That Adds Up
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That Adds Up
When Fear Becomes a Life Sentence
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Fear shaped Billy LeBlanc before he could even name it - and that fear followed him into addiction, prison, and a life sentence. In this brutally honest conversation, he traces the moments that made him who he is: the first memory of watching his dad push his mom to the ground, the shame of being called a coward, and the long road from a scared little boy to a man trying to finally feel safe in his own skin.Billy opens up about the childhood chaos that sent him bouncing from Mississippi to Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia, Florida, and Texas, the behavior issues that kept getting him in trouble, and how weed at 13 turned into LSD, PCP, cocaine, crack, and meth. He also talks through the exact chain of events that led to an arson conviction, a parole cycle, and the life sentence that made him believe he would die behind bars.You’ll hear Billy explain:
Why he says fear is his first memory
How his father’s anger shaped his self-worth and relationships
Why he believes shame, not just guilt, has driven so many of his choices
What addiction actually feels like from the inside - and why meth still has such a grip on his brain
How prison, relapse, and recovery forced him to confront the story he has told himself for decades
This episode also goes deeper than the crimes and the drugs. Billy reflects on the love he did and didn’t feel from his parents, the regret he carries about not having children, the baseball dream that still stings, and the rare people who have helped him see himself differently - including his friend Chris, whose recovery journey he deeply admires, and his family, who have shown him more love than he has often allowed himself to believe.If you’ve ever wondered how childhood fear becomes adult self-sabotage, or what it takes to stop living inside old shame, this conversation is a must-listen. Raw, reflective, and unexpectedly hopeful, Billy’s story is about more than survival - it’s about the possibility of becoming someone new.
Welcome to That AdS Up, where every story matters, every life has meaning, and every conversation brings us one step closer to understanding. Translating chaos into clarity, one moment, one story at a time.
SPEAKER_04So today on that ads up, we have my husband's Uncle Billy. And Uncle Billy was actually given a life sentence, and we are going to get to that. But first I want to start with so tell me where life started for you, what your first memories were, where you were living, who you were living with, and what your childhood looked like.
SPEAKER_08I remember a lot in the southeast United States, between Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana. My mom and dad were still married. We were just poor. We were really dirt poor. Probably a lot of people grew up poor like that in the South. I was real close to my mom. I think I was real compassionate and could really feel what my mom was feeling at our young age because she was always I don't even know how to explain it. My dad really hurt my mother when he left her writing. So I just remember a lot of sadness and stuff like that on my mom's side.
SPEAKER_04What do you remember about like the end of their marriage? What was it like in the house?
SPEAKER_08I remember when we were in New Orleans, the end of their relationship, and they had a fight. I just remember the fight. I remember my my dad uh pushed my mom down. I remember seeing that and his father stepping in and all this other stuff. And, you know, uh I'm told that my my uh dad broke my grandfather's ribs one time. I didn't see it, but I'm told that, and it was because my grandpa was messing with me. So I don't know. I mean, I just remember those those are some of the earlier memories. I do remember seeing my dad push my mom down. It was the first time I one of my earliest memories also. He pushed her for whatever reason. I don't he didn't punch her, but he did. He he pushed her down and I was I remember where I was and what view that I had of it. And that's uh it's like a snapshot. I don't remember the video.
SPEAKER_04What do you remember feeling like in that moment?
SPEAKER_07Pain for you know, pain and for my mother.
SPEAKER_08I c I couldn't grasp why or what was going on, but I I could just feel the you know the hurt of my f from my mother, you know. And the uh fear that that I saw or that I felt from my father using the physical and the maybe even the facial expression or the anger that was emanating from that scene from him.
SPEAKER_04Did that make you scared of your dad?
SPEAKER_08I was scared of my dad for as long as I can remember. He did use violence in physical. It was just enough to to scare the shit out of me.
SPEAKER_04So you remember being scared of your dad from like a very young age? You remember him putting his hands on your mom in front of you. How old were you when this happened?
SPEAKER_08About four. I think that was my earliest memory, is about four.
SPEAKER_04Was that the only time that you remember him putting his hands on your mom? Yeah. And did they get divorced like right after that?
SPEAKER_08I don't remember the divorce. Maybe so. Because I know that my mom moved to back to Alban where her m where her mom and dad were from at at that age. And I went there with her at that time too.
SPEAKER_04So then what do you remember happening after that?
SPEAKER_08I moved in with my mom and mom took the kids when they got divorced. And I couldn't tell you much more about it than that, that that we moved to Alvin. And I started uh I guess I started school in Alvin, kindergarten. You know, having said all that right there, I th I don't think that my childhood, those years were any different than millions and millions of people's, right? There was probably maybe maybe not the pushing down part, you know. I I never saw my dad ball his fist up and just smash anybody like that. But I'm sure that it shaped me. A lot of my fears and stuff with my and my own self-confidence and and and my comfortable in my own skin is all developed from there, you know. I knew I was loved, you know, and and stuff like that. And uh it was a it was a big mess. If you really want to look at the ideal, the way a family unit should be, no, it was never like that. I think that uh millions of kids turned out pretty good and it's under the same circumstances, I bet.
SPEAKER_04Let's go back to the moment with you watching your dad push your mom.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Would you say that you felt helpless in that moment?
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Uh how did I feel at that time?
SPEAKER_08It would be hard to s separate how I feel now or would think I s should have felt, or whatever. I would probably felt like I I I would feel more fear that I'm next at that moment. Or, you know, certainly seeing your your mother being pushed to the ground by an angry father had an effect, and I felt something at that moment. Fear I would th I would think would be one of the biggest ones. I just remember having a lot of compassion as a kid, and I don't know if that's the right word, but empathy, maybe uh empathy and feeling what she felt was I was sensitive to that, and I can think that if I saw that at that age, it would you know guilt even maybe of something like that, ha having her, seeing her pushed to the ground. But I think probably overriding would have been fear that there's some maniac over here pushing people down, punching my grandfather, and all whatever else was going on.
SPEAKER_04So then you end up moving in with your mom and your sisters. And how long were you living with your mom and what happened then?
SPEAKER_08Uh I lived with my mom for a couple of years. I I think I remember going from I went from uh kindergarten, first grade, and then I failed first grade, but they but I went to summer school and went to second grade anyway. And then after that, our moved. I then my mom sent me to live with my dad.
SPEAKER_04Why did she send you to live with your dad?
SPEAKER_08She sent me to live with my dad because I I had a lot of behavior issues in school.
SPEAKER_04Do you remember of any of the things that you did?
SPEAKER_08I set a trash can on fire outside and I did that, and I remember some other things I would do. I I threw mud balls at the at the ladies. Uh she had her whatever they wore, clothes lines out in the backyard. I I threw mud balls at them. She got caught, threw rocks at the cars that were going by. I remember that just throwing rocks at a car when it goes by. I mean, Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Do you remember, do you remember like why, like what you were trying to do?
SPEAKER_08No, I was just I just liked throwing shit. One of the earliest bad memories I have is I had a knife, a couch was one of those old vinyl couches that had a welt cord on it. And I saw I was trying to cut that welt cord off, just cut it off. I remember my dad tanned my hide for that. This was way before, right? But when I was living with my mom, I guess, you know, I would get in fights. I remember one time me and the boy got into a fight, and my mom came to pick me up. She told me, You can't come back here no more. You can't be the in the babysitters no more. So I remember that, and it was because I had gotten to a fight with the with the boy or whatever. I remember I would, like, again, throwing rocks. There was this kid living across the street, bigger kid, and uh I'd run out there with a rock. I had to run to the middle of the road to reach him on his front porch. So I'd get a rock, run out there, throw, and I'd come back, I'd run away, and this sucker hit me right in the back of the head with a rock. And so I cried and went inside to a babysitter's house and told her, look, he threw and hit me with a rock. And she said, Well, don't go over there. She had a spoon too. She didn't whip me with that spoon, but I knew that's what the consequences were with her. And so I remember I went, I cried to her about it, and she brushed it off. You don't be throwing rocks. You must have seen me throwing the rocks. Well, I went out there again and threw another, and this dude hit me right in the back of the head again. I went inside, and this time she I remember the spoon that she spanked me with. So I'd just do stuff like that. Just just maybe just normal kid stuff, I don't know. But it w it was, you know, it was just I don't know. I I'd get in trouble for stuff and just being I didn't excel in school like I should have or whatever. Or didn't, you know, I don't know. I don't really remember what I did in school. I just know I was in trouble and I didn't pass school.
SPEAKER_04Was it was school hard for you?
SPEAKER_08I guess. I mean later years I just didn't care. I didn't want to. I I've I've had the attitude and I was tested that that I had enough smarts to be able to do school. I just I just didn't like it. I remember like in middle school grades, yeah, I I I passed the ones that I'm really interested in, I liked. But if I didn't like it, I just I didn't I didn't do I just didn't study stuff like that. I didn't want I didn't want to do the uh things that I did like, like history or geography, those two I liked. I didn't I didn't like anything or English, I even did well in English, but I didn't like math, science. I didn't like either one of those. So I just didn't do well and didn't apply myself in school. That's what happened. At at a younger age, when I got older, um, I started smoking weed and stuff like that. I rebelled. Maybe it was more like trying to fit in, you know, with somebody. And the easiest people to fit in with were those people that are doing that. Didn't require much of you. Right. I think that's what I did. So, and and peer pressure, if you want to call it that, or even with smoking cigarettes, all that, all that started at about 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_04So walk me back. So you were with mom, and then mom says, what? Like your behavior's too much for me. I guess okay. What do you remember what she said specifically?
SPEAKER_08She said you would do better with your father. You would do better. You need your father. And who can argue with that for a little boy? So that was that was the case.
SPEAKER_04Did you do you remember how you felt when she told you that?
SPEAKER_08I don't know that I would even have objected back then at that age. At whatever I was, seven, eight. Maybe I even liked the idea. I don't know. You don't remember feeling like not the at I went to New Orleans where he was living at that time. He was living with another woman. He married this other woman. I don't think they had a kid, but he was soon to come. And I was still seven, somewhere around there. And so I don't know that uh at that time I didn't I don't remember having the relationship that I soon to have with my father, which was fear. He didn't spend a lot of time with me then. Once I was 10, 11, 12, and I and I could think about why my mom didn't want me there, because I wanted to go with my by then I wanted to go back home with my mom. I loved Alvin, Texas. I wanted to be a cowboy. Anything about I want to be a cowboy, all that stuff. I hated to be with my father at that time. I wanted to go back to my mom. And I remember how I felt then. You know, it was like a rejection, I guess. My mom had her own big problems then. He wasn't paying her child support. I think they made some kind of weird agreement that if you take Billy, you don't have to pay the child support and all this other kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_04So uh And so then did you go back with your mom or did you stay with your dad and step?
SPEAKER_08I would go visit on summer months to go visit Leah and Lori. Lori and Leah stayed with mom. But no, I never went back to live with my mother after that.
SPEAKER_04Tell me about the relationship that you had with your first stepmom.
SPEAKER_08The first stepmom was from Philadelphia. She was like full-blooded Italian, and uh, she had a temper. I know that she she just I felt like she hated me, you know. Especially once she had her son with and so that's her son, and that's the unit that she wanted it to be, and she wanted me to be out of the picture, you know, violence to a point where she'd draw blood, she'd scratch me, stuff like that. I remember the facial expressions she would make at me in my face. She hated me. And uh I don't remember what all what I would do, anything that I would do. And this was school too. I remember I was in school there too. I didn't do work worth a crap in school then either. I I continued to act out. I might climb I'd be on top of the school throwing rocks at the windows and shit on the weekend because we live right across the street from the school. We wound up moving to Slidell, Louisiana. And so I was a I was just a behavior kid all my life, I remember really. I still am now. My behavior problem. I don't deny myself things that I should deny myself. She since uh cried to me and hugged me, Rose. My stepbrother, his name is Lewis, which is another thing too, because my father's Lewis, right? Lewis Alfred LeBlanc, Jr. His grand his father was senior. And so when Rose had that baby, Lewis, she named him the third, right? That's the third. And I was already there, though. And so I I remember as a kid thinking I didn't like that either, you know. I thought, well, I'm supposed to be the third, right? I want to be Lewis. She apologized for that. She really did. She cried to me. She was heavily Catholic, too, real big religious stuff going on with her. I know as a kid, you know, as I guess I was between second and third grade type of somewhere in there, you know, those two. Uh no, third and fourth, I shouldn't say. It wasn't where I wanted to be. I wanted to be with my mother. And it was because she was easy compared to anybody else. She ain't gonna beat me like that, nor be angry all the time at me or whatever. And so uh yeah, that's part that's I know that's the main reason why I wanted to to be away. It's not so much to be with her, it was to be away from them.
SPEAKER_04Do you think that maybe you were acting out hoping that your dad would say, I can't handle him either here, take him back?
SPEAKER_07Maybe so. Maybe so.
SPEAKER_04I remember hearing a story that your sister told me. I'd love to hear if you remember it or what your rendition of the story was, but she also did not like your stepmom, your first stepmom. And she told me that one time she did something something. I don't I don't exactly remember the details. She did something and you ended up claiming that it was you that did it so that she wouldn't get in trouble. And she said that she remembers very vividly you got slapped across the face with a sandal, and she remembers you holding her hand and walking with her, just the big old smile on your face, like, come on, Leah, it's okay, I got you.
SPEAKER_08I really don't have a big memory of that. I might have blocked it out. I don't know. If Leah would have been exposed to that, I like to think that's what I would have done.
SPEAKER_07For Leah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I like to think that that's what I would have done. See, it didn't matter who she punished or who did it, it was she would love to punish me for whatever it was.
SPEAKER_04So did you get blamed for things that were not your fault all the time?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I mean, maybe if maybe not so much blame for something that wasn't mine, but just the amount, the the level of punishment for what the crime was would be like that. You know, like what do you what? Who left this white over here? Pow! What's about it? You know, but yeah, I I don't really specifically remember any much of any of the crimes against Rose that was her name that that I did. It was just any mischief that I got into was multiplied with her. She just she had he had enough of me. My mother wasn't violent with me. I'm I know those times where I remember I probably got a a spelt or whatever from my mom, but ever saw the hatred in my mother the way I saw it in Rose. That would be the weapon that would affect me, would be your facial expressions or you when you're coming at me, how where you're at and where you're coming from. I could sense that. And I know with Rose, there was no love.
SPEAKER_04Were you scared of Rose?
SPEAKER_08Scared of her? Oh yeah. She beat my ass. She could and would beat my ass. My father taught me fear, how to fear. He didn't he taught me fear. That was my God, who I adored and worshiped and wanted to beat. I don't know if you personally can, but have had a lot of hatred towards you. But uh, you know, once you see that in the eyes and the face and the expression, and that's that's the weapon that it starts with. It doesn't even require a a blow anymore. That that right there is enough. Maybe if there would have been more blows, I wouldn't have been so scared. There was a lot of blows, don't get me wrong, but the anticipation of such. I hate to sound like I'm whining about this kind of shit because I'm over that. Way so over that. I feel like I am.
SPEAKER_04I think you're describing an experience. I don't think that you sound like you're villainizing anybody or making anybody sound evil or any of that. I think that your experience is valid. I think that you do have the right to talk about it.
SPEAKER_08Because it had its part in shaping me at those years.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, it did. You were raised in fear and you didn't feel loved, and I'm guessing you didn't feel protected.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_04And you probably wanted your mom and you weren't allowed to have her.
SPEAKER_08I did. I can remember that. I remember when other babies would, I want my mama. I could feel that. I want my mama too.
SPEAKER_04What do you think your dad thought of you when you were that age? What do you think his opinion of you was? How did you think he viewed you?
SPEAKER_07At at what age?
SPEAKER_04Like when you were seven, eight living with your dad and all this was going on.
SPEAKER_08And the stepmom. Yeah. The first stepmom. I don't know. I I think that he uh he was just highly critical of, you know. I think my father could be overall love me and be proud of me, but one thing could make it seem like it's all that would be go away. All that would be gone. I would I was this now, you know. And I think that's what he learned. He didn't know any better, really, you know, as a kid. I think my father loved me, but he was so devastated by stuff. So devastated by stuff that he forgot who I was and what the role was, what it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_04Did you love your dad?
SPEAKER_08I did love my dad.
SPEAKER_04Why?
SPEAKER_08Because he was my dad. He I just loved him. I I loved my dad. I love my dad. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any any better to to think that something was right or wrong. I love my dad. Because a kid does love his dad. A child, I think, loves his dad.
SPEAKER_04Do you love your friends?
SPEAKER_08Do I love my friends? Some of them, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Who's a good friend of yours?
SPEAKER_08Chris Bertelson. Why do you call his name?
SPEAKER_04Why do you love Chris?
SPEAKER_08Because because uh he's a role model, he's a recovering alcoholic. He's drank for however many lots of years, and he's come on top of that, and he's got a PhD. He's he's been a friend to me. Uh I'm we've just spent a lot of time talking over the years. He's one of my oldest, not my oldest friend, but he's he is my closest friend. I want to do what he's doing. But at him personally, he's just a good, real good dude, one of the best people I know.
SPEAKER_06So now I'm gonna ask you again why did you love your dad?
SPEAKER_07Because he made me. He made me. I am him.
SPEAKER_08So at that time I f that's who I was. I felt like he made me, and I love my and right now I love my dad. I still love my dad.
SPEAKER_04So when you talk about your friend, you have all these wonderful reasons why you loved your friend. But when you talk about your dad, it boils down to obligation because he because I'm his son and he's my dad.
SPEAKER_08Right. Then that would be the difference between a conditional and unconditional, because it didn't matter what he did. He's my father. Whatever love is, or whatever you how you can describe it, I think that things that go unsaid, communication that that just comes through body language or facial expressions or whatever, you it's you're absorbing this as a kid, so I can't tell you and say everything that made me love my father. But in my heart, even today, I know that I still love my father and that he loved me. It's boiled down to a terrible human experience to the environment that both of us had at the time. His father was an alcoholic, and he was a bad alcoholic to where he was really abusive, really verbally, emotionally, and everything abusive to him. He was the oldest boy, and so he didn't know how to do anything else. And he survived that and turned into a decent man. When I say a decent man, I'm talking about the things that men need to do to take care of their family and their and their wife, because he his third wife, he treated her real well. My father was a changed man under faith. He did my mom terrible. He did my mom way terrible. I do not respect that. I in fact, if it was if I was alive back then and that was my sister, he'd had to deal with me for doing that to my mom. He would be a piece of sh under my mom. Right.
SPEAKER_04So what would you have said to him if you could go back right now and that was the situation and you watched that happen? What would have happened?
SPEAKER_08What would have happened right now?
SPEAKER_04If you walked in and you're like time traveling back to the past, and you walk in, you see you sitting there, scared, terrified out of your mind, you see your dad angry, you see your mom getting pushed down on the floor, what are you doing right now?
SPEAKER_08I would say, what the fuck are you doing? What's going on here? What in the fuck are you doing as a woman right here that's your wife, the mother of your kids, what are you doing? Why?
SPEAKER_04Now, if you could go up to little Billy, who was five years old and just witnessed this, terrified out of his mind, and I want you to tell me what you would say to him.
SPEAKER_08Just cry.
SPEAKER_07And hold him, shielding from that. Wouldn't let him see it. He needs to know that he's okay and his mom's okay.
SPEAKER_08He needs to know that his mother's okay. And that he's his dad, everybody I don't know. I mean, don't i it just needs it's okay. It's okay. What life is this? What's going on here? What is life about? What is this? I don't know anything. You don't you're not aware of what could make somebody do that. Use their hands or whatever to physically you know. At the time I don't think he even meant her to physically hurt her. I I I knew what was going on. He was just mad and pushed her. And I knew that and I don't think he was I knew that he wasn't trying to kill somebody or whatever. But you know, it's still a It hurt me to to uh it hurt me more for my mom, I think, really if I look back on it. Because I can't stand the thought of my mom getting hurt. I can't right now I can't stand the thought of my mom crying or hurt. You know, my mom went through a lot of dark times, and I remember those dark times, and I could feel that for her. I was so ashamed that she didn't have money. My dad was living and making money, have a good mom. My mom got nothing. And I I I was felt so bad about that. I still do. Recently I'm I'm trying to think how my mom's behaviors affected me. Because she just couldn't handle it. She throws up her hands, she can't handle it, she can't deal with it. Any any any controversy, any contradiction, anything like that, she just she tr she won't do it and she doesn't do it, and she she just disappears. And I think that affected me a lot too, you know. I think I needed her to care and needed her to buckle down, just deal with me whatever it took to keep me. I think that affected me greatly. That my mother, whom I wanted to be and who I loved, and I so so wanted to be there that she just couldn't handle me or she I didn't realize that she she really couldn't I that she wouldn't. I think she could have. She just at that time I don't guess she could, you know. I don't know. She had her own issues too coming up, her mom and stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Did that make you feel like you weren't worth it?
SPEAKER_08Back then it did, for sure. It's hard to make my dad just approve of of anything. Like, you know, I look at uh Colton and and Canon and I see that relationship. Cannon gets that from his father. He gets he he looks at him and he's needing that. I can see him w walking around, he needs that from and Colton gives it to him. My dad could not do that. He couldn't do that. I don't know why. It's hard for him to give anything like that. It is give love or give compassion, but I just don't I know he didn't do it like Colton does. You and Colton have pretty good relationship and it's awesome. And and maybe you don't know how awesome that is, but it is. I think I missed that from anybody that's had a big effect on who I am, who I turned out to be.
SPEAKER_04So I know that you say now like you knew your dad loved you, but did you feel loved?
SPEAKER_08No. That's what I'm telling you. He did not know how to do that. He did not know how to do that.
SPEAKER_04Did he ever tell you he loved you?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, he's told me that.
SPEAKER_04But was it like a regular thing?
SPEAKER_08No. No. You can say a person could tell me they love me and I don't believe that shit. You can say all you want to. You can say that all you want. To me, love is a verb. You know I love you when I love you.
SPEAKER_06Did you feel like your mom loved you?
SPEAKER_07Do I now feel that way? Yeah.
SPEAKER_08I'm sure I yeah, I'm sure I did then too. My mom did love me, I guess. I mean, I don't know, she like I said, she would disappear emotionally. Big time. As a kid, you know, I don't know why. I just felt I was a bad kid or whatever, and I I didn't equate it with love or not love, maybe. I don't know. Love is not a good word for me. It's not a word that I can describe and I I call it a verb. Like I said, if I love, you know I love. I feel like I I don't even have to I don't say anything. Even through the addictions that I've that I've lived through and stuff.
SPEAKER_04When did the addictions start?
SPEAKER_08To substances uh around 13, 14. I was smoking weed. It made me feel good. It gave me a good feeling.
SPEAKER_04What was the feeling?
SPEAKER_08Happiness or uh it could have even been not feeling bad about myself anymore, not feeling the uh less than or inadequate and all that, all those feelings would go away. Even as an adult or growing up, weed makes me even more withdrawn from people, right? And I and I and I and I think that my with my withdrawal from people is because I don't feel comfortable that I'm not I'm not measuring up and I and so uh drugs have been that I even draw even more away from people when I'm doing drugs. And and I don't I don't get a lot of confidence from it. Let's put it like that. Alcohol, I'm drunk I'm dibbled in that way, I don't really like it that much, but I that's the opposite. When I'm drinking alcohol, I I'm if I could just do that, it sounds crazy, but I I I wish I I would just say, all right, I'm just gonna start drinking because I feel like I'm I feel in my skin I'm a lot better, more, more confident, or whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_04So smoking weed, 13 years old. And then I know that you said that you went to several high schools, how did that happen?
SPEAKER_08We moved from Alabama, I went to junior fresh my freshman in high school in Alabama to uh a junior in Woodbridge, Virginia, and all that was because of my dad's job. And so I moved around to high schools a lot, and I started smoking in Alabama, and that was the first year of high school. And uh from then, I mean, uh it's just saw a blur, but I it was downhill from there as far as my um just crazy. I mean, I wish I could go back and change all that stuff because there was so much potential for me, anybody as a at that young age, any man, woman, child, whatever at that age has so much more potential than what I did for myself. I rebelled away against anything, school, sports, I love sports, I didn't do that anymore. And part of it was because I would go to a new school and I didn't fit in, and so I just just high school was a a blur and a disaster for me. I didn't do anything right in school. Nothing. You could say I dropped out in the eighth grade, you'd be better off because I I don't I don't remember doing anything. I passed all the way up till the 11th, and then I dropped out in the middle of the 11th in Florida. And from there, you know, I just started eating more drugs, different drugs.
SPEAKER_04What was the next drug that you tried?
SPEAKER_08LSD. That was in Woodbridge, Virginia. There's this kid that was 19. I remember this boy was 19 years old, and I was that was and I was, I guess, 16. 15, 16, somewhere around there. Probably 15, and I moved up there, and it was I remember the 19-year-old dude, and he was in the drugs. They had Black Sabbath, they had the band, they played Black Sabbath, and all that shit, and he had friends and uh older friends, you know, and and it was uh I guess this was in 79 or 80, somewhere around there. I don't remember much about school, but I remember a lot of drugs, and and uh I tried PCP up there, tried all kinds of stuff. I don't know that I tried cocaine at that time, but it was coming, and it came. But no, I I just was, yeah, I tried all kinds of drugs. Most notably would be LSD and uh micro dots and mesculine, it's all that kind of stuff, heavy with the weed. It was the first time I had I remember getting in trouble with the law was with weed and breaking in people's houses, dope man's houses trying to steal weed. All of that led to the cocaine, and it was down in Florida, I guess. And finally in where was that? In Arkansas. We moved to Arkansas. This is after I'd been uh after I was out of school, nine eighteen, whatever, and then I went I went to prison for the first time, and then when I went to Houston, that's where uh that's when I went when I got out of prison after about three years, four years, whatever I did, we went to Houston and that's where I started with cocaine.
SPEAKER_04When did you go to prison for when you were eight, was it 18?
SPEAKER_08I was 18 when I did the crime, nineteen when I went into the stepped into the unit. But I w uh it was for arson. I had set this me and this dude was roommates, and he's we wound up getting to a fight, long story. But he moved out and saw all my stuff that was in that place he took. He stole it all. So I went back home. He had like an empty house, and there was like a bed, and his room was whatever sheets stuff was on it. And I remember taking a lighter and lighting that sheet and leaving. And this was like a big old out in the rural country, a big uh metal building that had been converted some parts of it into apartments, and that's what it was. And it wound up burning that part of the of the building up, you know, and I got charged for arson. And um, that was my first time I went to any about recovery, any of that kind of stuff. I went to a drug program and they helped me get the sentence reduced and all this other stuff, and I'll but I still went. And I went for like four months under these real protective custody class, you know, status. So when you go down there, you don't go in really gender population, just a scared straight type of thing. And then you get back out, and then like if you do right, it'll all go away. But I didn't do right. I went out and started doing everything wrong again in Arkansas and uh went back immediately almost. I stole a car, this chick that I was messing with. I was in the drug program and I was to eventually marry this girl. But anyway, I stole a Volkswagen in the neighborhood where she lived because I was trying to get back to the drug program that I lived at, and I got caught driving on the way back. I was going to pick a brother up in Little Rock, and I got caught speeding, and I was under that little, I was on that parole stuff that I did. And when you get in trouble on that, they they throw the book at you. So I stayed down there in Arkansas for about three years after that, till I was 22. They just reduced the charge, but it was I still went down and they bottled it all up, the old arson and everything, and then theft by receiving, I think what they called it, and I wound up doing three and a half years or so. And then when I got out, I went I paroled directly to my dad in Houston.
SPEAKER_04So you paroled to your dad's and then what?
SPEAKER_08I started working, uh just working, you know, obviously on parole and everything, but I I I worked and started doing cocaine with the at work at the job where I was at and snorting it, which led to smoking it. That's about when crack cocaine came out. When crack cocaine, I started smoking it and and it was on. I I was a I was a full-fledged crackhead. I was addicted to that stuff. It had ultimate it had utmost power over me. I mean, I was a slave to that cocaine. And uh it didn't take long for I wound up going to get some cocaine. I had this person was in the car with me, and we went in, we went in to go get it. Police rolled down on us. I don't even she didn't even come back with the crack yet, or maybe she did, I don't remember. All I know is that they found a straight shooter or a pike. The police did, and I wound up getting time in Texas for that. And uh I got a five-year sentence for that, did about 11 months and got out, still wanting some more cocaine. One thing led to another. I went to Fort Worth, which I've never been, that was where they paroled me to, and I found powder cocaine shooting it. I learned how to shoot drugs, intravenous drugs with Who taught you? Other convicts in the halfway house I was at. I wanted crack. I wanted to smoke it, but they didn't do it. That's not what that was going on there. They didn't, you know, it w what was going on there was around the corner, the Thunderbird nightclub. You walk in there and you get a $25 bag of cocaine and you shoot it. And so that's what I did, or go down there and get the little capsules or whatever. And so for years I was I say years, maybe four or five years back and forth to penitentiary for possession of of this, or like stealing from people that hire you, you know, stuff like that, get stealing, stealing stuff out of their shop or whatever, you know. Just it was it was crazy. I mean, I uh I went to a truck program, long-term drug program, just to get off the streets, right?
SPEAKER_03So wait, you were homeless?
SPEAKER_08Oh, yeah, a number of times on with b back then, yes. There's an old abandoned schoolhouse I remember. In the wintertime, I would I would go under there and just cover up with whatever I had. And then and then the next morning, I'd be broke, right? And then the next morning you go out there to Peak Load, what's the name of the company? Peakload. You go out there and you just you go in their little building like this, you sit in there and you wait for them to call you to go to work. You go to work and they give you a draw that morning because you're hungry as shit, right? And you so you get your little draw and you get whatever cigarettes and something to eat, and then you go to work, and then the end of the day, you get your money and you go right back to the dope house and buy whatever you might buy a pack of cigarettes before you get the crack. This is crack or shooting it, either one back then. But yeah, I was homeless, living on living wherever. I mean, I I remember uh going downtown and having a needle in the in the capsules and just needing somewhere to get water and to draw it up, right? Well, I go to the Greyhound bus station and and and just either draw water up or go right to the stall, draw water out of the shitter and mix it up in the cap and shoot it right then and there. So it but but that was that's how I say cocaine was it was my everything. It it had me. In 93, I got a charge for stealing from somebody that I worked for. I wound up going to prison for that. And when I got down there, I said, I'm never doing that again. I'm never doing cocaine again. And I meant that. And then when I got out for that time, they sent me back to Fort Worth, but to a co-ed drug program type of thing, released to this, right? It's a for prisoners only, and but it was co-ed. And I and I met this chick, and uh, she was a drug user too, and I was not we're not gonna do this. Our relationship, we have this understanding, we're not doing that. And we didn't, while you know, we didn't when I was there. My parole plan was to go over here. I live with my sister in another city far kind of far away in Texas. And then, but I come back, and when I came, I'd come back, we'd I'd see Patty, what was her name, and we'd see each other and everything, and then started it started happening to where she was using, I knew she was using. She was using her ideal with speed. And so one time I just said, Oh, let's go, all right, let's go do it. And so I started shooting speed. And the thing about that was I didn't ever get it hooked like I was on cocaine. I never got hooked on speed like that. I never did anything like I was I could function, highly function, if you ask me. I mean, cocaine's gone and you need it back. Speed was never like ever. And so it it made me in denial about whether I was an ad addict or not. Because I was still speeding this the the ego myself. I wasn't worried about life like I should be. I'm worried about getting that and doing that, and I needed that. I just didn't need it to the same extent. So for years, I I just I I was in denial about my addiction to speed because it didn't do like cocaine. Not even close. Even to this day, I'm amazed at how somebody could be such an addict on cocaine the way I was. I'm talking about shameful, shameful, shameful Billy, as opposed to I am harmless with with meth. I'm not gonna take nothing from you, I'm not gonna let nobody else take nothing from you. I'm not gonna hurt you physically and nobody else will either. And I'm not saying I would hurt you on the other either, but I was just a worthless piece of shit. And so the denial is it and that's what has kept me, I know, in the earlier years of my speed problems, uh, kept me from admitting that I was an addict on that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so I just want to clarify. So when we're saying speed, we mean meth. That's the same thing.
SPEAKER_08Meth, speed, yeah. And I have not gone back to cocaine. I don't I don't like cocaine, I don't want nothing to do with it. I used to get in trouble for doing. I would just get in trouble for getting pulled over and you got it on you. That's how I got the life sentence, because in Texas, they could enhance is what they call it. Enhance your indictment from the second down to a first. They'll use those priors, and that's what happened. They found uh in my house, this time they kicked it in my house. They used one of those ones that happened in the car to enhance when they kicked my door in at my house, and they found these little chemicals which which would be uh not criminal to have them unless you have them if you the specific ones, right? You can have one, but if you have them together, no, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_04Were you cooking this?
SPEAKER_08No. No.
SPEAKER_04You weren't cooking it?
SPEAKER_08No.
SPEAKER_04But you had the stuff to make it?
SPEAKER_08I had uh precursors to that, yes. I didn't have any ammonia. But I had some of these, and these pills had pseudoophedrin, is what it was. It was allergy pills, and they had um the ones that you can use to cook have no buffer, not a lot of other stuff on it. Just a little tiny bit of pseudophedrin. You could still use it if you subtract all that other stuff, but you it would take a thousand to just to make what a box of the other ones would do. So I wasn't really just I wasn't doing it. In the back of my mind, I'm out I said, okay, I'll take them, whatever, you know. But when they found those, that was enough to give me the life sentence because they had I had ether, which was another precursor to making it out in the truck and my pickup out outside. So they found the ether and those pills and they used that to that's all it took.
SPEAKER_04Tell me about when they handed you down a life sentence, what was going through your head?
SPEAKER_08Uh I was in the courtroom and I had already been fighting with this court-appointed lawyer. He's wanting me to plead guilty and all this other stuff, and they're gonna throw the book at you and all this other stuff, and you need to trial by jury or even even to yeah, by jury as opposed to trial by the judge. You don't want the jury and all this. He's he's telling me everything wrong, everything wrong in hindsight. And out of fear, I just said, well, okay, all right, I'll try that. Because I I can't say I'm not guilty. I could have, I guess, but I you know, in hindsight, I would have rather just went to a jury and let them give me whatever they're gonna give me rather than a judge. He put on a show that day, the the prosecutor that day, after I play guilty, coach adjourned. The next day he came out, and that's when he started. He put on all these things that I'd done in the past. He had all the criminal records, everything, and he just he hammered me on the on that in front of no jury, just the judge. I remember him saying, You can't get away from that stuff, you can't stop messing with that mess, so I'm gonna sentence you to your life in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Vision. And I knew it was coming already, but it still hit me hard. And I remember going back in the waiting room, and I don't remember much feeling of it, much of anything other than, damn, you know, I've got it, I'm preparing myself to go down there. I I'm already an old convict, I've already been down there forever already, but it hit me hard. And I remember they was, they check on me to make sure I wasn't, you know, suicide watch, whatever. But it did it, it hit me hard. I don't remember if I shed a tear when it happened, but I really knew, I really felt like that was it. I'm not gonna ever see daylight again. I thought at least 20 years I would do, at the very least. That's what my mind thought. And so I was dealing with that. And um the more powerful emotion is once I found out that after a mere eight years, seven, eight years, I can be eligible. Man, the hope sprang up in me big time. I remember. And it was uh a huge uh thing because I was doomed before that. But I don't much remember I know I shed a tear when I was in the not in the courtroom, but after when they put me in the holding room to s to transport me down back to the jail where I was at. I remember uh I remember crying because I remember thinking of my mom um just thinking that I'm gonna be I'm not gonna get out again. Surely not in her lifetime. And uh and it did, it hurt me. You know, but like I said, when I when I realized it was like this deep breath when I realized that man, I can get out again, you know, and I said to myself, then I'm not ever messing with no meth and beta means I said that. And when I got out, it did not. I didn't mess around with that stuff either. I wanted nothing to do with it.
SPEAKER_04Can you describe like the physical feeling of being on it?
SPEAKER_08Yes, it's a it's up, it's uh it's an up, you fill it up, and all this it's immediately your endorphins and your chemistry and your brain are reacting in a way that it's it's everything's good. Uh it's a pleasure, it's it's not uh anything sexual or anything, although that it's enhanced. But it's it's just like uh, you know, if you if you're bored, if you were bored and all of a sudden you you had this excitement that you can do, that's that's kind of what it is, multiplied on steroids. The normal human beings, pleasure centers and enjoyment that he gets out of life is skewed tremendously because of the use of that particular drug. I believe this, I I know I've I've heard it, and I can't describe it any better than that. So when you've gone some days without it, you don't have that pleasure, you can't get that pleasure from normal life like you should. You should be able to have uh the normal, you know, uh response to things that will normally make you happy and satisfy you in a certain whatever way. They don't do that. They can't do that. It's not gonna work like that because you've already worn it out.
SPEAKER_04Would you describe your normal emotional state as like flat or numb?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's like dull. Life sucks, maybe. I mean I won't think like sucks, but it's just really dull. And another thing too, I add to that is that I think that if I had somebody, I'll just say a woman, I'm not saying for any other sexual reasons or whatever, but just somebody, you know, a woman that I could that I could do life for, somebody that I could do this for, with and for, then I I think that would um change the way when I'm not high, that that would change the way I feel.
SPEAKER_07I think that would help.
SPEAKER_04Does meth make you feel more lovable?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_04Does it make you feel more brave?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_04Does it make you feel less anxiety, like social anxiety?
SPEAKER_07No, more.
SPEAKER_04So it it attacks the three things that you already struggle with. I know it. So then what is the gain?
SPEAKER_08What is the gain?
SPEAKER_04What does it do for you?
SPEAKER_08Because it it it um You know, all my life during meth, I've it's never been without a a woman. I say that. When I get out of penitentiary and I go back to doing it, there's always there's a woman, and we're doing this together. So I've always had a woman. Never ever have I been alone and single doing methamphetamines ever.
SPEAKER_03Sounds like you need to stay single. Sounds like a woman is probably not the best option.
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, I uh I'm just the reason I bring that up is because I had fun with the stuff before. Yeah. With her, whoever. But this is crazy. It's it's insane. You're doing it. And I remember I know that people like in Arkansas when I was the the people I would get it from over time and make me think too well, what do you why do you want to do it even?
SPEAKER_03Do you can you answer that? Like, why do you want to do it?
SPEAKER_08Because I need to have that excitement or whatever that that feeling is that I need to replace, I need to keep, I don't know. I mean, it's because especially once I've done it, I can't, I'm I question what the f why? Because I you stop getting high on it over days and over a period of time, and you just you're doing it just to do it. And especially back in, well, before when I would do it interveniently, that would be one thing, but smoking it, that's just getting in my lungs. I can't even after after days, I if I get up and my heart has to pump blood and oxygen to throughout my body, it can't there's no oxygen hardly getting to my lungs because it's coated with that shit. And so why? It's just killing me. Why are you doing it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04So if you're not scared of going back to prison because you're willing to dance with the devil on that, right? What are you scared of?
SPEAKER_08I'm scared of a lot of things. Just a conscious fear is one thing. Uh not much that I can think of consciously going through my day. Yeah, I'm not scared of shit. Uh I you know, consciously, I guess. But subconsciously, I'm always protecting me, myself, or from other people.
SPEAKER_04Where do you think that came from?
SPEAKER_08It just came from as long as I can remember that I've been accused of this, that, or the other, or less than, or you're you're not this, or you can't this, or you whatever it is, I'm always trying to protect against that. Or what do you think about me? Like I said, as a younger man, I got out of the penitentiary at 45, so I'm still whatever. You're still kind of young person, right? But when I was in my 20s and 30s, I I I was good looking to women. Women like the way I look. I didn't I'm too shy.
SPEAKER_04You're still a handsome guy and you're 60.
SPEAKER_08Well, when I was a younger man, I was I didn't have to, I was shy. I it's hard for me to go to a woman and express.
SPEAKER_04Well, were you s why were you shy?
SPEAKER_08Because I I just fear of rejection.
SPEAKER_04I want to talk about fear.
SPEAKER_08All right.
SPEAKER_04Because that seems to be a very constant theme here. Yeah. So I know that you have told me a story about fear. And I want you to take me back to that conversation with your grandfather.
SPEAKER_08Oh, yeah. Well, I remember I was a I was a kid and I had to been this wasn't when I was like five or something. I was a little I was a little older. In fact, I remember I had moved in 1977 or 76, so I was 11, uh, to my grandfather's house.
SPEAKER_04And uh Why did you move to your grandfather's house?
SPEAKER_08I moved because my dad and my first stepmother were divorcing. My dad got another promotion to move to Alabama, and she told him, I'm not going to Alabama if you bring him. So I went to live, my dad told me this in Slidell, and he says, You're gonna go live with your grandma and grandpa, and I'm gonna go to Birmingham. And when I get ready for you to come to Birmingham, I'll get you. So I didn't know he had a woman at that time, or he did have a woman, I didn't know about it. But anyway, so I went to live with my grandma and grandpa, his father and mother in New Orleans, Louisiana. Gretna, to be exact. I was 11 years old and I was outside playing, and these kids, it was a nerf football with mine, and they took it. They wasn't not gonna give it back to me. And and um, and I went and told my grandma. Grandpa was at work, but I went and told my grandma they won't give me the ball back. And they're gonna beat me up if I try to get the ball back. So I went and got my grandma anyway. My grandma went out and they gave her the ball, whatever, and my grandpa was an alcoholic. By the time he got home and he started drinking and everything, grandma told him the story about it, I guess, but he he called me a coward. He called me a pussy and a coward. And I internalized that because I was scared. I know this happened one time too with Faith on a school bus. I got this was later at 13, 14. This dude named Bubba Peoples. He was a bully. He was a bully, and he not necessarily a bully, just he was a bad man.
SPEAKER_03Bubba Peoples, we are looking at you.
SPEAKER_08Bubba Peoples, his sister was so gorgeous. I love her. Teresa Peoples. Oh, she was fine. She was like 17 and I was 15. Anyway, 13, whatever, 15 by then. Anyway, but he he uh we got off the school bus and he was pushing me. For whatever reason, I don't remember why. I thought I had a smart mouth. I was a smart mouth, a little kid. Punk. I needed to quit being that. But anyway, he's pushing me and I didn't want to fight him, so I'm backing up. And he kept pushing me, and here comes Faith.
SPEAKER_04Your stepmom, your second stepmom.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, here comes Faith to the school. She's seized this, she said, saw this, and she came and got in front of him, and we I went with her. And that's another time that I did not fight when I should have fought.
SPEAKER_02Hold on though, how did that make you feel that this woman came in and protected you?
SPEAKER_08I was glad for it, but at the same time, I mean, I was I was ashamed. And I remember one time with Lori, my sister, another time, a shameful thing. I have been a cowardly boy, I was. I was scared, and I blame it on my dad. My dad didn't teach me to fight, he taught me to be scared of a fight. And uh because I would fight as a little kid. I taught you, I'd get in trouble for fighting. Then one more exposure to my dad, the more cowardly I was. Because I remember my sister, Lori did something. And these were Colombian boys from the neighborhood, and they were all from Columbia. We played soccer, and but anyway, I remember for some reason Lori, they slapped Lori, and Lori was she had to been 12 or so, 13 maybe. But anyway, and I didn't do anything to to protect my sister. And I remember I was in the tub at home, and my dad came in there while I was in the tub, and I don't remember what he said. He's called me a pussy too, uh, because I wouldn't fight him one time. He hit me and I wouldn't fight him, he pussy. But no, I felt so shame that I didn't protect Lori. He didn't have to say a word. I I remember that. So I've I've I've just dealt with that a lot. Uh it's a cowardice, and I know that um I don't know whoever hears this or ever anybody ever ever sees it, but um that is not a proud moment for any man to right now even have to think that I would be I would I would show cowardice is not a pretty sight to me. I don't want that. I'd rather die. But it's it's it was a part of who I can and and and I'll say this my first time in in prison, I was a coward motherfucker too. I was, I was a scary motherfucker. And as I I got out and went to started coming to Texas, things were a lot different in Texas. It wasn't like in Arkansas. Uh you still there was a lot of fighting going on, but as as as I grew up and grew older, I didn't have the fear. I didn't show the fear, and well, I wasn't called upon. Nobody fucked with me like that, you know, and I wasn't called upon to have to fight or not because I just I didn't carry myself like a like I was scared. And I know I have been into a couple of fights and did well with fights. So I wonder if when I was a kid, if I'd have just fought. I remember in the final thing in Tucker, I didn't have to fight. I just had to bow up, and the the dude that was oppressing me, I could see it in his eyes. He didn't want to have to fight me. Because by now I'm a 22-year-old strapping young athletic boy, kid. And I'm not necessarily I didn't have to fight him, but I remember one time I had moved away from where in the in the population area where I would be seeing this person, and all of a sudden he came out to try to connect, to try to try to fuck with me. And I just kind of stood my ground and it was over with. The whole thing was over with. The oppression was over with. So I like to think that that maybe that was uh anyway, but I don't I've never told anything about my shame of being a coward and all that cowardice except to you, not nobody, anybody ever. I've never told how I've was a coward and felt like I've been a coward. And I've always uh thought that, well, it's just self-preservation, you're trying to make sure you survive, you know, you're a survivor or whatever, but that with Lori was cowardice as a as a little boy.
SPEAKER_04But can we at least have some compassion for the five-year-old boy that watched his dad push his mom to the ground and learned to be scared?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. It's like I say I I blame, I I actually to this day blame my father for instilling me fear, physical fear.
SPEAKER_04You realize that fear is your first memory.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Who would you be today if you didn't spend your entire life in fear?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Uh uh, whoever I wanted to be. Whoever I wanted to be. I would be married to a woman that I love, I would have kids, uh, and I would I would be um a good father, a good brother, a good uncle, somebody that is respects and is respected and loved, you know, somebody that everything that you can imagine that a person would want, a man would want, uh, that's what I'd be, I'd have. And it had nothing to do with riches or any of that. It would just be somebody that has a loving family, he's taken care of and helped to accomplish, and has children and grandchildren that love him and he loves them, and that's it. I'd be a father and uh everything, all those things. If a person can see, especially in a man, unsureness and you know, uh not being sure of yourself, it's not it's not attractive to women. You know, that's it's ugly to me. It is. I don't want to be that anymore.
SPEAKER_04What'd it take for you to feel like you're comfortable in your own skin?
SPEAKER_08Not being a failure at other things. I've heard the word self-love and I don't get that. What is it? I've asked the question, my friend Chris, what does that look like? What does it mean? Uh he's the one that told me love is a verb. And he says, just just and he uses the word act as if, just act your way into right thinking. Just act this way and it'll it'll come to pass for you.
SPEAKER_04Fake it until you make it type of thing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. And in a way, it's true. Because it's just to me, I think it's true. I I haven't um taken that plunge and just just made a commitment to do it like that. My uncle always says this. He says, There's magic in action. Fears hold people back from doing actions if you did this action and realized like talking to a beautiful woman. Just do it. Do the action.
SPEAKER_04So you're saying self-love and you don't understand the concept.
SPEAKER_07What does it look like?
SPEAKER_04How is a little boy who didn't feel loved supposed to know how to love himself?
SPEAKER_07Right. What does it look like?
SPEAKER_06Have you ever felt truly loved?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, maybe, yeah. Maybe yeah, maybe truly loved.
SPEAKER_04Truly loved, delighted in. Like somebody lights up just because you exist. Have you ever truly felt cherished?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I don't know about maybe not cherished, but but loved. And um, yeah, I felt that way. Usually if it's like a a long time disappear long away separation for a long time, and then there you are again. I'll be honest with you about something I feel today, even. When Billy first gets there, it's okay. But once he's been there a minute, people are sick of him. They don't like him, they don't love him, they don't want nothing, they want him gone. Or they want to leave, one of the two. I have the same fears and insecurities, and people get annoyed with it, or whatever it might be. Whatever my personality traits are, they become ugly real quick. And people can see it. I can put on this veneer, I'm this veneer, and I can you see you decent-looking man at 60, whatever, I can put on this veneer of this, that, and the other, but um it's something else inside that's comes out always for me. Even when I'm sober, I still have that the side effect of the meth is that I still have that that brain that it's it's hypervigilance, uh always coming up with something, and it's out of fear, you know.
SPEAKER_04As a child that was raised in fear, I'm sure that you knew your dad's footsteps coming down the hallway opposed to your mom's.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure that you could sense the second that you walked into a room who was in a good mood, who was in a bad mood, if dad had a good day at work, if dad and mom were fighting, you probably didn't have to be there two seconds and you could feel the energy, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I don't think that started in prison. I think that started when you were a little boy. Right. I think prison probably cultivated a lot of it.
SPEAKER_07Oh, hell yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I'm curious when you do do something that you call shameful, right? I I want you to let go of some of that shame because shame and guilt are different. Guilt is I made a bad choice. Shame is I am fundamentally flawed. There is something wrong with me. And when you're raised with a lot of shame, you attach that identity to mistakes. And it's like, I can't do right, therefore I am bad. And some people will parents will tell you, you're a bad boy, you're a bad kid, you can't act right. Those are identity statements.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That is not somebody curious about your behavior or that you're missing your mom or that, you know, why are you acting this way? What is going on with you? Why are you burning stuff? Why are you throwing rocks at cars? Why are you, why are you doing all these things? Because that, those are behaviors. That doesn't mean Billy was bad. Yeah. On top of that, how are you gonna assign that to this precious little boy who really just wanted his mom and was terrified and living in fear?
SPEAKER_08I can be honest, Christina, that is the underlying evil ingredient. Harmful, the most harmful, the most devastating ingredient in Believe's makeup is growing up being a coward. I can honestly say that this this time that I've spent talking to you and being honest, that I am a coward, and then looking at the fact that hey, you were not given a chance to be a a hero, but you never were. You know, you were you were you were you were a human being that could have developed into a normal human being with the same amount of confidence in yourself and what's right and what's wrong rather than being that. I am not a coward. I have faced some demons. Uh just to keep doing what I do in the face of the consequences that I know are there, I'm not a coward.
SPEAKER_06No, you're not.
SPEAKER_08But as a person, as a kid, as a human being as a 60-year-old man, I subconsciously I'm a coward. I'm not a coward.
SPEAKER_06You're not a coward.
SPEAKER_08I was not given a chance to be a normal person.
SPEAKER_07And then then it's okay, you know.
SPEAKER_08Uh maybe that'll help me love myself. Because I have not been worth loving. I don't think uh I've had the opportunity to uh love myself because I am I that's a huge flaw. It's it thank you. It's a huge flaw for for a man to know he's a coward. Oh my god. Anybody ever listening to this know that you're dealing with any of the shit that I'm uh talking about, it's not true. It's not true. The opposite has been proven to myself, really, if I think about some of the things I've faced, you know. But I just was I just I just thought I was.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna remind you that your sister told me a story and she painted you as a hero.
SPEAKER_08Maybe so. Leah was my little sister. Lori was my protector, more than than me being hers, for sure. But Leah was would definitely I can see that. I don't want to own something that I don't really remember.
SPEAKER_01She told me that.
SPEAKER_08Leah, uh Leah loved me a lot.
SPEAKER_01She really loved you.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She really, really loved you.
SPEAKER_08She missed my sister so bad too. It's I don't I never I mean, I I spent so many years in my addiction that I didn't come to see her child, her children when I should have or could have. But I just miss her. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04What's your biggest regret in life?
SPEAKER_08Baseball. I'm not a baseball player. I felt so worthless and nothing anywhere else in life, anything else in my life could not measure up to what I could have been as a professional baseball player, I think, in my head. And so I regret that. And I know that's so egotistical.
SPEAKER_04How were you supposed to do that though? You were bounced around to four different schools in three years. How are you supposed to do it?
SPEAKER_08Well, when you look at Peyton Manning, you ever heard of him? Okay, Peyton Manning's father, Tiger Woods, you ever heard of him? His father at an early age, they took him and they they did that. They developed that. They took your go boy, Canon, and his father right now. You go boy, you go, you do this, let's do this. I'm behind you. Dad didn't do that. He didn't know how to do that. But if he would have did that, and I would have learned even more than what naturally I had, shit. Even in prison, when we had softball and baseball started happening, my steam as a human being was so much higher. Because I was, I could do this. It was finally something I'm good at. I can do that. People would recognize. That's was that was huge. I feel like the answer should be if I regret that I don't have any children, that I don't have any, never had any kids.
SPEAKER_04Do you regret not having kids?
SPEAKER_08I do. I do.
SPEAKER_04Mike, were you scared to have kids?
SPEAKER_08I didn't care. I didn't think about it. I mean, you know what I'm saying? I I no, but I do regret I regret that. I mean, I know that I've told you that I wonder if maybe it's best that I didn't. And I also thought, this is a crazy thought that God says no more of that bloodline. I remember my first love. I regret that we didn't get married. You know, I think of her. And um anyway, my my selfish answer to that is baseball. I wish I I regret that I didn't get that. But when I if I really think about it, it's that I don't have a family.