiral out of control. You know...

For me, all I got to think about is sitting in... I don't... Death doesn't scare me. I'm on bonus time right now. Death doesn't scare me. It's sitting in a fucking jail cell, rotting away for the rest of my life. That scares me. Yeah. And, you know, you don't know if you're just going to have one too many drinks...

it doesn't have to be one too many it could be just two two drinks if you blow a point zero eight you drive and you kill somebody i don't know anything gonna happen i just didn't want to put myself in that anywhere near that possibility ever again so i just that's it how long did it take for you to kind of reinvent yourself you know to to where because that's tough i mean you were boxing from i'm still years old yeah i'm still doing it you know

Dude, I am still figuring it out. I don't have the answer. Every day is a new battle. And every day, if you don't think that every day I think, man, I want to go to that bar and just fucking have one shot, one shot, just one.

God, that feels so good. Oh, an old-fashioned. I used to love old-fashioned. I'd love to go have an old-fashioned. I smell whiskey. I think of the smell of whiskey. I'm like, damn, that'd be nice right now. Yeah. Because it's stressful right now. Like right now, society, everything that's happening right now in America, it's stressful. Yeah. And I want to go. I'd rather just go drink, listen to some good music, and let it all go. But now I feel like I have this responsibility to

With my podcasts and what I'm doing for people that send me gifts in the mail and the PO box and stuff like that, I now feel like I cannot let them down. Like now I have to, now I have more of a responsibility to deliver my podcast to people that want to know what the fuck's going on. And that's what I'm doing. And it's giving me a reason. So these people that I talk to every day in my podcasts, they're doing more for me than I'm doing for them.

Because they're keeping me going. Yeah. And it's honestly the truth. Because if I didn't have them and I didn't have all this stuff going on for me, I could be back drinking. No doubt. Yeah. Because what would I have? This is the only thing that I got going for me. All right. We're back from the break. Kind of covered you getting sober and how things started turning around in your life.

But when we, when me and you connected, it was because you saw that social anxiety video, which we both deal with some social anxiety issues. So when did you start noticing? Really after my boxing career. I walked around on high alert during my boxing career. So I was always in that tent, that high alert status. You know, my instincts were up. I was always in fight mode, right? Well, when I had no, when boxing was over with,

It was like I got struck by lightning in my bones and it stayed that way even after my career. So now I'm going to parties, walking around and I'm noticing that I got like severe, I don't know if it's, I guess it would be PTSD, severe anxiety, severe like I had something's going to happen any moment.

Like always on the lookout, especially after I got stabbed and my neck slid open. Now I was really at a heightened state. So every time I went out anywhere, I was always looking at my surroundings. I was always like, I was freaked out, like shell shock. And I'm still that way. You know, I'm just learning how to control it better.

So when I saw your video, that's why I reached out because I was like, it feels very lonely. It feels very lonely because you see anybody else and they can kick back, have a glass of wine, feel relaxed. I started realizing that was the reason I would throw drinks down so fast was to get rid of that feeling that I had of like, that anxiety, that nervous tension, that the lightning, I call it lightning in the bones. I feel like my bones had lightning in them, like lightning.

And drinking was the only thing during those years that would take that away. No matter what setting I was in, the more people, the worse. Like if I went into a setting, I always had to be with my back against the wall. I didn't like to, you know, I knew I was a big target anyway because being a bigger dude and like you kind of stam out a little bit and people are always looking at you. I got paranoid. I started getting paranoid.

you know and i and i just uh i the only way i could handle that anxiety was drinking how do you handle it now man um i i immerse myself in my podcast yeah i um i um i'm constantly researching all day long i i pray i just stay away from those uh situations or um atmospheres where you go to a party or something like that i i've tried it i've tried to go a few times to test myself

and it doesn't feel good there's no reason to be there i just leave i'm there for about an hour and i'm like they just people start getting toasty they start drinking more and i'm the only one that's not drinking i just feel out of place and then you make other people feel awkward you know i notice that since i don't drink they feel like they have to they feel compelled to tell me why they drink or they feel compelled to tell me what's wrong with you why don't you drink what kind of problem do you have because if i have the problem that listen we all have problems you know what i mean but at least

I have a dress mind and I'm doing things to fix my life. So, you know, I just rather not deal with it. So I walked away from it. Do you think all of it was PTSD and that or do you think some of it was when he left boxing, it was your identity was stripped from it. Fuck everything, dude. Yeah. Like I was a baby in the world again. I didn't know who the fuck I was like this was the is like I worked my whole life as a five year old to be a champion boxer.

Take that away from me. Who the fuck am I? Yeah. I didn't know. I don't know. I'm learning still, you know, I'm learning right now. Did you have a, did you have a question? Like, here's an example. So I struggled with it a lot. I still do. And, uh, at the beginning I did, I never had it until I left the SEAL teams or until I left CIA, excuse me. And, um,

When I left it was the same thing. I felt like my identity was stripped, plus PTSD, plus TBI, whatever. It doesn't fucking matter, right? But I fucking hated it when people would ask me what my hobbies were. That was like the one, well not the one, but the question that I just fucking dreaded because I didn't have any. Neither do I. It was, I go to war, and then I come back and I do a bunch of drugs and I party and...

Nobody can fucking relate to that. Nobody can. And so they'd ask, you know, what's your hobby? And it's, I don't fucking have any, you know. And I'll be honest with you, I don't have them either. If I have to take a good hard look at myself, it's like I neglected everything in my life for that one thing, which was boxing. So that's what I trained myself to do. And other than that, it was drinking, fighting, drinking, fighting, drinking. So take those both away from me.

I'm literally learning life all over again. Yeah. And I'm not asking for anyone to like have sympathy or empathy for me or anything like that. It's just, it's just what it is, man. Like I said, I don't play victim or nothing like that. It's just, I'm taking the reins now trying to control my life. This new normal that I'm living is so foreign to me. So alien to me that I feel like a baby just learning to crawl and walk again. Cause this is really what it feels like. My whole identity was boxing, right?

Partying and drinking. I mean, that's just what I did. And I was good at it, right? I mean, that's what I was good at. That's what I knew. Take that away from me. I'm having to relearn life all over again. Has it gotten any better for you? Man, yeah. It's better. I have a peace of mind. I have a calmness in my soul to know that I'm winning this battle one day at a time. But the fun, I romanticized my past life.

That's always going to be there, man. I don't know if that's ever going to go away because I always think about how good it was. And getting older, especially for an athlete, when you know your best days are behind you, that's a motherfucker. Because, I don't know, look at someone like Michael Jordan, dude. You see that motherfucker crying all the time. It's like, it's fucking hard. It's not easy. This is not a fucking easy thing to do. Walk away from being treated like a god, worshipped in the arena, signing autographs for everybody, clamored to, to nothing.

To crickets. Yeah. That right there was the hardest shit for me to deal with because I was looked up to. I used to go speak at schools. Hey champ, champ, champ. I don't hear that anymore. I get an occasional email. Someone says, hey champ, you know what I mean? But that's occasional. Now it's like, hey, I see your videos. You're an influencer. And I don't know if I'm insulted or like what's going on. I'm like, damn, this is a lot different than what it used to be.

So I don't put any like Like I don't put any any emphasis on what I do right now because it doesn't feel like anything You know because what I what I had was my identity. That's what I related to like what I had was boxing That's who I was you take that away from me all of this now that this direction of one of my life is brand new to me I don't know where to categorize it. I don't really don't I have told you this off break Yeah, you know

It's fucking crazy though, right? You know, I mean, you've excelled to the pinnacle, you know what I mean, of boxing. And now, I think what I find very interesting is people that seem to find success, you know, and become the best at what the fuck they're doing is...

When they move on to something else, it doesn't take long and bam. They're the best at what they're doing. I mean, you grew a channel. You grew a channel in one year. Yeah. And you have how many subs? 222. 222,000. Going on 222,000. Subs in one year. Yeah. I mean, that shit doesn't happen. You know what I mean? That's a lot of...

You've got something. But let's think about this. There's a flip side to that. Got to remember, I've been retired for seven years before anything started happening for me. So I was in like the darkest of dark times for seven years.

I'm not taking that away from you. Let's just say all my 30s because really all my 30s was black. Yeah. Because I was already, you know, after 30, 31, 32. Now let's say about 33. I was done with boxing mentally. So I was just lingering around in boxing. Then I get knocked out. Then I deal with my demons. Yeah. Then I had to face my demons. So really 33 to 42. Yeah. That's like 10 years. For me, that was hell.

I'm not, I didn't mean, I didn't mean it wasn't hard. No, no, no. I know what you mean, yeah. What I meant was once you found the next thing, you accelerated. And I wrote a book. You know what I mean? And you wrote a book. I wrote a book. Once you found your new direction. Yeah. Everything else, I mean, you weren't working towards anything. It doesn't sound like. The only thing I was working towards was the bar. Yeah. The next bar. I mean, I just, that's all I cared about. Now, you got to remember too,

What played in my mind all the time was that my sister died of alcoholism, right? So I was dealing with a dead sibling for the last 13 years. That messed me up. But she died of alcoholism. It runs in my family. So I knew what path I was going down. I knew where this was leading me. I knew where it was going to take me. Okay. And so, you know, dealing with that, watching my parents have to bury their kid, me handling all the funeral arrangements, and knowing that I'm going to do that again to my parents...

That was also a major mindfuck that I knew I had to get over. I had to pull myself out of it at least until my parents died, until they pass on. So in my mind, I was like, I at least got to clean up until my parents pass away, and then I can go back to drinking and ruin my life. But I can't do it while they're still alive. They can't see another kid get buried. Yeah. And that was another reason I quit, because I didn't want them to lose two kids. Yeah.

You know, to the same thing, alcohol. So the best thing I ever did in my life was quit. Do you have any advice for anybody that's in it right now? Gosh, I mean, we all have our own journeys. We're all in our own, we all have our own battles, you know. I mean, I can't say anything unless I walk in their shoes. But no matter what they're going through, look at people like me who hit rock bottom. Found no way, you know, the only thing I did was just look up and look to God. That is all I did. And I found the courage and strength to stop drinking alcohol.

I can't believe how much of a vice drinking is, not just to me, but to a lot of people. Because if you look at any domestic abuse or domestic violence or people getting DUIs, the main contributor, people need to look at this in their own life. What's the common denominator of your trouble? And eliminate it. That's really all you got to do. And once you do that, your life will flourish.

My life has taken off in a different direction. Now, are there going to be hard times again? Yes, there is. And I can only hope to God that I don't fall back into that life because I don't know what I'm going to do if my dad dies. I don't know what I'm going to do if my mom dies. To me, they're everything to me. If I lose them, it's going to be like when I got knocked out in boxing.

I don't know what's going to happen. Am I going to go back to drinking? I sure the fuck hope not. But dude, I have those question marks on my mind just like anyone watching this has their own question marks on their mind. We all have our own demons. It's, you know, we all do. I don't give a shit. You know, I wouldn't trade mine for yours. You wouldn't trade yours for mine. You know what I mean? Like we all have a battle that we're fighting, you know, and honestly, I can only hope, but just take it like they say one day at a time. And that's, that's what I'm really trying to do.

It's the best I can do. Yeah. It's still a struggle, man. People think, oh, you stopped drinking. You're awesome. You're winning. Yeah, I'm winning the battles daily. But the war is still being waged, and it's not easy. Yeah. It's not easy, man. I always tell myself, I can go have one glass of wine. No, I can't. When I start thinking like that, I have friends. Come on, man. You can have one glass of wine. Come on. And I'm like, well, it looks like I'm not hanging out with you anymore. Because, yeah, I could have one glass of wine.

That one glass will lead to two, then to four, then to ten, and then I'm back where I'm at. And like I said, it's not that I'm not trying to help my friends, I'm just not strong enough to bring them in. You know what I mean? I just don't feel like I'm strong enough to pull them up, because I'm dealing with my own shit. I think that's healthy, you know? I mean, that's my personal thing. You're taking care of you, and you can't help everybody. All you can do is set the example for them to follow.

Get friends that contact me that are still drinking, you know, and they're like, you know, you're a fucking asshole You don't call me no more, you know this and that I'm like bitch. I don't want to hear your fucking problems. I have my own Yeah, I can't say I'm not a savior for people I'm barely trying to save myself and they think it they think that I'm like trying to stay away from them that I'm too good Like I fixed my life and now I'm too good for anybody. That's not the case. I

Case is, I'm scared to death to go back to walk down that path again. Yeah. That's why I stay away from people and I just keep to myself and I have social anxiety because I don't want to slip back into that. You know, it's too risky for me. I've already had two DUIs, dude. I have one more. I'm going to jail again. Do these, we were talking earlier offline about losing a lot of friends and, you know, when he left.

boxing and when you quit drinking, quit partying and I can relate to that too but how many friends, like all of them? Man, most of them. Some tried to fix their life and they just went back to drinking and died.

One's in an Australian jail right now. He's smuggling a shitload of coke over to Australia and got popped So now I don't know how much time he's doing they say oh, he'll be out in a couple years But I don't think so because they did a sting operation on him and he's I think he's gonna be gone away for 10 15 years I don't know. Yeah, but I mean I I have friends that are in jail and I have friends that have died one of my best friends Dying to sleep. I have other friends that have been shot in Juarez. I

That old barge down there, and they got killed because they were getting extorted, and they got killed. And it's just like the common theme in all this shit, no matter how much you can control it, was alcohol. It's always involved in someone's life that I know where shit goes wrong. Yeah. Somewhere in there. You know what I mean? Whether it's them saying, oh, I could have three or four beers a night, and that's all I have. I think it does something to your...

Spiritual awareness, man. I really do. I think being sober gives you a keener sense of the spiritual component which you have. I believe being sober... I think having alcohol cloudies up the water. It just makes it so your receptors aren't taking in the information you should be taking in from God. At least that's how I see it right now. And that's all I can say is...

I'm just much better off without that shit in my life. Yeah. Without that shit in my life. Well, I mean, you quit drinking. You got tested with your dad in the hospital. How long was he in the hospital? Oh, dude, he must have been in there for about a month and a half. And this, and let me tell you, in the hospital, not knowing if he could even be a candidate for the surgery. Yeah. So we were just waiting. Like, is he going to die? Are they going to let him die? Yeah.

Or is he going to, or do we have a 50-50 chance at his age even having the surgery and dying? I mean, I thought I was going to lose my dad. And listen, I know I'm going to lose him at some point. He's 87. But, you know, he's my best friend. Yeah. My best friend. It's amazing how fast, after you quit drinking, things just took off. You know, and I see that with a lot of people. Yeah. Because I don't know how many of these shows you've watched.

And, uh, it doesn't matter, but everybody has almost everybody that's been on here is they've gone through some real tough times. You know what I mean? Uh, after service, cause the majority of them are, you know, operators and, uh,

just about all of them struggled with booze or drugs or both and And in the ones that have quit drinking it's it's just fucking amazing to include myself too Once you quit, you know or slow it down. I guess I can't say quit but things just take off You know, it's it's your I don't know what it is. You're fresh every day. Yeah, you know I have to do those hangovers and

And trouble, you know, I mean, geez, every time I got a DUI, that was 15,000 down the drain. Yeah. Like paying lawyers and like lawyer fees and this and that. It's a complete waste of money. Then your bar tab, you know, on top of that, paying bar tabs. Bad thing about what was with me was every time I went out in El Paso, it would be, hey champ, let me get you a shot. Hey champ, I didn't have to pay for anything. Yeah. People were constantly buying me shots. And so I was getting, I was getting fucking blasted without even having to spend a dollar. Yeah. Yeah.

you know and it's like then you realize like man i can't even go out anywhere without getting drunk you know because i would never say no well and you quit making you quit making shitty decisions yeah you know uh i think about all the decisions that i made up and you know that doesn't happen anymore no i mean i take full responsibility and i can't blame the alcohol anymore for the shitty decisions i make now yeah so it's like to me it's like um

I'm more focused on an objective. I know where I want to go in my life. I know where I'm trying to go. I have the energy to put out, to make things happen now. Let's be honest. If I was drinking and came to go be... First of all, you would never even ask me to be on your show. That would have never happened.

But if I was drinking, let's say I was drinking and somehow you asked me to be on the show, I would have made it to your show. I would have arrived in Nashville and gone and partied and then be hungover today and then call you and be like, hey, can we do it later? Or some fucking lame excuse. It wouldn't have happened. So, you know, so that's a head start for me, man. No alcohol. I'm getting a head start in life, you know. And I'm sure a lot of people are watching this feeling very uncomfortable. Like, fuck, I'm still drinking. I can't stop drinking.

I was there, dude. I know. I was that guy that's like, fuck, I wish I could be like that. I wish I could be that success story. But they need to understand that it's a constant battle every day. That they're not alone. Nobody's alone in this. We all feel the same. It's just getting through the day. Just get through it. Get through it. The boredom is the hardest part. When I'm just sitting there going, jeez, I have shit to do. What do I do? Read a book? Watch YouTube?

Watched Sean Ryan on YouTube. Then you were like, fuck it, I'll just be on YouTube. Fuck it, I want to go drink. My life has changed. It's definitely going in a completely different direction than I ever would have imagined. Where are you heading? I don't know, man. If you would have asked me this two years ago,

It would have been, or three years ago, it would have been like death. I would have been like, I'm going to die. Now, dude, the sky's the limit. I don't know. I don't know. I'm letting God take care of that, okay? I'm not deciding that. I'm letting God steer the ship. I'm not the captain anymore. I know people say, oh, yeah, you are. You're your own God. You manifest what you want. Nah, I'm humble. God has got my ship. I guess, let me rephrase this. What are you doing now?

I'm on the Sean Ryan show, baby. I know. But you know, like, what are you working towards? You got to be working towards something. I have a very good company now. My social media company took off. It's doing very well. And I just plan to keep going, man, and keep expanding. You know, the sky's the limit. I don't know where it's going to take me. I don't know. All I know is if I were to stop today and stay at this level, I'm happy. I'm very happy. I don't need much more than this.

I'm good. I'm good. But if it keeps growing, I'll embrace it. It's whatever God wants. So when I say whatever, I'm doing it already. Where do you see me in five years? Where do I see myself in five years? Well, I'm doing it now. I see myself still hammering this out, still doing podcasts, talking to interesting people such as yourself. To me, this is what better job could you ask for? We have really stimulating, interesting conversations with people. It's fucking awesome. Yeah. Like to me, that's fucking amazing. It's crazy. Like, like,

If you would ask me if I would have been doing this two years ago, I would have said no. I would have been dead. I would be dead or drunk somewhere. And here I am doing this. It's amazing to me, man. I just can't believe how when you let go and let God, things change. Really. You're just along for the ride. Just along. Remember I told you surfing. It's like I caught a wave. I'm riding the wave. I used to compare everything to boxing.

I used to say life's a fight. Life's tough. Life's a lot of drama. It's hard. It's like you got to roll with the punches, but you land your shots. I don't think of it like that anymore. I look at life like surfing. You get your surfboard, you paddle out there, you catch a badass wave and you ride it in. You go back out there, catch another wave. It may be short, may be long, but you're catching waves. And you may wipe out, but you get back out there, you get your surfboard, and you go back out there for another wave. And that's how I see it now. I'm just catching waves. Do you surf?

I've attempted. I'm scared of surfing. I've been out there a few times. One of my best friends used to surf all the time. He took me out there a few times. And I got up on the board one time, but I ate shit immediately. But I got the gist of it. I understood the concept, right? And I have a lot of friends that were surfers, right? And they would tell me, oh, man, I caught this awesome wave. I'm like, fuck, that's how life is, man. You know, like, fuck, you catch a wave, you ride it in. You don't catch one, you stay out there for a while.

look at the beautiful ocean and then one comes you catch it and you ride it in and then you work your ass off to get back out there again you know what I mean it's like that yeah so I used to compare everything to boxing I used to be like oh life's a fight so I'm round one and then your middle of your life is like the six or seven rounds you know I don't compare it to that anymore because I think life's as hard as you make it yeah you know

Well, I think that's a good spot to end on, man. But I just want to let you know, I mean, I've not heard you open up like this on any of your videos that you have on your channel. And I think this conversation is going to help a lot of people that are struggling with alcoholism, with PTSD, with whatever struggles they have in life. I mean, it's just...

You gotta overcome it. You have to be one to overcome it though. And want something better. I just want to thank you for coming out, man. Dude, it was my pleasure, man. I really knew that if I was going to sit down with you, we'd go deep into this. And I think that I needed that for my own cathartic reasons. For my own therapy. So...

I appreciate you having me on, Sean. It means a lot to me. My pleasure. Where do people find you? NinosCorner.tv. NinosCorner.tv. Or YouTube, David Nino Rodriguez on YouTube, David Nino Rodriguez. Or Telegram, Ninos Corner. Right on. But the big one is NinosCorner.tv. Roger that. Best of luck to you, brother. Thank you. I appreciate it, Sean. See you soon. God bless you. Thank you. You will.