#22 David Rodriguez - Overcome Bullying / Getting Sober

Former Heavyweight Boxing Champion David Nino Rodriguez joins me on The Shawn Ryan Show to discuss how him being bullied as a child lead him to become a heavyweight boxing champion with an undefeated record of 36-0 with 34 by knockout at his prime. His first round knockout ratio surpassed every heavyweight in history to date and Nino was ranked number 12 in the world by WBA. After being stabbed in the face with a knife he tried to comeback but suffered 2 losses finishing his boxing career with a final record of 39-2. Nino speaks about his dilemma suffering from social anxiety, leading a life of sobriety, and how he is overcoming PTSD. Rodriguez is now an anti-bullying keynote speaker and best selling author of the book "When The Lights Go Out". Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:53Speaker 02

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• 1:30Shawn Ryan?

  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.

• 1:58Shawn Ryan?

  That way you can be notified all the shows coming out. Alright, everybody. Love ya. Enjoy the show. Lot of good stuff coming. Cheers.

• 2:09Speaker 05

  Have you ever looked into like some of the psychedelic treatment type stuff? I did it all. Did you do it? I've done shrooms, I've done it all. You did deal 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 I can 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.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  When I started knocking them out, it was like an orgasm for 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.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  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 he couldn't believe what I just did. Started telling my friends, "Your friend is dying. Your friend is dying. Look at him, dying." I was purple, my neck was turning purple. And I was gasping for, I was having cardiac arrest.

• 3:23Shawn Ryan?

  The El Niño, David Rodriguez.

• 3:34Shawn Ryan?

  What's going on Patreon?

• 3:44Shawn Ryan?

  Join me on Vigilance Elite Patreon for a live video teleconference.

• 3:50Shawn Ryan?

  David Nino Rodriguez.

• 3:53Speaker 05

  In the flesh, baby.

• 3:54Shawn Ryan?

  Welcome to the show.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me, Sean.

• 3:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you're welcome. What uh, what do you go by? Do you go by Dave, David, Nino?

• 4:02Speaker 05

  Uh, people that don't know me call me Nino, right?

• 4:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 05

  That's like the boxing ring name I had, but people that know me call me Dave, so you can call me Dave.

• 4:11Shawn Ryan?

  Where'd you get that?

• 4:13Speaker 05

  Uh, they were doing write-ups about me at a young age when I was boxing, you know, nine, 10 years old, they just called me Nino. And that stuck with me, not a very intimidating name to have in the boxing world.

• 4:23Shawn Ryan?

  It stuck with you the whole career?

• 4:24Speaker 05

  It stuck with me the whole career, man, and so, um, it was a... It was just something that the newspaper gave me back when I was about nine or 10 years old, and my trainer adopted it, Louis, Louis Burke. And he's going Nino, just Nino, because I, at that time, I had a baby face. Now it's viejo.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  So, you know, things change.

• 4:48Shawn Ryan?

  David Viejo Rodriguez.

• 4:53Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, I got you a little something.

• 4:56Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 4:56Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody that comes on gets a little present.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  Oh, nice, alright.

• 5:00Shawn Ryan?

  You got any guesses? Well, never mind.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  This is, and you know I'll be wearing this on my show.

• 5:07Shawn Ryan?

  Hell yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 05

  Absolutely, man. Thank, oh, and this, of course, the coffee mug, so yeah, you know this is gonna go a long way with me, so thank you. Oh, damn. Oh, man, you had to do it, didn't you?

• 5:20Shawn Ryan?

  Dude.

• 5:20Speaker 05

  The gummy bears. The uh, smores was amazing, by the way.

• 5:26Shawn Ryan?

  I got some smores, you want some smores?

• 5:28Speaker 05

  I'll take some smores.

• 5:28Shawn Ryan?

  You want some smore smores?

• 5:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:30Shawn Ryan?

  Alright.

• 5:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, those are like unreal, but this is, this is amazing, man. Thanks, Sean.

• 5:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  This is really cool, thank you, brother.

• 5:36Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, you're welcome.

• 5:41Shawn Ryan?

  But uh...

• 5:42Speaker 05

  Put on an extra...

• 5:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 05

  15 pounds of that.

• 5:48Shawn Ryan?

  So you got a hell of a boxing career. You wrote a book. You were undefeated until your last two fights, I believe.

• 5:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:56Shawn Ryan?

  Now, we just had this conversation. What do you do now?

• 6:00Speaker 05

  I'm a YouTuber, Sean. Uh, you know, that's a really awkward thing to say because I, I mean, really, that's what it is. It turned into that. I mean, uh, we were talking about that on the way up here and honestly, it's, it's a, it's a strange thing. It's very foreign. It's very alien to me. I've never really, uh, I don't even know where to categorize it. You know what I mean? It's just like a, an alien on my doorstep. It's, 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 is over. Getting in my older years now, older years now, I'm just gonna go into commentating.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  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.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  So it, it hit me, it blindsided me.

• 6:54Shawn Ryan?

  What made you start it?

• 6:57Speaker 05

  I, that viral video I had about in 2020 talking about the human trafficking.

• 7:02Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 7:03Speaker 05

  Um, that set it off. That was like the match that lit the forest on fire. That went viral, got millions of views.

• 7:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 05

  And it happened overnight, honestly.

• 7:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  So it was, I was just doing a Facebook Live 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, uh, 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 five, 10,000 views. But I'm like, 100,000 views? What's going on here? I go, this has to be, this has, there has to be a glitch.

• 7:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 05

  Then as the day progressed, I'm like 200,000 views, 350,000 views, 400,000 views. And then I'm like, ah, yeah, delete. Delete that? I'm gonna die? Yeah, I was getting, I was like getting very concerned for my safety. So, uh, I took that video off, but it was already copied and sent out all over TikTok, all over Instagram. And I was like, okay, well.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  I freaked out. I was freaking out on that because. I thought I had the little bit of fame and taste of fame and celebrity quasi-celebrity status in boxing. Until this hit and I was like, this was attention that I did not wanna get. Honestly with you. I did not have any desire for this. And it freaked me out.

• 10:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  It freaked me out.

• 10:33Shawn Ryan?

  It's weird.

• 10:34Speaker 05

  It's very uncomfortable, man, because social media is a different animal because. When you put yourself out there, um. Uh, 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. Does to an extent, but not like now, social media where people are. 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.

• 11:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  In every category and you're very easily accessible. That was not, that 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, um. Uh, you know. You'd have to set something up. There was no DMs and and.

• 11:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  And emails like the way it is today, like you're just that much more accessible. And that's kind of uncomfortable.

• 11:34Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's funny cuz you we found you've we found each other through my social anxiety video. Which we both struggle with social anxiety.

• 11:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:43Shawn Ryan?

  You have close to two hundred and fifty thousand YouTube subs within what, two years?

• 11:49Speaker 05

  One year.

• 11:50Shawn Ryan?

  One year and.

• 11:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:51Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh. It's weird being out in the limelight like that and it's funny cuz we're talking, you you were talking earlier, we were talking and. It was.

• 12:03Shawn Ryan?

  I was a undefeated heavyweight boxing champ.

• 12:08Shawn Ryan?

  And now when people ask you what you do, it's, oh, well, I'm a, I'm a YouTuber.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  I'm a YouTuber.

• 12:14Shawn Ryan?

  I'm the same way, yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 05

  I'm an influencer, I, I, you know, I can't get used to those terms, man, I don't wanna 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 your, and that was during the time I was watching a lot of sobriety videos. And, um, cause that was, 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, I'd love, I tried, that's why I reached out to you, it's like, man, come on my show, I'd love to talk to you about this.

• 13:00Speaker 05

  And it helped me a lot, you know, reaching out to you and, and, and doing that video because you, 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. You know, my, my whole thing was fighting, womanizing, drinking, gambling, the whole, all vices, I, 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, um, I, I had to reach out to you, man, I had, I had to make that connection, so I did.

• 13:39Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm glad you did. This is what, the third, the third YouTube collab?

• 13:47Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, it's all been really good stuff and, uh, yeah. But, um, so just diving into your past, you started boxing at a young age, cause you're being bullied.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:01Shawn Ryan?

  That took on a life of its own. Now, you've, then you wrote a book on anti-bullying. Um, kind of about your life.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:10Shawn Ryan?

  And, and you speak about it and now you do this YouTube stuff and a lot of it's, uh, kinda, I mean, uh, political. You know, and, uh, 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.

• 14:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, but yeah.

• 14:30Shawn Ryan?

  But what I'd like to do is kind of dive into your childhood a little bit, see what what happened. Why you went the boxing route and uh and then kind of move into some of the struggles with. Social anxiety, PTSD and uh and how it is being sober, you know, so. Um, so let's let's dive right in. Where'd you grow up?

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Uh, I grew up in El Paso, Texas, border town. Border Ciudad Juarez, 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 thirteen, fourteen, 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, five dollars drink and drown. I mean, you go to Juarez.

• 15:33Speaker 05

  And uh you cross over the bridge, you walked over, this was pre nine eleven, so there was no, 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 for over the bridge, you know, like, I mean, it was just a party town.

• 15:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Back in that time. And starting at a very young age of thirteen, uh, was how it all started and. Uh, it was rough, man, 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.

• 16:12Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we go into that. Okay. Think you you started boxing at what age?

• 16:17Speaker 05

  Five years old.

• 16:19Shawn Ryan?

  So at five years old. So you're being bullied by a girl. And your old man stepped in and said.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  So what. Saw where that was going fast.

• 16:32Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of, what kind of stuff was happening with the bullying?

• 16:35Speaker 05

  Well, I got my ass kicked on the playground by a girl when I was like five years old, um, and that was like obviously very traumatizing for me. The way it happened, um, you know, I kinda hid it from my father. I was coming home every day with a bloody nose, black eye. The girl was much bigger than me. I guess five years old.

• 16:55Shawn Ryan?

  She was actually twenty five.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  She was like fourteen, no, she was, she was like about eight or nine years old, but yeah, she was, she was beating 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.

• 17:23Shawn Ryan?

  Older or younger?

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Older sisters and they, uh. They stuck up for me and, and, um, called her some really bad names and. Uh, took me back home, told my dad what was happening. My dad was like, uh-uh, that's no son of mine is gonna be bullied, much less by a girl. Uh, 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, the real boxing back 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.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Walked me in, gave me to, uh, his friend, uh, Tom McKay, who I always called affectionately my uncle. And he pulled me aside and started teaching me how to wrap my hands and, 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 and I'm sitting there going, this is what my dad wants me to do. And like a little. A little pussy, I started crying, bawling for my dad, like dad, come back, come back. At five years old, I did not wanna be there, and I saw these kids. That looked to me like monsters, and we're only eight or nine years old, but they're in the ring. Punching each other, bloody each other up, fighting like two pit bulls. And I was, I've never seen anything like that as a kid.

• 18:50Speaker 05

  Uh, so it was like he just threw me into the water and just left me, you know, and and and. And then, um, being there. You know. I started learning the trade and and through the years, uh, I still got picked on a lot. I didn't really come into my own till about high school. Um, even though I was excelling at boxing. You got picked on. All the way up to high school? Uh, about middle, about junior high, junior high. And we could just fast forward to that, junior high, okay, so junior high, I was eating my lunch in a stall. Bathroom stall in the gymnasium. Cause I didn't wanna go outside to get my ass kicked. That's how many kids wanted to beat me up. They heard I was the boxer kid. But I was still, I was still felt like a coward. I didn't really.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  I I wasn't really sparring yet in the in the ring. I wasn't, I was hitting the mitts and looking really good on the mitts and the bag, but I never really tested my. Uh, my spirit, you know, I didn't know what kind of fear, spitting. Fighting spirit I had, so a lot of kids wanted to test me at school. And, uh, they made it a living nightmare for me, it was, it was, it was hell. I mean, I was, I was not, 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, um, there was just so many kids, someone to kick my ass. What, what, why did they, they just wanted to kick your ass? I was like the big wetter, the white boy, the, the, you know, everyone else.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  You gotta remember at my school, it was the, we had kids from the suburb, suburbia going to school there and the projects. So we had gangs. And um 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 um I was constantly living in fear, I was constantly getting. Uh threats that they were gonna whoop my ass, I did get my ass kicked a few times in in junior high.

• 20:43Speaker 05

  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 what took so long? Next thing you know. How old were you when you finally flipped? I was about sixteen. 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. Cracked him, it was over. One punch. And then what's it, he was knocked out, and then after that, I was like, cause 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.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Then I was like a big guy, six, five, uh two, you know, at that time, two thirty. 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 for being picked on so much. And beaten up so much as a kid, that of course, the the next thing over, um now I turned into like the bully. You did turn into a bully. Yeah, I hadn't, yeah, absolutely, I turned into like, I was mad at everybody. Would you go out and pick fights?

• 22:04Speaker 05

  My, uh for a while there, me and my friends would just. Oh, that guy looked at you wrong, hey, boom and hit him, you know what I mean, I like not even think about it. You know, and that's the way it was for a while, only because. It was insecurity, man, you 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 this show, that was insecurity, you know, whenever you see someone, you know.

• 22:42Speaker 05

  I was gonna 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. Cause I was terrified of being a coward. I hated living those years so much. So badly being picked on. Knowing that I didn't wanna 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 gonna be that guy again. Hmm. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. Like I just, I had to prove to the world that I'm not that coward.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  And um. That, that's how that turned out and. My career was. Unblemished. For thirty-six fights, I was knocking everybody out. I didn't know how good I really was. And it was, I was surprising myself with every fight. I was like, oh my gosh, another first round knockout, another first round knockout. Another first, 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. Eh, the pressure started getting to me. And I was like, holy shit, I'm twenty and oh now. You know, twenty knockouts. Twenty-five and oh, thirty and oh, like, and I'm winning belts. Um.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  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. Mm-hmm. Like Mike Tyson, I've got to beat the record, I've gotta hold the first, I'm the king of the first rounders, I gotta knock everybody out. And that was ultimately what added so much pressure onto me that led to. Alcohol and drugs.

• 24:35Speaker 05

  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. Uh, I used to call myself the the great white Mexican. It's like almost like the great white hope, but it's but now you the Mexican people demand a lot more from you and you're fighting for a country and pride. And that is what ultimately I believe made me fold.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  So were you fighting for Mexico? Basically, I mean, I was the Mexican heavyweight champ. I won the Mexican heavyweight championship. Uh, the W B C Mexican heavyweight championship. I I mean. I was fighting for the pride of Mexico. I had that pride in me. I I I fought under Rodriguez, which was my roots. Um, and that and but you know when I it got to my head because every time I knocked somebody out and come out. And sign autographs, people are like, oh, we come to see you do one thing. We we were all just betting on when you're gonna knock him out, what round, you know, first two rounds, first round and. 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 and that to me was it was unattainable. It was that's what ultimately.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  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. And that's what I resorted to the booze, the women escapisms, 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? Uppers, downers.

• 26:23Speaker 05

  Pharmaceuticals. I. What was your drug of choice? Molly. Molly? Molly mixed with some al- alcohol. I would even pop an Adderall. I would mix drugs. Anything to get me out of my reality. Um, and it got to the point that uh, if I wasn't blacking out, then I wasn't doing a good job of partying. I and you like you don't wanna see a guy my size. Not control himself, start falling. Swaying back and forth, people get out of the way like getting ready to yell timber. It was bad and and I'd wake up on the floor at a bar sometimes. Uh in a jail cell, not knowing how I got there thinking, oh shit, did I kill somebody? Did I knock somebody out and hurt them? What did I do that?

• 27:08Speaker 05

  This was happening more and more consistently, especially in my early thirties.

• 27:13Shawn Ryan?

  Before we get too far into that, let's take it back to childhood. So your dad put you in boxing. Because you were getting bullied. You fucking excelled at that at a phenomenal pace. Um, did your dad know that you had kinda turned into the bully?

• 27:35Speaker 05

  You would have been ashamed of me.

• 27:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:37Speaker 05

  So no.

• 27:38Shawn Ryan?

  He never, he never knew.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  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, it was I was trying to prove myself.

• 27:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  To me. At the end of the day, the race is with yourself. I I was trying to prove to myself. That that's really what happened and and and and um it was a.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  Uh 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?

• 28:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 05

  Because I was, I had, I developed such a complex. As a young kid. That. Um, it it it it cultivated into my later years into being a complete piece of shit asshole. All of it, all of the drugs, the alcohol, the all of it were escapisms. Staming from insecurities and I and the fact 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 wanna help other people deal with their own demons. And and um and I I could be used as an example of what not to do. I'm not, I'm not ashamed of that.

• 28:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  You know, and I'm a Christian, I'm I'm I, you know, I I believe in God. And I believe I'd be doing an injustice if I didn't tell my story.

• 29:07Shawn Ryan?

  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?

• 29:17Speaker 05

  You mean.

• 29:17Shawn Ryan?

  What would you use to kind of pump yourself up?

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Anger.

• 29:21Shawn Ryan?

  Anger?

• 29:22Speaker 05

  I was mad.

• 29:22Shawn Ryan?

  What would you think about?

• 29:23Speaker 05

  I was just mad all the time, man. I I guess it just uh. 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 had to that I was eating my 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 something, I felt better about myself, but really I hated myself.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  And even that that was even in boxing. I was always trying to prove something to to nobody else but me. Every time, every fight, it was all stemmed from. My turbulent childhood or like the trauma I I endured in childhood.

• 30:08Shawn Ryan?

  I think a lot of. I don't know what to call, just say maybe overachievers or people that that find success and extreme success in what they're doing. You know, they they feel that pressure and it is, it just it never ends, you know, and I mean honestly, that's why.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  No, no, but it's ended for me now.

• 30:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  Once I retired. From boxing it ended. Once once that, once that was put to bed.

• 30:39Speaker 05

  My life changed now.

• 30:41Shawn Ryan?

  What about the competitiveness though?

• 30:44Speaker 05

  Dude, I'm not competitive at really anything anymore.

• 30:46Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 30:46Speaker 05

  No, man, I'm I'm chill. Like I did all that. I'm done. I know what I did. I'm cool, like I fought, I was up there, the best of them, top ten. I'm over it. I I there's nothing to be, I don't, I already did it. It's like you being a SEAL, you do it. You don't have that. You don't have that insecurity of having to do more. You're just like, fuck, I did it, you know, I'm done. You know, I don't even care if I like, you know, pick up basketball games or whatever. I don't care. I don't care if you beat me at pool. Cool.

• 31:14Speaker 05

  High five. I don't care. You know, I just don't care. You know, I just want to enjoy my life now. I don't. You know, I do my little podcast. I do what I do. I, I, I tell you what I do care about. I, I care about the direction this country's going. And I, you know, that's for me, another arena that I'm fighting in, but for, for the most part, I'm, I've really, I'm not, I'm not competitive anymore. Not like I used, not even close to what I used to be. And I have to think of this.

• 31:41Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, let's take a quick break.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Is it going good though?

• 31:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Shawn Ryan?

  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 guests on the Sean Ryan Show. And a ton of bonus content that doesn't really fit into any specific category.

• 32:29Shawn Ryan?

  For our tier two patrons, they get access to our tactical training library, which consists of well over a hundred 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 two, you will get a live update from me on the first and the 15th of every month, where we talk about the upcoming guests on the Sean Ryan Show, plus all the benefits of tier one.

• 33:11Shawn Ryan?

  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.

• 33:52Shawn Ryan?

  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?

• 34:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:06Shawn Ryan?

  Is that how you say it?

• 34:07Speaker 05

  Juarez, yeah.

• 34:07Shawn Ryan?

  Juarez. What was going on back then?

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Juarez, Mexico.

• 34:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  Well, uh, you know, the friends that I hung out with in high school going into, well, I should have been going into college, but nobody did that, um, were pretty rowdy. Were a really rough group of guys. Um, you know, we were doing a lot of illegal stuff. Um, smuggling steroids over the border. Uh, and I'm talking about in the tens and thousands of dollar range. Um, I would, in high school, I did a few drug runs where I would drop them off in Albuquerque, Phoenix. Uh, where I would steal cars.

• 34:50Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 34:51Speaker 05

  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 ride.

• 35:09Shawn Ryan?

  In Mexico?

• 35:10Speaker 05

  They don't see ever, ever see me again.

• 35:12Shawn Ryan?

  So, you would, you would-

• 35:13Speaker 05

  No, in El Paso. And then take them from the car lot and just go drop them off in Juarez.

• 35:18Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 35:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:19Shawn Ryan?

  How much money were you making out of that?

• 35:21Speaker 05

  Nothing, $2,000, $2,500 they give us, but we were just kids, so we thought it was the greatest thing.

• 35:25Shawn Ryan?

  So, you would steal a car for $2,000?

• 35:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. But it was more for the adrenaline rush.

• 35:31Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I totally, I, I get the adrenaline rush.

• 35:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the only reason. I really didn't need the money.

• 35:36Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what were you-

• 35:39Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, so how old were you, were you even sixteen?

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Fourteen.

• 35:42Shawn Ryan?

  Fourteen years old, running steroids and stealing cars. What else were you doing?

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Running drugs.

• 35:49Shawn Ryan?

  Running drugs, what kind of drugs?

• 35:52Speaker 05

  Weed.

• 35:54Shawn Ryan?

  Coke?

• 35:55Speaker 05

  How much? Uh, 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 and the way we were making money is it was easy, it did, growing up on the border was way different than anywhere else in America.

• 36:10Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like it.

• 36:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, and and it was normal, like I didn't think of it as anything illegal, it was just what we did. You know, all my friends are doing it, I had friends that were. Um, you know, I knew kids in Juarez that were already hitmen that were killing people, dude. I knew who they, uh, in the boxing gym, people would talk, you go to the the boxing gym in Juarez, Mexico or. Go to the gym there and you know who was do, who was doing what, you know?

• 36:42Shawn Ryan?

  So. Let's go through each one of these, we're, so you were running steroids, you were stealing cars and you were running narcotics. Like, how the fuck do you even get involved in that as a fourteen year old kid? Who approached you? Let's go, start with the cars.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  You know, well, my kids, but my, my, I mean, my friends that didn't have parents really. I hung out with a lot of ki- uh, kids that were, uh, 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 you make money doing that? I can do that, let's go do it. And next thing you know, you're making a fake ID at your friend's house. Taking it over to dealership, hey, let me take this on a tech, uh, 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.

• 37:38Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it, but you can't do it long, cause it gets out, the word gets out, kids are coming with fake IDs, taking the cars, you know? So, we did it, we would hit three dealerships in a day. And then not do it again.

• 37:52Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so walk me through every step of the way of how this happens. So you rumble the crowd, you rumble the poor crowd.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. They weren't poor, they're 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, they were they were mainly into like doing drugs, right? Cause they had the money to buy the stuff, so they were doing drugs. Then I had friends that were into mischief and problem because they didn't have money. So they had to do the legal criminal stuff to make money. And and that's for some reason that attracted me more than anything, but I will say this. Out of all this stuff that I was doing, all this stuff that I was doing, the one thing, the thing that saved me was boxing. That saved my life. Cause then I s- I I.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  I started realizing I liked going to the boxing gym more so than getting in trouble and that that's what saved me, so. I left that life through boxing, boxing kinda, so boxing did, you know, as as as turbulent and as tough as boxing was, it did save my life.

• 38:57Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. So with the cars, you you and your friends, roughly how many?

• 39:05Speaker 05

  Usually about three or four of us.

• 39:06Shawn Ryan?

  Would hit three dealerships a day? How many cars is that?

• 39:09Speaker 05

  No, we only did that, we only did that twice.

• 39:15Shawn Ryan?

  How many cars?

• 39:18Speaker 05

  I did about three cars, they did about four or five, they did more than me. Cause they needed the money, I was doing it.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  Two days, but it would take about a day or two to do it. We did all the dealerships, get them all knocked out quick so they can't. So they have no time to find out what's going on, kinda, you know, everything's very confusing and then 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, this is how I got caught ultimately. I went to the YMCA and my dad was playing racquetball. He'd play racquetball, you know, and they'd put all their bags out. Outside of the the racquetball court, so um 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 they'd everyone would leave their bags out. With their glove and their keys, their keys. So me and my friends would go.

• 40:07Speaker 05

  And take the keys and take the cars while everybody's car was missing except my dad's.

• 40:13Shawn Ryan?

  I thought you were gonna say you stole your dad's fucking car.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  I did, well.

• 40:18Shawn Ryan?

  Or one of your friends did.

• 40:19Speaker 05

  No, uh, we used to, I, 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 and that's how I got caught. That's how ultimately I got caught. And I I had to return all the cars. Which I did.

• 40:40Shawn Ryan?

  How many? How like how long were you doing this?

• 40:43Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 40:44Shawn Ryan?

  Years, months?

• 40:45Speaker 05

  No, that's just months. Months. And then that that time at the YMCA when I got caught. Um. I think I think we took two cars and then the rest we just stole the stereo systems and did all that.

• 41:00Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 41:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I was very lucky they didn't press charges on me.

• 41:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 41:07Shawn Ryan?

  So who were you selling the cars to?

• 41:09Speaker 05

  You just take it to a warehouse and what is and they strip it down.

• 41:12Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, so you would drive them into Mexico?

• 41:13Speaker 05

  Drive them in and then you take a bus back home or or the cab or whatever.

• 41:19Shawn Ryan?

  How many cars would you bring at once?

• 41:21Speaker 05

  I could only bring one at a time because I was driving them.

• 41:24Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I guess I meant like with your.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  During the day, I've been like. Uh, two or three.

• 41:29Shawn Ryan?

  Two or three at a time.

• 41:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, and like I said, it was easier back then to cross over and do stuff like that, but. I I did, you know, but like I said, if 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.

• 41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 05

  You know.

• 41:49Shawn Ryan?

  What about the drugs? How did you get roped into? The drugs?

• 41:53Speaker 05

  Found out 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 I, 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.

• 42:13Shawn Ryan?

  Are you willing to go into like a descriptive? So walk us through it. You go to Mexico.

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you're gonna pick up a load of coke or marijuana?

• 42:23Speaker 05

  They wouldn't even tell me. They'll just take this, take this from point A to point B.

• 42:27Shawn Ryan?

  Who's they?

• 42:28Speaker 05

  The people, I don't, this is the people I was dealing with over there. I was a kid, they always got young kids to do this shit because it's like they're more impressionable, they need the money, whatever. And then, um, I would just take, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have to go far. I would just go to Albuquerque or.

• 42:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  Phoenix or, you know, I never really went that far and then take a city bus back or a bus back home.

• 42:49Shawn Ryan?

  Who would pay it?

• 42:51Speaker 05

  They would.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  They were always short.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  I was like, this is not what I was promised, but you know, it was, 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.

• 43:05Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 43:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, because then where I grew up, that's to me was. But we did, me and my buddies, you know, I mean, and all my friends also were like.

• 43:17Speaker 05

  They were, I I honestly think they were crazier than I was. Way crazier than I was. All my friends were way crazier than I was. I I feel like I was like, you know, I would step over the line, but I would come back.

• 43:30Speaker 05

  You know, I I didn't really, um.

• 43:34Speaker 05

  You grow up uh 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. Um, it was crazy over there, man, like, but that became normal, that was just like you get desensitized to it. You'd hear of a club getting shot up, you'd go still go back to that club the next weekend and party. I don't know how I got away with all that, what is as as I got older. Got a lot more dangerous throughout the years. And now I 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.

• 44:14Shawn Ryan?

  What about the steroids? So what would you do, just go?

• 44:19Speaker 05

  To the pharmacies, yeah, um, I had a friend that, uh. Well, we went and we would go buy, most of the time we bought him, right? But there was one time where he he went. And he, uh. Uh, robbed the place. And strap duct tape the person onto a chair and uh the farmer, the pharmacist or whatever. And took about like twenty thousand dollars worth of shit and put it in a box. And uh 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 a bar, he went and robbed the place, came back. Said, hey, man, let's go back over. I was like, all right, I 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.

• 45:03Speaker 05

  And then probably fifty thousand dollar range, I would guess. I don't know, I'm just guessing. Uh, and all he did was throw a rag on top of the bu- and on top of the cardboard box, it was out in plain sight in the back, in the back of the pickup. With a rag on top of it and a starter on it, like a from the truck, a starter on it. Um, and I'm like, what's in the box? And as we're driving over the bridge, oh, I just, he told me what he did. Robbed the pharmacy and and I was like, you're kidding me. And you have it just right there in the back of the pickup? Like this and plain sight, he goes, yeah, bro, it's all it's obvious, they won't check it. Cause 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.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  Uh, couldn't get out of the car, cause then it'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.

• 45:59Speaker 05

  It was like, uh. 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 them, I was just. Uh, but I was with them, right, so. Uh, there's been a lot of close calls that really diverted my path from going down a life of. Of that, of crime and and 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?

• 46:30Speaker 05

  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 I was, my conscience was starting to kick in like. I I think I was about seventeen at that time, seventeen, eighteen, 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 to protect.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was like, man, I got a promise, I could have a promising life here, and so. I saw where all those guys were going, and I was like, I just, I just don't wanna, I started distancing myself from those guys at about seventeen years old. So I I wa- 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 li- 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 about five thousand dollars worth of steroids. And I was in my dad's car. And. It was a black Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows, looked like a mafia car.

• 47:34Speaker 05

  And and and the first thing that happens when we go to the, this is how this went down. I parked the the Lincoln Town Car in front of the pharmacy, we go in and buy all the steroids, we come out. Um, 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 tow car seat, the backseat 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 wanna drive or should I drive? Well, I'll drive. Alright, 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. I was like.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  Hold on, I jumped back in the backseat as we're driving over the bridge. I pull up in the backseat and I grab all the stuff out of there. And I'm like, dude, I'm gonna 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 we 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.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  So we're like outfitted now with juice all in our in our in our in our pants, right, 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 into the American side and the guy goes. Uh, whose car is this? And I go, it's mine. My friend's driving. 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 at it. I go, oh, man, someone just ripped it off. He goes, yeah, I 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, uh, we dropped our friends off at the airport. Where are your friends going? Uh, Mazatlan.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Uh, okay, and we're trying to back this cool as cucumbers, right? And they're like, well, okay, so, um. You guys smell like alcohol, were you guys drinking too? And like, oh yeah, we stopped at the bar, got some. Got a little lit, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then, um, we're just sitting there like sweating. Both of us look pale, but we're still acting like, oh, no big deal. And I, 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, the dog, the sniffing dog? And I was like, I was like, I don't think they can smell steroids, but I don't know. And we're looking, 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 backseat, they opened that up where I had him in the first place.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  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 gonna search us. They go, okay, step out, uh, we were already out of the goal, to step over to the side, so we step over to the side, there's a, a metal. Like a, uh. Desk or something right there and they go empty out your pockets. So we emptied out our pockets and I emptied out my pockets. And he empties out his pockets and I see the first thing that lands on, on the desk is a pharmacy card with the pharmacist's number on it. And I remember going, oh my god, and I'm just staring at it, I'm looking at the customs guy and I'm like, oh. Soon as he looked away, boom, grabbed it, put it in my pocket.

• 51:12Speaker 05

  And he goes, alright, uh. And he's looking through our stuff, then he goes, I'm gonna pat you guys down.

• 51:18Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 51:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I was like, and I looked at my friend and I go, fuck, 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, I couldn't believe it, it both worked, it worked for both of us, he patted him down and did the same thing. And the guy was like. Okay, um, you guys can go. And we're like, alright, thank you, ah, 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.

• 52:01Speaker 05

  So fucking scared, like 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, I was so, I was like, what am I gonna tell my parents? How long am I gonna go to jail for?

• 52:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  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, cause I was like. I, this, this, I'm too old for this shit. I was like seventeen, eighteen, I'm like, I can't keep doing this. This is fucking 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.

• 52:54Shawn Ryan?

  You keep in touch with any of those guys?

• 52:57Speaker 05

  Man, I haven't talked to him in like four years. You know, we, we touch base every now and then, how's it going? You know, how's, how are you doing? But I don't know what he's doing. Um, I don't know, a lot of them are doing, a lot of them are in jail, some are dead. You know, catch it up to you.

• 53:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 05

  Uh, you know.

• 53:16Speaker 05

  It's, it's, uh.

• 53:19Speaker 05

  As you say, it was a wild ride, man. It was a wild ride.

• 53:22Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like it.

• 53:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:26Shawn Ryan?

  So how do you think boxing saved you? That was kind of your fallback plan or?

• 53:31Speaker 05

  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 thirteen years old. And I was thirteen years old, cracking dudes that played football for UTEP. I would come and do like a summer training camp. And my trainer would go, hey, Mijo, come here. And he glowed me up because he'll knock this fucker out. I'm okay. And then, bing, bing, bing, bing, crack them these out. And I 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, you know, how big you are physically. It's about, it's like golfing.

• 54:17Speaker 05

  How 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, uh, I just blossomed in the boxing.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  Just took off. And when I started knocking out people like thirteen, fourteen years old, fifteen years old, sixteen, seventeen.

• 54:40Speaker 05

  When I started knocking them out, it was like an orgasm to me. It was like a fix. It was like I was getting, 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, well, that was my drug of choice was. Whenever I, it's almost like hitting a home run, like cracky, just that perfect.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  When you land that shot and they're just out, it's just the most addicting feeling.

• 55:11Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know when you, I mean, when you connect?

• 55:14Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 05

  You just see their whole body fold and it's just, you just feel it. It's the timings right, the precision's right. It's an amazing feeling. And I became, I was in, I was addicted to it.

• 55:29Shawn Ryan?

  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?

• 55:35Speaker 05

  In the beginning.

• 55:36Shawn Ryan?

  Did you hate your opponents?

• 55:39Speaker 05

  In the beginning, in the beginning, um. And then it, uh, it, the hate, the hatred and anger and frustration turned into the love for the sport. And I really, I really did fall in love with boxing. And then, um, but, but that lasted.

• 55:57Speaker 05

  Ten years and then and then I started falling out of box, out of love with boxing and. 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 uh, I wanted to just drink and party and and be with women and do drugs.

• 56:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we'll get to that.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:22Shawn Ryan?

  We'll get to that. But what age were you? When you became, when you started fighting on the pro circuit?

• 56:29Speaker 05

  Turned pro at twenty, going on twenty one.

• 56:32Shawn Ryan?

  And then you were a pro for how long?

• 56:34Speaker 05

  Phew, fifteen years.

• 56:37Shawn Ryan?

  Fifteen years?

• 56:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:39Shawn Ryan?

  All the way to thirty five?

• 56:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's when I, and that's when I started going downhill. Cause I was a very explosive fighter and I was a big guy. So being, I had a Mike Tyson style. At a six five 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. You know, because um, especially being a big guy, I would have had a longer career if I would have sat back on my jab. And throw my right hand more and and and and move pivoted, you know, box 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.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  And that's why I had that style and it only lasts so long, you know, it's it's a, 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 going diminishing a little bit, you're you're. A step or two slower, you start getting hit a little bit more.

• 57:43Speaker 05

  It's only a matter of time before you get knocked out. That's what happened to me.

• 57:47Shawn Ryan?

  When you talk about inner demons.

• 57:53Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of the people on this show deal with inner demons, you know, to include uh myself. I kinda describe it as more of like a feeling than an actual than actual thoughts. But how would you describe it and where did it come from?

• 58:10Speaker 05

  My demons?

• 58:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:13Speaker 05

  You know, I've I've thought about seeing a hypnotist about this. I don't know. I um I think they had to have come from childhood.

• 58:22Speaker 05

  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 everything, including rob you from everything, including your soul. Uh if you let them. So with me, I have a lot of demons and I still do to this very day. Uh I just named them. I don't, I don't. 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 gonna do me any good. I'll just find a way to escape drinking, whatever. So now I just I acknowledge them. And I I just listen to God, I move forward to God. And the first step for me for beating my demons was to quit drinking. And that's really.

• 59:07Speaker 05

  Uh it gave me the tools to better combat them. Not not so they don't go away. People need to understand that they don't go away. It's just you have better tools to to uh to combat them and deal with them. That's it. Life doesn't get easier because you're sober. Uh it's just better tools. In order to face down their demons.

• 59:32Shawn Ryan?

  Were they like specific thoughts of specific instances or was it more like?

• 59:37Speaker 05

  Um yeah, yeah, I mean.

• 59:42Speaker 05

  I mean, um.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  I think they all go back to childhood at some point um.

• 59:54Speaker 05

  I'd like to find out more, to be honest with you, I'd like to go see hypnotists and see what fuck really happened in my life. But.

• 1:00:04Speaker 05

  I just don't uh. I 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.

• 1:00:28Speaker 05

  I can't pinpoint it to a time or anything like that, I just, it's just weird, I like. My teenage years, I was really fucking depressed, like fucking bipolar severely depressed.

• 1:00:43Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know how you were gonna take your life, did you have it all planned out?

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I was always gonna do a gunshot to the head.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  But the only thing that took me away from that was boxing, but it took something in 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 that 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.

• 1:01:32Shawn Ryan?

  Have you sought any treatment?

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I saw a psychiatrist, I saw a psychiatrist for a long time that was talking to me and um. He became a good friend and uh, he would walk me onto the ring, believe it or not.

• 1:01:45Shawn Ryan?

  No shit, so you started seeing him a long time ago?

• 1:01:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, I saw, I started seeing him at thirteen. I gotta say, he probably saved my life. You know. Him with a combination with boxing. Uh, I haven't talked to him in the last two years, uh. I think we have some differences with the whole. Vaccination thing and and he's a doctor, so he sees it completely different than I do.

• 1:02:08Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  And I and it's weird, it's like we haven't talked just because of that that issue, that dividing issue.

• 1:02:14Shawn Ryan?

  That sucks, man. That sucks.

• 1:02:16Speaker 05

  It's really strange.

• 1:02:18Shawn Ryan?

  Um. Have you ever looked into like? Some of the psychedelic? Treatment type stuff?

• 1:02:24Speaker 05

  I did it all.

• 1:02:25Shawn Ryan?

  Did you do it?

• 1:02:25Speaker 05

  I've done DMT, I've done shrooms, I've done it all.

• 1:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  Have you done it like through a uh?

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  A shaman, I don't know.

• 1:02:33Shawn Ryan?

  You did deal with a shaman?

• 1:02:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Shawn Ryan?

  Did that help you at all?

• 1:02:36Speaker 05

  It it let me know there's a lot more out there that I do not know.

• 1:02:39Shawn Ryan?

  Where was that?

• 1:02:41Speaker 05

  I've done it in different places, the first time I did ayahuasca, uh, I was in. To the consequences, New Mexico. Strangest place to do that. And, uh, I did that with a 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 uh 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.

• 1:03:14Shawn Ryan?

  What do you mean by that?

• 1:03:15Speaker 05

  I just started going down this wormhole, like it just like zoomed, 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. Uh, sacred geometry just being thrown at me, I saw the mark of a, I saw. Um, the the the uh, 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 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.

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  I can't even describe the colors.

• 1:04:01Shawn Ryan?

  I'm really interested in this because I'm I'm getting ready to do this treatment.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  I I, you know, I don't know if it cures anything, but I know what it does, what it does, it did do for me was it, um.

• 1:04:14Speaker 05

  Made me realize there's a hell of a lot more to this reality than we even know.

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  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 kinda see this, this, you get this. You see the cosmic math of the universe. And that's what blew my mind was that uh whatever this is, the pineal gland opening up, whatever the third eye. There's something to this, it happened and and I know it wasn't me, uh, uh, um.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  Uh, having delusions or or or anything, it was, I, it was real. I saw it. I I didn't see 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 was in Colorado. No shit. With a shaman up there, yeah, 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 Gerena, Gerema. 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. Same type of. Uh, the ayahuasca lasts longer and you get sick.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  Cause you're purging and then you go into your, but this is is a quick little ten minute rocket ship, boom. Lasts about ten minutes and then you're back. Do you have a preference? Well, I like the smoking it. I don't like to get sick and do all that, you know what I mean? Do you, do you feel like that helped you at all or? A lot of guys say. Uh, I think the only thing that helps, the only thing that helps me now, honestly, Sean, is my belief in God. That's it. I mean, you can do all the drugs you want, you can do whatever, but the the bottom line is, is do you have a relationship with God? And I do. As much as I can, I can, I can work on that, but uh, my whole thing now is, uh.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  I have no desire to go do D M T 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 the, 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 i- is a. 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, is seek God, listen.

• 1:06:44Speaker 05

  And then obey that that's just the way I'm trying to live my life now. I don't wanna all the crazy shit aside, that's done. It's done. Now I'm just trying to build a personal relationship with with God and Jesus Christ, you know, that's it.

• 1:06:56Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 1:06:59Shawn Ryan?

  Back to boxing.

• 1:07:02Shawn Ryan?

  There went down our own little rabbit hole there.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:05Shawn Ryan?

  But um.

• 1:07:08Shawn Ryan?

  So you excelled.

• 1:07:11Shawn Ryan?

  You became a phenomenal boxer and it went from five to what thirty five years old ish?

• 1:07:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, uh, the last five years for me was. Was hell. I hated it. I was actually looking for a way out. And uh. I think my higher self or whatever you wanna call it, found a way out. And I told you in two thousand eleven, I overdose on drugs, flatlined. They brought me back with a defibrillator.

• 1:07:42Shawn Ryan?

  What drugs?

• 1:07:43Speaker 05

  Everything.

• 1:07:44Shawn Ryan?

  Everything.

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  I, okay, let's put it this way. I just knocked out uh, my uh. Matt Hicks. And my friends in Dallas were throwing me a party at one of the clubs out there. Right after the fight, I'm, 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 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 air airport, they almost didn't let me board the plane because I was so drunk. Get on the plane, they wouldn't serve me because they're like, you've already been drinking. I reeked from high heaven like a liquor cabinet.

• 1:08:28Speaker 05

  Get to Dallas, my friends picking me up. What did they pick 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 my, I, I think I broke my hand or something. My, my hand was fractured. So like, man, it's swelling up on me. So I took a handful of pain pills, a ha- a handful of pain pills and took those. Then I went with them and took an Adderall and and drank, kept, just kept drinking Grey Goose. Grey Goose and grape juice, that's what it was. Went to the party that night, wasted already, could 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 uh.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  I hardly remember anything of that night. I just remember somebody coming up to me with a flask. And I he's and I remember him specifically saying he was a bald bodybuilder guy. He's like, just take a cap full of this. It was GHB. Well, I didn't know what he was saying. And I just said, yeah, whatever. Grab the whole flask. I drink it all. And once I drank that, it was over. What is GHB? It's like the date rape drug. It's like a it's it's powerful stuff, man. And 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 is every now from that point on was.

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  Eyewitness accounts that were like, you know, third party, second party people that were telling me what happened to me. Cause I I was unconscious. I dropped out of the club. Uh, and this lady, this girl, her. Her name is Michelle. That was a an uh. Had a nursing degree or something. Started telling my friends, your friend's 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 to and then. She even said a doctor came up to me. He was a chiropractor. The doctor came up and said, I 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.

• 1:10:41Speaker 05

  Bouncers came in and said, shit, we can't. This is all what they told me. They said, oh, 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. I just remember 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. She goes, if he dies, I'm blaming you guys. So a 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.

• 1:11:13Speaker 05

  Pull into the hospital, they pull me, I guess they called the hospital, I don't know how this worked, but they pulled me out of the 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 that 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 doctor standing over me. And a blue light going off in the background, I do remember the way that 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. Cause it was just days after the fight, so I'm like, oh shit, 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.

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  What are you talking about, you got knocked out, you you overdose this and that, then I remember I had to vomit in a trash can or something. And then um. 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 goes, right, he goes, okay. And then I go, what happened, he goes, we we we lost you, because we we you were almost gone kid. And I go, fuck man, why didn't you let me go? And then that's when he said, what? I go, fuck, why didn't you let me go, that's when I knew I really had a fucking problem. Because then he says, okay. And he called in suicide watch. So now I have. I don't know who these people were, the lady, a nice lady, a nice black lady, reading a bible.

• 1:12:42Speaker 05

  And every now she would read a verse out loud to me. And I'd be like, shut up, shut up, like I was like demon possessed or something. You know, and she's like, she's all, mm mm, she's like, you're gonna hear this, and then she keep reading more verses to me, I'm like, fuck. I couldn't get rid of her, and she was there, you know, they'd had they'd have shifts, because I was honestly, 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 two thousand eleven. Then I go back and I win the heavyweight championship of Mexico against Owen Beck, I knock out Owen Beck. Then I knocked out uh Byron Paulie for the NABU heavyweight championship.

• 1:13:26Speaker 05

  So I won two belts coming back after that eh that that debacle, whatever happened to me in February. Win 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 the club and get my neck slit open with a knife. All that. Holy shit. And that's the same year.

• 1:13:54Speaker 05

  So when you ask me, uh you know, I was looking for a way out, you know? And um when that happened, that's when, when I was in the hospital, I took three hundred and sixty-nine stitches. Inside of a a 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.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  And uh. That's when I knew, man, I'm gonna die. Uh there's no way I can keep going at this speed. Do you know who cut your face? No, they never were caught.

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  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, I'm uh you know what I mean, I'm a fighter. I you know, I can't say, you know, I don't blame them, I blame me. The lifestyle you had. I'm I'm not a victim. This was all self-induced, this was all, 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.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  So that's how I handled it and that's that's exactly why how I'm getting over shit. Because.

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  Uh. 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.

• 1:15:35Shawn Ryan?

  I wish more people. In this country had that.

• 1:15:39Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  Mindset.

• 1:15:40Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:15:41Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 1:15:41Speaker 05

  That's a whole nother fucking show.

• 1:15:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's that's topic for your show.

• 1:15:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Leave that one to me.

• 1:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit, man.

• 1:15:57Shawn Ryan?

  So where were you when you got cut?

• 1:15:59Speaker 05

  Phoenix.

• 1:16:00Shawn Ryan?

  Phoenix, Arizona? Yeah. How long were you in the hospital after that?

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  You know, surprisingly, I was, it was only like a day and a half, two days, and I checked myself out and you're not gonna believe what I did.

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  It was uh right after Christmas. And I had New Year's plans. To party in LA. My friends came in with a six pack and some Playboys and they're like, oh man, you're gonna be in the hospital for, or I guess our trip's done, we're not gonna 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 three hundred sixty nine in my face, three hundred sixty nine 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, uh my half my face gauzed up and I still had to party.

• 1:16:50Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 1:16:51Speaker 05

  Now you're telling me I didn't have a problem? It's a fucking problem.

• 1:16:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 05

  And all I cared about at that time was getting back in the ring, that's it, I was like, wh- I asked 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. Cause I don't, he was, 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, no. And at that time, I had a bad breakup with my team that got me there. That got me to thirty six and oh, thirty seven and oh, and I was going through a lawsuit. They were suing me.

• 1:17:33Speaker 05

  And there was all kinds of shit happening and and I was just I I wanted to kill myself man like I I just did not want to live anymore. Everything was just falling apart, everything.

• 1:17:44Shawn Ryan?

  This was pretty much the end of your boxing career right here.

• 1:17:47Speaker 05

  This was at the tail end of it.

• 1:17:49Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:17:51Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, we'll we'll get into the the end of your boxing career.

• 1:17:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:18:11Shawn Ryan?

  So we're approaching the end of your boxing career. Just got stabbed in the neck or in the face.

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  Neck.

• 1:18:19Shawn Ryan?

  And um which kind of led to the end of your boxing career, so let's just continue going down the same path here.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  Alright, so the only thing that was important for me at that time was when can I get back in the ring? The W B C gave me a medical leave where they kept my top fifteen 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 how many months I took off, I think it was somewhere between four to six months. Uh just partied, just drank, drank myself into a slumber, more drinking, more drinking, you know? Uh just a horrible existence, man, not knowing if I really wanted to box again, but I knew I had to because I'm already in the top fifteen. You know, so it's like I I can't let that go, I'm already there, they put me on medical leave.

• 1:19:10Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think you were just boxing at that point just to keep an image?

• 1:19:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:19:14Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't even give a shit about?

• 1:19:16Speaker 05

  Didn't fucking care anymore, dude.

• 1:19:17Shawn Ryan?

  It was just all?

• 1:19:18Speaker 05

  No, I 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 that ambition to train anymore, run those miles. Uh 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 heavyweight 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 that I I've.

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  That that alone not accomplishing that would have been devastating and probably would have killed myself. Cause 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, uh, 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. And then I told her, hey, Joan, um, I already broke up with my last team. I'm I'm not gonna, I wanna go back into boxing and go win the heavyweight champion of the world. She's like.

• 1:20:45Speaker 05

  She goes, we could do other things, you know, I don't think your heart's in boxing anymore. And I was like, no, no, no. She goes, let's try to do, let's try to do something else, you know, like acting or something like that. I was like, ah. I was like, let me box. I wanna go back. I can do this.

• 1:20:59Speaker 05

  Um, so I signed with main events. My remember now my old team's gone and that longing for my old team was eating me, eating me alive. Cause that's who, that's who I wanted to, if I was gonna go for the heavyweight champion of the world, I wanted to be with my old team. That was all our dreams. That was all, all our dream. So not having them in my corner anymore fucked my head up bad. So I signed with this new, 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 A- Atlantic City. Uh, in Atlantic City and.

• 1:21:39Speaker 05

  When I signed for the fight, I was supposed to be fighting a guy that was six, eight, six, nine. 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.

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  Fly to Atlantic City, get ready to fight, they replaced my opponent. And they asked me, do you still wanna fight? And I was like, wait a second, what happened, what, oh, he pulled out. We got to a different fighter, but this guy was five nine. Five nine? Compared to the guy I was preparing for, which was six eight. So now I'm fighting a guy that's five nine, five ten, Darnell Wilson. And I looked at his record and I goes, ah, 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, let's take some time. Let's, uh, let's, uh, you know, we'll just get you some sparring against a guy like this, he's, he's a tough guy, he's tough, he comes to fight.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  And I was like, ah, how many rounds is it? Oh, six? Fuck it, I'm just gonna go for it, I can go six rounds, if it goes a distance, it goes a distance.

• 1:22:54Speaker 05

  Sign the fight, go, so I'm in Atlantic City and getting ready, and now I know I'm fighting Darnell Wilson, this was just days before.

• 1:23:04Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:23:18Speaker 05

  So, I don't sleep, I never slept before fights, by the way. Two, three days out, I'm, I'm a fucking bundle of nerves, I don't sleep. I always walk into the ring seeing tracers and shit, like I was always just sleep deprived. Get to Atlantic City, oh, I'm in Atlantic City, get to the fight, get to the arena. It's on, uh, NBC, Y 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.

• 1:23:50Speaker 05

  Get into the, 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 wasn't, 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, I didn't even jab, nothing. I was just, it was from go, from bell run, bell one to the end of the fight, it was an all out slugfest.

• 1:24:28Speaker 05

  So we're just throwing blows, bam, boom, boom, bam, boom, boom, and the fucking crowds going, little bit of crowd that was there was going, was going crazy, it was kind of an anti-arena, it was kind of weird. And uh, but it was on TV. And um, 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 side, my eye, my eye dropped down, I 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, 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 gonna see again. Fighting this guy, and I'm barely winning this fight, and then the ten second sound of the last round where they go.

• 1:25:10Speaker 05

  That sounds like the ten second, like you got ten seconds left, all of a sudden, caught me. I got dropped, knocked the fuck out.

• 1:25:18Shawn Ryan?

  With ten seconds left.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I would have won the fight, all the judges had me ahead.

• 1:25:23Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:25:35Speaker 05

  Surfaces, right then and there, and were standing around me.

• 1:25:40Speaker 05

  And it was like, I 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.

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  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, I was, it was like I was underwater. I was knocked unconscious, right? I'd never been knocked out, I'd never been knocked out in my boxing career. And then all of a sudden it happened. Well.

• 1:26:16Speaker 05

  That was, that was like a hard pill to swallow, cause I was thirty-six and oh, now I'm thirty-six and one, and I have suffered a devastating knockout. I didn't know how I was gonna pull myself out of that, I only knew I was, boxing standards, I was old, thirty-five years old, I was old.

• 1:26:33Speaker 05

  But I still felt like I'm still gonna be heavyweight champion, I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna do this.

• 1:26:39Speaker 05

  So I left main events, I blamed it on them, I was like, ah, 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.

• 1:26:50Speaker 05

  And um, I take a fight with uh. Uh, who was it? Ochin, from Africa. Another, another bum, that I considered a bum fighter. Signed him, we've, I was in a dude in my hometown of El Paso. How, how long after your first loss? A few months, oh, about seven months later, eight months later, I think it was. Were you training hard, did that humble you enough to? 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.

• 1:27:30Speaker 05

  Three week, 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 twenties.

• 1:27:40Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:27:44Speaker 05

  That fight comes around.

• 1:27:47Speaker 05

  Bell rings, he knocks me out, like first fucking few punches he throws. No shit. I dropped to the canvas and the fucking ref, they, 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. But my life is now in shambles, like this is it, this is fucking over.

• 1:28:11Speaker 05

  And uh. You realize that like, instantaneously? Instantaneously, it's over.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  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 I'm now I'm behind eight ball, I gotta win, I gotta win.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  I signed a fight, a guy named uh Dominguez and uh he had a good record twenty five and three or something like that. And at that point, I didn't even know if I was gonna win. I was like. Thirty six and two. I think I can knock this guy out. I'm gonna go in there and I got. Laser focused for that fight. I put away drinking for like a month. Just a month. Trained hard. Bell rings, this is Salt Lake City, went out there, boom, knocked the guy out fast. Guys out. My first thirty 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.

• 1:29:22Speaker 05

  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. I just, 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, ah. I walked down the stairs, walked into the dressing room, pulled my shorts off. I laid on the floor and I was screaming. My, I, I threw out my back. Throw out my back. Uh, L four, L five, S one, needed an emergency surgery. Got the fusion.

• 1:30:05Speaker 05

  Was never the same after that. That was it. That's what ended my career.

• 1:30:10Speaker 05

  But I look at it now. As a blessing, because if I would have kept boxing. Who knows what would have happened to me? Yeah. 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.

• 1:30:33Speaker 05

  And then. Following that came years of depression. Years of severe depression. Not knowing where my life was gonna 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, what, what age were you, thirty six? About thirty six, yeah. And.

• 1:30:54Speaker 05

  It was um.

• 1:30:59Speaker 05

  I, the best way I could explain it, man. Is I was like, uh.

• 1:31:08Speaker 05

  Left out in the middle of the sea, in the middle of the night with no compass and no paddles. I didn't know where my life was gonna go. I had no direction, I had no, all I knew was to drink.

• 1:31:22Speaker 05

  So I accepted that I was a loser, that I that I was never gonna bounce back. And I expect, I accepted my demise. And I was like, well, if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go out and die, I'm gonna die on my terms. I'm gonna do as much drugs as I want and as much alcohol as I want. And it was like a sorry pity feeling like. I I ruined my destiny, my destiny was to be everywhere in the world and I blew it, I fucking blew it. Now, I'm gonna go out with a bang, fuck it. I'm gonna fuck as many girls as I want, I'm gonna do as many drugs as I wanna do. I'm gonna drink as much as I want and that's it, I'm going out with a bang.

• 1:31:59Speaker 05

  And that's what I did for.

• 1:32:06Speaker 05

  Five years after that, about five years of just. Been 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 uh. Getting two DUIs. Public intoxication, I just started getting arrested all the time. Like it was always getting arrested, 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.

• 1:32:43Speaker 05

  I had to fix inside of me. I didn't understand that. I thought it was everybody else. Ah, 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.

• 1:33:10Shawn Ryan?

  Did you bits over two years and two months now?

• 1:33:13Speaker 05

  Two years and two months, coming up in two months, two years and two months. And my life is nothing short of a miracle.

• 1:33:22Shawn Ryan?

  What was the final, what was the final? Straw that you were like, alright, fuck it, I'm done.

• 1:33:29Speaker 05

  Kick getting kicked out of my niece's house for Thanksgiving, cause I was the drunk uncle.

• 1:33:34Shawn Ryan?

  Oh damn.

• 1:33:35Speaker 05

  I showed up to her house, they first of all, they had to go pull me out of a bar, I forgot about Thanksgiving. And this is in twenty nineteen.

• 1:33:44Speaker 05

  They take me to her, her, her husband, my brother in law comes, picks, finds me in the bar, says, come on man, let's go to Thanksgiving, come on. And I'm like, uh, I'm not going, uh, you know, typical drunk shit. This is when I knew I was, one of the times I knew this is 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 like this.

• 1:34:13Shawn Ryan?

  Your niece? How old is your niece?

• 1:34:16Speaker 05

  My niece is, she's forty 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, I'm not letting him in. And that's when I was like, oh, I remember I felt this like horrible feeling, and I felt like 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. But during this time, Sean, during this whole time, I'm feeling this nudge. Like someone poking me, and I, I believe it was God. Stop, stop, stop, I have something better for you, stop.

• 1:34:57Speaker 05

  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, but I don't wanna stop drinking, this is it for me. I, I don't wanna stop. I don't know anything else, it's scary, I didn't know what I was gonna do.

• 1:35:19Speaker 05

  One day I'm in the bar, um. Day after Christmas, 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 gonna be that guy? I am that guy, I'm the fucking washed up boxer drunk at the bar.

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  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, 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? So I'm going to the bathroom, I'll be right back, they go, okay. Walked out the door, I've never been back. And I, um. It changed my life, dude. Changed my life.

• 1:36:42Speaker 05

  Shortly after that, okay, three months into being sober, my dad gets put in the hospital. He needs a heart valve transplant. He's eighty, at that time, he was eighty-five. My whole world was crumbling and I could have, I could have went back to drinking at that time, I stayed strong. I prayed the rosary, dude, I, I literally prayed the rosary every day. I was so fucking scared, I was gonna 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 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.

• 1:37:28Speaker 05

  Where they're just deciding, is he gonna have the surgery or is he, is he a candidate for this surgery? Or is he not a candidate for the surgery? We didn't know. I didn't know if I was gonna lose my, I didn't know if they were gonna tell my dad, sorry, you're too old, we can't risk it, we're not gonna lose you during surgery. And he wasn't gonna get the surgery and just be left to die? Or if he was gonna get the surgery and potentially die on the, on the operating bed? I thought I was gonna lose my dad. I fucking believed I was gonna lose my dad.

• 1:37:56Speaker 05

  And um. 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 and I knew already.

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  And um, he uh.

• 1:38:21Speaker 05

  I stayed to my guns. I did not drink. He got the surgery.

• 1:38:27Speaker 05

  And he made it through, dude. And I was like, thank you, God. Thank you, God. Now I know I'm never gonna drink, you know what I mean? And I just stayed stronger and then it just made me stronger. And um. If I would have folded, I think it would have been there. You know, there's more, there's more battles ahead of me. I know that. You know, my parents are getting older. I know that anything can happen, but I'm just saying like. I I I won that little battle and it was a little victory. And then I said, I'm gonna stay with this. Well, three months turned into six months. Six months turned into a year. Then the viral video hits. Next thing you know, I'm I'm blowing up on social media. And I'm wondering what the hell is happening to my life. It's all happening fast.

• 1:39:12Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:39:31Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:39:44Speaker 05

  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 gonna 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.

• 1:40:05Shawn Ryan?

  We're doing a hell of a job, that's for damn sure.

• 1:40:11Shawn Ryan?

  How many years was it from your last fight to sobriety?

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  Seven.

• 1:40:22Shawn Ryan?

  Seven years?

• 1:40:23Speaker 05

  Seven years.

• 1:40:24Shawn Ryan?

  So you went through.

• 1:40:29Speaker 05

  I went sober and what I was forty two years old.

• 1:40:32Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, how many uh, I mean, what the hell were you doing for money?

• 1:40:36Speaker 05

  Um, taking it from my parents, living off the little bit I had from my mom, uh, from my boxing career. Um, uh, 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. I was on my way out. And anybody who's watching this.

• 1:41:02Speaker 05

  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. If you're addicted to fucking smack, whatever it is, you can turn your life around. I don't give a shit what you're going through. 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, I fell apart or I failed.

• 1:41:44Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  So you got sober and then things just started, they just started happening.

• 1:41:52Speaker 05

  Blossoming.

• 1:41:53Shawn Ryan?

  You re- I mean.

• 1:41:54Speaker 05

  Well, I first remember my dad was in the hospital, it was bad.

• 1:41:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 05

  It was like a test, are you sure you wanna 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 back drinking.

• 1:42:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16Speaker 05

  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, cuz I'm not strong enough. And, and I told my friends that I don't, I lost a lot of my friends when I went sober.

• 1:42:37Speaker 05

  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 wanna help them, I just don't feel strong enough that I can't help them, to lift them up. Does that make sense? I need to just keep myself at peace, take care of me, cuz 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 that 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.

• 1:43:07Shawn Ryan?

  You're just taking care of you.

• 1:43:08Speaker 05

  It's all I can do. It's all I can do.

• 1:43:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:12Speaker 05

  You know, and I don't have the expectation of boxing on me anymore, that feels amazing. Um, the anxiety of boxing, having to fight, I don't have that on me anymore. I don't have, um.

• 1:43:29Speaker 05

  It's a much simpler life, it's a lot more rewarding, but I'm, I 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.

• 1:43:47Speaker 05

  It's pretty hard. It's a tough, it's a tough life. It's it's not. This is not, this is not for the the week because I'm used to a. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, yo, yo, life. Now this even kill is like I got, I got. Like transported to another planet. And I'm living along among aliens. I don't know how to, I I'm still learning how to cope. To be honest with you, um, it's it's hard. It has its own obstacles.

• 1:44:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. You know, I don't think it ever ends. You know, I think it's a constant battle for for. I mean, you you get those adrenaline dumps and.

• 1:44:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Shawn Ryan?

  The shit that you've seen, you know, the shit that you've been through. It's just always, it's gonna be. From everybody I know and you know. And uh, this is kind of par for the course with my prior career. You know, just, it's just something you. Always are gonna have to keep tabs on and and keep on top of, or it will spiral out of control.

• 1:44:46Speaker 05

  You know, for me, um, all I gotta think about is. Sitting in, I 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.

• 1:45:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:03Speaker 05

  And you know, you don't know if you're just gonna 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 can happen. I just didn't wanna put myself in that anywhere near that possibility ever again. So, I just. That's it.

• 1:45:24Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take for you?

• 1:45:28Shawn Ryan?

  To kind of reinvent yourself, you know, to to where, cause that's tough. I mean, you were boxing from.

• 1:45:34Speaker 05

  I'm still, yeah, I'm still doing it.

• 1:45:37Shawn Ryan?

  You know?

• 1:45:38Speaker 05

  Dude, I I am still figuring 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.

• 1:45:50Speaker 05

  Wanna go to that bar and just fucking have one shot, one shot, just one.

• 1:45:55Speaker 05

  God, that feels so good. Oh, well, an old fashioned. I used to love old fashioned. I 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.

• 1:46:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:03Speaker 05

  Cause it's stressful right now. Like right now, society, everything that's happening, right now in America, it's stressful.

• 1:46:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:11Speaker 05

  And I wanna 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 with my podcasts. And what I'm doing for people that send me gifts in the mail and the P O box and stuff like that. I now feel like I cannot let them down.

• 1:46:36Speaker 05

  Like now I have to, now I have more of a responsibility to deliver my podcast to people that wanna 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. Cause they're keeping me going.

• 1:46:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Speaker 05

  And it's honestly the truth. Cause if I didn't have them and I didn't have all this stuff going on for me, I, I could be back drinking.

• 1:47:08Speaker 05

  No doubt.

• 1:47:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09Speaker 05

  Cause what would I have? This is the only thing that I got going for me.

• 1:47:38Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, we're back from the break. Kinda 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 that?

• 1:48:01Speaker 05

  Really after my boxing career, um. I walked around on high alert during my boxing career, so I was always in that tent that uh. Uh, 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. Uh, severe anxiety, severe, like I had, something's gonna happen any moment. Uh, like, like always on the lookout, especially after I got stabbed. And my neck slid open, I was now I was really at a heightened state, so. Every time I went out anywhere around my, I was always looking at my surroundings, I was always like, I was freaked out, like shell shock.

• 1:48:47Speaker 05

  And um, 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, you know, I, I was like, it feels very lonely, it feels very lonely, cause you see anybody else and. They can, you know, 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, huh, that anxiety that, uh, like that, that uh, nervous tension that. The lightning, I call it lightning in the bones, I feel like my bones had lightning in them, like, like. And drinking was the only thing at that during those years that would take that away. No matter what setting I was in, the more people, the worse.

• 1:49:31Speaker 05

  Like if I went into a setting, like I, I always had to be with my back against the wall. Um, I didn't like to, you know. I, I knew it was a big target anyway, because being a bigger dude and, and, and like. You kind of stand 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, uh, the only way I could handle that anxiety was drinking.

• 1:49:59Speaker 05

  How do you handle it now?

• 1:50:03Speaker 05

  Man, um. I, I, I immerse myself in my podcast. I um, I um, I'm constantly researching all day long. Uh, I, I pray, I just stay away from those uh, situations or um, atmospheres where.

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  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, it just. People start getting toasty, they start drinking more and I'm the only one that's not drinking and I just feel out of place. And then you make other people feel awkward, you know. I noticed 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, why don't you drink, what kind of problem do you have, as if I had the problem. That, listen, we all have problems, you know what I mean, but at least. I have addressed mine. And I'm doing things to fix my life.

• 1:51:03Speaker 05

  So, you know.

• 1:51:07Speaker 05

  I'd just rather not deal with it, so I'd walked away from it.

• 1:51:09Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think all of it was PTSD and and that, or do you think some of it was? When he left boxing, it was. Your identity was stripped from you.

• 1:51:18Speaker 05

  Fuck everything dude. Like I was a baby in the world again. Like I didn't know who the fuck I was. Like this was the, it was 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? I didn't know, I don't know, I'm learning still. You know, I'm learning right now.

• 1:51:40Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have a, did you have a question? Like, here's an example, so I struggle with it a lot, and I still do. And uh, at the beginning, I did, I did, I never had it until I left the SEAL teams. Or until I left CIA, excuse me, and um.

• 1:51:59Shawn Ryan?

  When I left, it was same thing, like I felt like my identity was stripped, plus PTSD, plus TBI, put 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 one that, the question that I just fucking dreaded, cause I didn't have any.

• 1:52:18Speaker 05

  Neither do I.

• 1:52:19Shawn Ryan?

  It was. I go to war. And then I come back and I. Do a bunch of drugs and I party and and.

• 1:52:28Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody can fucking relate to that.

• 1:52:29Speaker 05

  Nobody can.

• 1:52:30Shawn Ryan?

  And uh. So they'd ask, you know. What's your hobby and it's, I don't fucking have any, you know.

• 1:52:38Speaker 05

  And I'll be honest with you, I don't have them either, I um.

• 1:52:43Speaker 05

  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 you take those both away from me. I'm literally learning life all over again. And and I'm not asking for anyone to like.

• 1:53:06Speaker 05

  Have sympathy or empathy for me or anything like that, it's just, it's just what it is, man, I'm 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 or walk again, cause this is really what it feels like, my whole identity was boxing. 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.

• 1:53:43Speaker 05

  Has it gotten any better?

• 1:53:46Speaker 05

  For you? Uh, 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 um, the fun, the, you know, I romanticized my past life.

• 1:54:05Speaker 05

  That's always gonna be there, man, I don't know if that's ever gonna 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. Uh, worshipped in the arena, signing autographs for everybody. Clamored to, to nothing. To crickets. 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.

• 1:54:48Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:55:00Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:55:11Speaker 05

  Like I don't put any uh any emphasis on what I do right now, cause it doesn't feel like anything. You know, cause 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 I'm going in my life is brand new to me. I don't know where to categorize it. I don't really don't. I've told you this off on break. You know.

• 1:55:39Shawn Ryan?

  It's fucking crazy though, right? You know, I mean. You've excelled to the pinnacle, you know what I mean of of of of boxing. And now. You what's, 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 and then they move. I mean, you grew a channel, you grew a channel in one year. And you have how many subs?

• 1:56:17Speaker 05

  Two twenty-two.

• 1:56:18Shawn Ryan?

  Two hundred and twenty-two thousand.

• 1:56:20Speaker 05

  Going on two hundred and twenty-two thousand.

• 1:56:21Shawn Ryan?

  Subs in one year. I mean, that shit doesn't happen, you know what I mean? That's a lot of.

• 1:56:28Shawn Ryan?

  You've got something.

• 1:56:29Speaker 05

  But let's let's think about this, there's a flip side to that, flip side to that. Gotta 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.

• 1:56:43Speaker 05

  Let's just say all my thirties because really all my thirties was black. Because I was already, you know, after thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, now let's say about thirty-three, 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. Then I had to face my demons, so really thirty-three to forty-two. That's like ten years for me, that was hell.

• 1:57:09Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not, uh, I didn't mean, I didn't mean it wasn't hard.

• 1:57:13Speaker 05

  No, no, no, I know what you mean, yeah.

• 1:57:14Shawn Ryan?

  What I meant was, once you found the next thing, you accelerated.

• 1:57:20Speaker 05

  And I wrote a book.

• 1:57:21Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And you wrote a book.

• 1:57:23Speaker 05

  I wrote a book.

• 1:57:24Shawn Ryan?

  Found your new direction.

• 1:57:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:26Shawn Ryan?

  Everything else, I mean, you, you weren't working towards anything. It doesn't sound like.

• 1:57:31Speaker 05

  Uh, the only thing I was working towards is a bar.

• 1:57:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:34Speaker 05

  The next bar. I mean, I just, that's all I cared about. Now, you gotta 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 thirteen years. That messed me up. But she died of alcoholism. It runs in my family. So I knew what path I was going to. I knew where this was leading me. I knew what it was gonna take me.

• 1:57:56Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:57:57Speaker 05

  And so, um.

• 1:58:00Speaker 05

  You know, dealing with that, watching my parents have to bury their kid, look, me handling all the funeral arrangements. Um, and knowing that I'm gonna do that again to my parents. That was also a major mindfuck that I, that I knew I had to get over. I had to, 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 gotta 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. I can't, they, they can't see another kid get buried.

• 1:58:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:35Speaker 05

  You know, and that was another reason I quit because I didn't wanna be that, I didn't want them to lose kid, two kids. Um. You know, to the same thing, alcohol.

• 1:58:47Speaker 05

  So, best thing I ever did in my life was quit.

• 1:58:52Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any advice for anybody that's in it right now?

• 1:58:56Speaker 05

  Gosh, I mean, we all have our own journeys. We're all in our own. We all have our own, 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.

• 1:59:24Speaker 05

  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, whatever, 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 gotta do, and once you do that, your life will flourish. My life is taking off in a different direction now. Are there gonna be hard times again? Yes, there is, and and I can only hope to God. That I don't fall back into that life because you know, I don't know what I'm gonna do if my dad dies. I don't know what I'm gonna do if my mom dies. To me, they're they're everything to me.

• 2:00:07Speaker 05

  If I lose them, it's gonna be like when I got knocked out in boxing. I don't know what's gonna happen. Am I gonna 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. The best I can do. It's still a struggle, man. People think, oh, you stopped drinking, you're but you know. You're awesome, you're winning. Yeah, I'm I'm winning the battles daily.

• 2:00:52Speaker 05

  But the war is still being waged and it's not easy. 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, cuz I, yeah, I could have last 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.

• 2:01:22Speaker 05

  And like I said, it's not that I'm.

• 2:01:26Speaker 05

  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. Cause I'm dealing with my own shit.

• 2:01:36Shawn Ryan?

  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.

• 2:01:48Speaker 05

  I get friends that contact me that are still drinking, you know, and they're like, you know, you're a fucking asshole. Um. You don't call me no more, you know, this and that, and I'm like. Bitch, I don't wanna hear your fucking problems, I have my own.

• 2:02:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Speaker 05

  I don't, I can't, 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. Case is, I'm scared to death to go back, to walk down that path again.

• 2:02:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:18Speaker 05

  That's why I stay away from people and I just keep to myself and I have social anxiety. Cause I don't wanna slip back into that. You know, it's, it's too risky for me. I've already had two DUIs dude, I have one more, I'm going to jail, again.

• 2:02:33Shawn Ryan?

  Do these, do these, uh, we were talking earlier offline about. Losing a lot of friends and, you know, when he left. Boxing. And when he quit drinking, quit partying and, uh, and, um. I can relate to that too, but.

• 2:02:50Shawn Ryan?

  How many friends? Like all of them?

• 2:02:56Speaker 05

  Man, most of them, um. Some tried to fix their life and they just went back to drinking and died. One's in, uh, in 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 on a couple of years, but I, I don't think so, cause they did a sting operation on him. And he's, I think he's gonna be gone away for ten, fifteen years, I don't know.

• 2:03:19Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:03:20Speaker 05

  But I mean, I, I, I have friends that are in jail and I have friends that have died. One of my best friends um died in his sleep. I have other friends that have been shot in Juarez. Uh that old bars down there and they got killed because they were getting extorted. And they got killed and it's just like I just. The common theme in all this shit, no matter how much you think you can control it was alcohol. It's always, it's always involved in someone's life that I know where shit goes wrong. 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, I think it does something to your. Spiritual awareness, man, I really do. I think, I think being sober, it gives you a keener sense.

• 2:04:04Speaker 05

  Of your spirit of a spirit, the, the spiritual component which you have, I believe being sober um. I think having alcohol cloudy, cloudies up the water, it's. It just makes it to your receptors aren't taking in the information you should be in taking in from God. At least that's how I see it right now and that's and, and that's all I can say is. Um, you know.

• 2:04:29Speaker 05

  I'm just much better off without that shit in my life. Love that shit in my life.

• 2:04:35Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean.

• 2:04:38Shawn Ryan?

  You quit drinking, you got tested with your dad in the hospital. How long was he in the hospital?

• 2:04:44Speaker 05

  Oh dude, he must have been in there for about a month and a half. And, and this, and let me mind, and let me tell you, in the hospital, not knowing if he could even be a candidate for the surgery. So we were just waiting, like, is he gonna die? Are they gonna let him die? Or is he gonna, or do we have a fifty fifty chance at his age even having the surgery and dying? I, I mean, I thought I was gonna lose my dad and I listen, I know I'm gonna lose him at some point. He's eighty seven.

• 2:05:11Speaker 05

  But, uh, you know, he's my best friend. My best friend.

• 2:05:19Shawn Ryan?

  It's amazing how fast after you quit drinking, things just took off, you know, and. I see that uh with a lot of people.

• 2:05:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:29Shawn Ryan?

  Like there, cause I don't know how many of these shows you've watched.

• 2:05:35Shawn Ryan?

  And uh 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.

• 2:05:52Shawn Ryan?

  And just about all of them struggled with booze or drugs or both. And uh and and 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 I quit, but things just take off, you know, it's it's. You're, I don't know what it is, you're fresh every day.

• 2:06:14Speaker 05

  You don't have to deal with those hangovers and and trouble, you know, I mean, geez, every time I got a DUI, that was fifteen thousand down the drain.

• 2:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 05

  I was like paying lawyers and like lawyer fees and this and that is complete waste of money, then your bar tab. You know, on top of that, paying bar tabs or you. Bad thing about what was was with me was every every time I went out in Opa-osa, it would be, hey champ, let me get you a shot, I didn't have to pay for anything.

• 2:06:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:39Speaker 05

  People were constantly buying me shots and so I was getting, I was getting fucking blasted wa- without even having to spend a dollar.

• 2:06:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:46Speaker 05

  You know, and it's and like then you realize like. Shit, man, I can't even go out anywhere without getting drunk, you know, cause I would never say no.

• 2:06:54Shawn Ryan?

  Well, and you quit making. You quit making shitty decisions.

• 2:06:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:59Shawn Ryan?

  You know, uh I think about all the decisions that I made fucked up. And that shit doesn't happen anymore.

• 2:07:08Speaker 05

  No, I mean, I take full responsibility and I can't blame the alcohol anymore for the shitty decisions I make now.

• 2:07:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:15Speaker 05

  So it's like to me, it's like, um.

• 2:07:20Speaker 05

  I'm more focused on an objection uh objective. I know where I wanna go in my life. I know where I'm trying to go. I had the energy to put out. To make things happen now, like like let's be honest. If I was drinking and came to go be, I would first of all, would you would never even ask me to be on the show. That would have never happened. But if I was drink, 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 I would have rise. I would have arrived in ten in Nashville and gone and partied and then hung be hung over today. And then call you and be like, hey, can we do it later or some fucking lame excuse. It wouldn't have happened. Yeah. So you know, so that. That's a head start for me, man. No alcohol. I I'm getting a head start in life.

• 2:08:01Speaker 05

  You know, and I I'm sure a lot of people are watching this feeling very uncomfortable like fuck, I'm still drinking. I can't stop. 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 it's it's a constant battle every day. That they're not alone. Nobody's alone in this. You we all feel the same. It's just getting through the day. Just get through it. Get through it. You're gonna be the boredom is the hardest part is when I'm just sitting there going, geez. There ain't shit to do. I wanna do read a book, watch YouTube. But it's. Watch Don Ryan on YouTube.

• 2:08:42Speaker 05

  Then you're like, fuck it, I'll just be a. Fuck it, I'm gonna go drink.

• 2:08:47Speaker 05

  Oh, no, I I uh but it's a. My life has changed. Def definitely it's it's. It's definitely um. It's going in a completely different direction than I ever would have imagined. Well, where are you heading?

• 2:09:04Speaker 05

  I don't know, man. You know, if you would have asked me this two years ago. It would have been or three years ago, I would have been like death death. I would have been like, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna. Now, dude, the the sky's the limit. I don't know. I don't know. I I'm I'm I I'm letting God take care of that. Okay, I'm not deciding that. I'm letting God steer the ship. I'm not I'm not the captain anymore. I know people say, oh, yeah, you are. You're your own God. You you you manifest what you want. Nah. No, I'm humble. I God has got my ship.

• 2:09:40Shawn Ryan?

  I guess, let me rephrase this. What are you doing now?

• 2:09:46Speaker 05

  I'm on the Sean Ryan Show, baby.

• 2:09:47Shawn Ryan?

  I know. Well, you know. Like, what are you working towards? You gotta be working towards.

• 2:09:53Speaker 05

  I, I have a very good company now. Um, my social media company took off. It's doing very well. Um, and I just plan to keep going and keep expanding. You know, the sky's limit. I don't know where it's gonna 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 interest, talking to interesting people, such as yourself. To me, th- this is what, what, what better job could you ask for?

• 2:10:38Speaker 05

  We have really stimulating, interesting conversations with people. It's fucking awesome.

• 2:10:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:42Speaker 05

  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 say, no, I'd have been dead. I'd 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.

• 2:11:03Shawn Ryan?

  You're just along for the ride.

• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  Just along, I'm like, 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 gotta 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, maybe 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.

• 2:11:39Shawn Ryan?

  Do you surf?

• 2:11:41Speaker 05

  I've attempted.

• 2:11:46Speaker 05

  I'm scared of surfing. I've been out there a few times. My, one of my best friends used to surf all the time and 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, I have a lot of friends that were surfers, right? And they would tell me, oh man, God, 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 and 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.

• 2:12:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:22Speaker 05

  So I used to compare everything to boxing. I used to be like, oh, life's a fight. So round one and then you, your middle of your life is like the sixth or seventh rounds, you know? I don't compare it to that anymore because I think life's as hard as you make it.

• 2:12:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:33Speaker 05

  You know?

• 2:12:35Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think that's a good spot to end on, man, but I just, I uh, 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, and uh, I, I think this conversation's gonna help a lot of people that are struggling with, with alcoholism, with PTSD, with whatever struggles they have in life. I mean, it's just, you gotta overcome it. You have to be want to overcome it though. And, and want something better and uh, I just want to thank you for coming out, man.

• 2:13:09Speaker 05

  Dude, it was my pleasure, man. Um, I really knew that if I was gonna 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, it means a lot to me.

• 2:13:25Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure. Where do people find you?

• 2:13:28Speaker 05

  Nino'sCorner.TV, Nino'sCorner.TV. That's uh, or YouTube. David Nino Rodriguez on YouTube, David Nino Rodriguez, or Telegram, Nino's Corner.

• 2:13:38Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:13:39Speaker 05

  But the big one is Nino'sCorner.TV.

• 2:13:41Shawn Ryan?

  Roger that. Best of luck to you, brother.

• 2:13:45Speaker 05

  Thank you. I appreciate it, Sean.

• 2:13:47Shawn Ryan?

  See you soon.

• 2:13:48Speaker 05

  God bless you. Thank you.

• 2:13:49Shawn Ryan?

  You will.