 Check it, check it, check it. It's a unique culture. It's your boy, E-CEO. And I'm here with the lovely official, Ms. Jamaica. What's going on? Yeah, my dad, we're all going with you. Oh man, it's been a rainy day outside today. Extremely. Say man, we're on Boss Talk 101, man. And sometimes we have people to come in that, I feel very strongly about when the conversation starts because I know that people are about to get something, some help, some healing. We got Reverend Gary Nelson here today. Mr. Gary Nelson here today. Brother Gary Nelson here today. What's going on, brother? Oh, it's going good, it's going good. Going good? Yes, sir. Man, it's good to have you, man. So just thank you for coming on the show, man. Yes, sir. Just, you know, being out alone view Texas, man. From a young age, man. Cause I like to go all the way back. I don't like to start. That's why I told you, if you don't want me to ask, cause I'm going all the way to the woods when, you know. Yes, sir. When it was really, you know, outhouses almost back in those days. I'm trying to get all the way back so we can come up. Yes, sir. Yeah. Already, already. So just give us a little bit about yourself. Oh man, I was country boy and There you go. Born in a family of about seven boys and four girls. Seven boys and four girls. Yeah, we kind of shuffled around a little bit. Moved to Houston in my young age. We stayed up there a couple of years from the time that I was in the first and second grade. By the third grade, we had moved back to Longview. And kind of hard on us coming up a little bit, you know. But, you know, we made it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We made it. And by the time I was 14, I lost my dad. Okay, at 14? How was that? How was that growing up without a father from 14 on up? That's kind of when my life kind of spiraled out of control a little bit. Went to spiraling out of control, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Because my mom was more likely, she really wasn't, she really isn't because she still lives today at 83. I want to thank God. What's her name? Her name is Mary. Shout out Mrs. Mary. How you doing, sweetheart? You got a great son here. Yes, sir. But she didn't have a, she really wasn't stern. So I was able to, I thought I was getting away by telling her this and telling her that and she would believe this and that. And my dad was the one kind of had the stern hand. So when he passed away, that's when things went to spiraling downhill and I went to sneak in smoking. And we had a little corner store up the street and we would steal the cigarettes and still, you know, go and catch the man at the front of the store and we'd go to the back and steal it. Is that in Longview? Yes, in Longview. And we'd steal the quarts of beer, but and now that I am where I am today, I can say that, you know, all that that I thought I was doing to the man, I was doing to myself. Amen. You know, so, you know, getting away with that. And when I was lied to my mom about not going to school, I thought I was getting away with that. Now that I am where I am today, I saw that I see that I was doing that to myself. I didn't understand and realize how important an education would be. And when I could get it for free, I wasn't, I wouldn't get it for free. I would, I tell people all the time, I said, man, if my mom would have replaced every part that I told her was hurting on my bodies on the morning that it was to go to school, I'd have a brand new overhaul all body. But, you know, even with that and dropping out of high school by the age of 16, that's when I started smoking marijuana. Okay, okay, it was called reefer back then. Yeah, yeah. And it was in joints. In joints, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell them. They're more yellow wrapping papers. That's right. You know what I'm talking about? The more is that you take them, I still product and roll. And they still, it had that old name to it. They had Cess and Bowen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cess Bowen. They didn't call it Reggie back then. No, no, it wasn't Reggie. No, no, they'll call it skunk. Yeah, that's right, yes sir. Yeah, that's how they did it back then. So as I went to doing all these things and as I learned now, that's all the entertainment needs is a way to get in. And I had invited him in my life. Yeah, yeah. Then he was able to talk me into other things. And that's when... So let me see, you had brothers, what were they doing during the time when you was out there smoking your joints? Well, and sometimes I talk about that because out of the seven boys, I've got one brother that's older, that's younger than I am. Out of the 11 kids, I'm number nine, so I'm only older than two siblings. Is that two guys, one guy older than you and one girl? I'm older than one, I'm older than one girl and one guy. Everybody else is older than me. I've got nine brothers and sisters older than I am. Or eight anyway. But I had one little young brother that was three years old when my father passed and I was 14, so I'm like 12 years older than him. That's my younger brother, Gabe, but... Shout out, Gabe. As I looked at my life with Gabe, I tried to treat him in a way that I felt that my older brothers should have treated me. But because they was in a life of addiction and had a stronghold over their life, they didn't know how to treat my life. And see, as I have learned that those of us who are spiritual beings has got to realize that we are living through a spiritual warfare. And there's always something that's trying to bound us down from exceeding to the purpose that God had really created us to be. Okay, so your brother, he looked up to you quite naturally. Right. With that big of a span between, how was your influence on him? Was it good? Was it bad? Well, it was good. And when it came to me and Gabe, even though I had started smoking marijuana and stuff, I didn't try to live a life to influence Gabe to do that. Okay, you tried to keep him shunned him away from it. Shunned him away from it. But on the other hands, my brothers that embraced me in it, we was always in conflict about the way that I treated him. We did a way that I treated Gabe. And the way that I treated Gabe should have been the way that they treated me. When I walked into they circle as a 15, 16 year old boy, as I look at it now, they should have pushed me away and told me, no man, dad's dead. You're gonna continue to admire mama but they didn't, they embraced me in that situation. Well, it had to be a tough time for all y'all. That's a dysfunctionality that steps in at that point, your world changed. Your family's world changed. When you lose your father, I couldn't imagine losing my father at that age. I lost my mother at an early age, but to lose at 14 and to feel like you had that backing, I know it had to be tough on the whole family, the entire family. Right, right, to a certain extent. Because he really was the head. You know, I don't care how old you was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Daddy was the man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Daddy was the God that you knew during that time. Yes, exactly. So as I looked at it as not blaming my brothers for anything about my addiction and what had happened, but I do look back at life and wish they would have been a little more harder on me, had a little more stern on me. And then even after I got stronger in my addiction, I kind of shunned away from my brothers and latched on to other friends in the street. And that's when my addiction to crack cocaine. Yeah, so the brothers never did crack? Yes. They did too? Yes, yes. Because this was in, was this what, was it 85, 96, 87? Yes, by 85, around in there. Yeah, I was running through there back then. Yeah, yeah. Not as much, but I used to come up there. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely know the area. So that's when the crack cocaine kind of came in, but I just didn't hang out with my brothers and do it. They just had their own thing, but I had kind of fell over into the trap and I just kind of shunned away from them and went to doing my own thing. But I still kind of tried to hold a responsible life because I worked a little bit, even in my addiction, I worked. And I worked for a while and I had a little accident at just speeding up a little bit around the age of 21. And I got a whole... So you started to crack and how early of an age? About 18. 18, that's kind of, wow. Because usually I remember being one that was in the environment that you didn't, it was the younger ones, if they done it, they were hiding it like ever because it wasn't as hard on them as it was the older people, you know. And then it was an older friend that I had went to run with. There it is, there it is, see? See, there it is, right there. Yeah. And he introduced it to me in a joint. In a joint. A premote. A premote. I know exactly what you're talking about. And he didn't tell me what it was, but I got to meet him this day. I liked it. DMX got the same story that you had. I was just about to say who made that same thing. Exactly like he said. Yeah. Yeah, that he was introduced to by an older family member or a cousin. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the devil is working in that whole entire situation. In that whole entire situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That whole thing has got a whole mesmerizing state from Satan himself. Yes, yes, yes. So when he introduced it to me, I liked it. And man, I couldn't wait to get off work every day. Do it again. To do it again, to smoke it again. But he did tell me one thing. They called me a nickname that one that just kind of stuck with me all of my life. My name is Gary, but to everybody I've always been Tab. Tell ya, okay. Tell ya. So he told me, he said, tell man, let me tell you, we smoking this and I see you like it. He said, but don't you never mess with that pipe, man. Don't never, I said, man, I ain't gonna never mess with that pipe, but that's like telling the devil that you're not gonna do it. And he's already in control. He's already in control. So, and that's what steered me away from this particular friend, because really, if he ever smoked a pipe, I never saw him smoke it. All he ever did was smoke primos, but man, the way he loaded them primos up, it was like smoking a pipe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what drove me to the desire to wanna see what else. The next level. The next level. Yeah, there's levels to it. Yes. So that's when you left him because he wouldn't go on and graduate with you. That's right. And you moved over to somebody who was doing bigger things. Doing bigger things. I get it. Oh, man, that's why. No, no, no, I get it. I get it because this is something that the devil does. That's what he does. He come to kill still and destroy. That's right. So basically what happens is, now he's pretty much gonna isolate you because he isolates you first. That's right. He has always isolated from the jump. He never do it, you know what I mean, in a place where you with a lot of friends anyway, there's an isolation mentally. That's right. That he's using against you the whole entire time. Even though you was with your friend, that was an isolated moment for you to even think to go to someone else. Isolation is the way that the devil attacks you. That's right. So once he gets you in a corner, then he moves you how he wants to. He maneuvers you the way he needs to. He did that. Yeah. And he started me to smoking. They were smoking it out of the bowl first. And you know, they had some kind of little bowl the way they do it. And man, that dough, that Out of a bowl. It was like a, it's a bowl you, you put the crack on the top of the bowl. And they have like some kind of a rum or something in the bottom of the bowl. And oh, it was just all set up. And when you got there, you like, man, this here is different. Yeah. And when they do it, it's so pretty. When the smoke go down in the bowl and it just light up. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, wow. And man, you suck that demon right down your throat. And then y'all use cans too. But wait a minute. That was the first, we just said it was different phases. Yeah. That was the first phase. And even that phase there, you was still able to be level and maintain. Okay. And when it came to the straight shooter. Okay. And the can. Okay, the straight shooter. That was a different phase. Okay. Yeah. You okay. I got you. So yeah. And I know you, you about to go into detail. Yes. Even with the straight shooter, they, I have met people. I met people, man, it used to embarrass me to the, to the max that I would meet people and they said, oh, you tab, you the fall guy. And I said, the fall guy. The fall guy. What does that mean? Because I taught people how to make disposable straight shooters out of fall. Oh. For the foil guy. Foil, yes. You knew how to make them out of foil. Okay. And that's something because yeah. See, because that's what, see in my Bible based recovery class, I say it's cunning, it's baffling, and it's powerful, but that's the devil. He's cunning, he's baffling, and he's powerful. So he was so cunning that you ain't got time to go smoke or go buying or buy you a straight shooter here. I got you an idea. I'm going to show you how to make them. You don't even need to go nowhere. It's right here in the kitchen. It's right here in the kitchen. Yeah. Are you with us? Okay. So you just get your, you just get your, your, your char ball and you ball it up where it won't stick. Char ball, did y'all get that part? Char ball. That's the stuff that you got in the kitchen that you used to scrape that old cash down skillet out. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to show you. I'm going to put you all there today. You take that char, the char boy, that remember the little puffy scrunchy little metal thing that you scraped the skillet out with? Yeah. They would take that, stick it in a ball, you stick it in an antenna, you stick it wherever you can stick it to counter. Yeah. It was like a muffler. That's right. There it is. There it is. I don't know much about it guys. That is, but you, you, you, you, you ball it up. Cause you didn't want it to stick too many holes through your foil and you would roll that up and that's how you would smoke it. But the only bad thing about the foil was you didn't get to push it. And a lot of people told me, they said, man, you, you, you, you lose it. You lose a lot of dope on that fall, man. And, and I tell them, I said, well, maybe, you know, here I am. I'm thinking that I'm not getting dick or dick it too. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm smoking it this way, but it's costing me to spend more money. More money. Yeah. Because I'm only getting one fix out of that. And then I have to keep going on and on. Yeah. The more boys down there will happen when you did that. Yes, man. The more boys. There was some boys down there back in the day. Shout out to them Davenport boys. Oh, love them. Yeah. I know, hey man. I know about everything. You can't, everything you could ever think of. I'm over here like, okay. Yeah. Okay. I remember those days, man. Yeah. The old Davenport boys. Yeah. A lot of them, they died and one of them locked up or something. Well, he doesn't come home. He come home? Okay. He shout out to them Davenport boys. 20 boys, were they 20? Well, no. They were close in age. They were close in age, y'all. And the daddy too, they had that car lot. He passed away, didn't he? Yeah. The daddy passed away. I think it's one of them that's home now. I vaguely, I don't know if his name is, I don't remember his name actually. Well, I just remember running into him. I was around down that time. Yeah. Yeah. But man, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Till it just led you, it, sex and drugs and I was married and it just- Toe your family apart. Toe my family down. Wow. How many kids? When my addiction first started, I had one son and I kinda went on a break there for a minute and we had another son but our sons are 16 years apart. Wow. And the same mom. Same mom. Right now I got a son 32 and one 16. Okay, did she at any point condone the things you were doing? Were she apart with you? Yes. Had to be. Yes, because when- Are y'all still together? Yes. Praise God. 35 years. Let's see, see what I'm saying. God will clean it up. God will clean it up. It's kinda like the story. When you was first talking, it was more to me and I'm not gonna go into it too much but it was almost like when you started explaining to your brother, your smaller brother, I would think about Benjamin and Joseph and the relationship that they had. Right. And then I would think about how that relationship was stripped apart when he had to go through and he was sold by his other brothers and all that other good stuff. And you know then when they channel back together he still was concerned about Benjamin. Right. So I kinda was feeling that way but it wasn't all the way connecting for me. Yes. But it is just showing a lot of family members and what families go through. Right. But God has an intended plan that he'll make it right. That he'll make it right. That's what matters. And even in the first part of my addiction just backing up a little bit when I first met my wife, she and I were smoking marijuana but she was smoking marijuana with me. And when I started smoking the primos I introduced her. Wow. I introduced them to her. Wow. And she started smoking primos with me. She even smoked the pipe with me. Wow. What's so funny is now y'all clean together. Yes. Yes. But she's been clean a whole lot. A lot longer than you. Yes. So she started that journey first and then she tried to introduce you to it or you found it yourself? I found it. When I found it, cause she and I was just hanging out together. You know, we started out as friends and it just kinda exiled from that but we just hung out a lot together and we smoked marijuana together and she lived right next door to me. I'm talking about the clean part though. Being clean. Cause you said she was clean a lot longer than you were so I'm wondering. Did that channel you clean yourself up? Did that channel you used to be clean as well? No. No, not at all. No, no. And because I, even after she got clean, I abused the house, I abused the respect for her and everything with my drug life because at that particular time, the house was mine. You know, back to the park, just backing up a little bit. That's when I was working. I had land, I was the head of the wash rack. I was working for the brew pointy act there in Longview and I was done one morning in one of the cars and I had a car accident with the Longview cable company and that's how I ended up with a bunch of money. So I was about 21 then but like I said, I always tried to have my head on straight. So instead of taking all that money and blowing it on drugs, which I did blow all right smart of it on drugs. You bought a house. I bought a house. So when I bought the house, I remodeled the house but by this time, when I bought the house, Jennifer and I already had had a son though. So we're just backing up. She and I had already been smoking. I had already introduced her to crack by then because through the guy that introduced me to the primos cause she and I used to smoke marijuana together all the time. So I kind of done her just like he done me. You put a little bit in there later. Yes, I told her, I said, I got a surprise for you tonight. So I went over house and I fired up the joint and we fired it up and just like I did, you know, it was a whole lot different from the time that I quit than the time that I started from the quality of the crack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it disintegrated in it. Yes, but she liked it as well. So for a couple of few years, we smoked it together and even got to the point of where she smoked the pipe together. But I believe that after it got to our oldest son probably being like four, five years old, she quit, just quit cold turkey. She was through with it. She didn't like what it had done to her life. She didn't like what it had done to her job career. But she had to quit during the times that she was pregnant. Wasn't, didn't she or was she still on it? Well, she was pregnant. Yes, she did quit. She wasn't smoking it when we got, when she was pregnant. So she already had a mindset that I could stop. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So that's important. He's trying to think. He's like, oh, what's she and wasn't she? No, she wasn't smoking it when she was pregnant. Oh, you remember if she had been. Maybe not, no, because he was smoking it too. Yeah, she wasn't smoking when we was pregnant. But when she was pregnant, but when she quit smoking it, we still was together. Right. And she wasn't, she wasn't smoking nothing. And for a while, you know, we would go through. Y'all would get frustrated with each other? Oh, and we would go through breakups, six months, seven months she'd leave and she'd come back and she'd leave and she'd come back and. Because you had the house. Because I had the house. And through all that, within over a 16 year period, I was still on drugs. And I believe, you know, sad to say that Tabaschum was conceived through my drug addiction. You know, I was probably still, I ain't no private to it. I was on drugs when he was conceived, but she wasn't at the time. But man, if you saw him, God, he's a truly healthy boy. He's bigger than, he's big. He's bigger and taller than me. Wow. Yeah. So I'm hoping. Won't he do it? Yeah. So I'm hoping that he continued to stay in football and keep. Oh, he likes to play football? Yeah. He plays. Just a 16 year old. Yeah. He plays for the Long Lobos. Okay, okay. What position he playing in over there? He's a center. Center. Good at. Yeah. He's good at that. He's a big boy. He's a big boy. He ain't no little boy. He's a, he's a pretty big boy. But at the age of two years old, I opened to Bastion was two and I was still in my drug addiction really, really, really bad. And to Bastion, to Bastion, I think he went in his brother's bedroom because at that age to Bastion, a paper. Wow. And his brother's bedroom was just full of stuff. And it was kind of a cold time of the year. And he was in that bedroom and I wanted to walk up my mother's that night and I go, and I beat when you go to looking for him, he'd be hiding somewhere, eating paper. And we took him to the doctor for that. And the doctor said that it was something in the paper that his body needed, that he could smell it in the paper. And, and he said whenever his body get whatever it needs, he'll quit eating paper. Wow. And truly that happened. But what can I say that, you know why he ate paper and he had a dad that was addicted to drugs, you know, didn't know what was going on with his body. You know, and then that kind of had my mind puzzled. Made you think about it. But it still didn't stop my addiction. Correct. You know, and that was selfish of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, even, and I'm seeing my son go through something and it could be what he's going through is because that I was smoking crack when I conceived him. But I, we take him to the doctor but it didn't stop me from smoking drugs. Exactly. So he was in the bedroom one morning and we went up the road and when we went up the road, my brother looked back down the road, he was up there in a mom's house and the house was on fire. Wow. And I go back down there and it was the bed, and it was the bedroom where Tabaschen was. So I figured that he must have knocked the electric heater over and stuff. So after the house caught on fire and we had to move out and get into an apartment and the insurance company gave my wife, we got the insurance check for the house. The house wasn't total. So we got money to remodel the house. Okay. When we got the money to remodel the house, I went to going through that money because it was my house. Exactly. And I was on drugs and I went to smoking up that money and it was in the middle of the night one night and she told me that that would be no more of this. She said, Tab, I'm not gonna raise another son in a drug addicted house. Like, I'm not gonna raise Tabaschen in the same environment that Gary was raised in. Okay. So she said, I'm gonna let you go back over there to your house. She said, I am the mother of your kids and I could take you for everything but I'm gonna just take the money and make a life for me and the kids and I'm gonna go on. So we departed at that particular time and this was the- What year was that? This was 2006. Wow. This was our longest break up ever because we- How long did it last? Five years. Wow. This was the longest. We had broke up over the years for six months to seven months and you know, but never a year apart and even in our breaking up, her mom was living then and she would go back to living with her mama but I would be able to go over and see Gary. It wasn't really, but this time here it was different. She was just fed up. Yeah. She was more stirring with, I'm gonna go ahead and let this go. Let this go. So after that, you know, I was still in my addiction but I got a job. I was remodeling houses and when you remodeling houses, you tear out good stuff and I was able to get stuff to bring home the work on my house without buying it. So I was study putting the house together living on a utility pole, living up in the burnt house and but I was still in my addiction. Yeah, yeah. So Jennifer come to me one day and she tells me, she said, well, obviously she was out of money and it was living in an apartment. She said, I'm pissing to get a loan and I need this house. I need somewhere to raise these kids. At this time, five years done past. Gary's old enough. He's done, went to having kids and they all scrunched up an apartment. I have a sister who lives here in Dallas and I asked for her advice and I said, well, she wants the house now. What do you think I should do? And she said, well, you said it was house was for your kids and your wife. So I moved out not only giving her the house but I even put it in her name. But it really wasn't, it really wasn't no more my house than it was hers from the beginning because she's my wife. But I put it in her name and I moved here to Dallas with my sister. And when I moved to Dallas my addiction kind of broke some but it really wasn't, it wasn't as stern as it was when I was in Longview but it wasn't as serious because I was in an unfamiliar place so I couldn't get it as much as I wanted to. But as I worked, I catch the bus to Longview sometime and spend a weekend down there. Having a good time. Get high the whole weekend and stuff like that. And so that kind of went on for a while and by the time Tabaschen was seven Jennifer invited me back to come home to Longview. He called me one night and he said, dad my mom said she need you to come to the house and clean this swimming pool out for us. You know I had a swimming pool in the backyard at the time we were taking it out now. It was above ground pool but I worked for the pool company so a friend and I took above ground and put it in the ground. Yes so and it was a pretty nice pool so I went home and I fixed the pool up and ended up staying around a while. Well now I'm back in Longview. Wow, it's turn up time. Some old friends, they still out there. Yes bro. They happy to see you just like she is. And I turn it up. Turn all the way up. All the way up. Well it wasn't three years then I was on my way to prison. Okay. I had got really deep in my addiction man and I was going to loaves and home depots and places like that. Scamming. Man doing things that I thought I never do. Yeah. I was stealing from. Picking up a whole pickup truck for us. Stealing from people's yards and just but it was by the grace of God that I'm alive today. You know just walking up in somebody's yard taking stuff man. It was out of control. I'm talking about, I feel sorry and that's why I take the light in teaching the Bible based recovery class because I try to tell people that I wouldn't desire to see nobody go through. How long did you stay incarcerated? What I went through. I stayed incarcerated two years and ten months. But when I got locked up in the county jail I knew that it was time for my change man and I was 47 at the time. I'm 53 now. And I looked in, after I slept for a couple of days and I went and looked in the mural man and my hair had grown out on my face and I said, man, God, I'm an old man. You know and I have allowed myself to come to this point somewhere I thought I'd never go. I had been in and out of jail before but it was for tickets. You know and when I was in my addiction you get a ticket I didn't pay it. That was back when you could lay a ticket out overnight and but that was the only thing I had ever been to jail for. This was serious. But I was so into my addiction bro. I forgot that I had, I was already facing state jail time for shoplifting at Kmart and got caught. Now I didn't even register. I didn't even remember. When they got me out of there and I just was started running. Wow. So when I got into jail man and I fell on my knees and I talked to the Lord and I told him, I said, Lord, if you could help me get out of this Lord I will give my life to you and I will change and be a better person. And my sister here in Dallas, I wrote her and told her about what was happening and what was going on and I make her laugh sometimes. And the sister that you're talking about is this the younger sister or the older sister? This is my older sister. Now she's not a part of the leaven but she's my sister, she's my daddy. She's my dad's oldest daughter. And when I received her letter in jail you know because when we was kids with her being the oldest she always patted us and just you know. Like a mom. So when I received her letter in jail I just cried and oh man I cried big time before I opened the letter because I know she's been to pat me. And I make her laugh when I tell her when I opened the letter and it said, take your medicine. This is good for you. And I wiped my eyes because it wasn't funny. You know, it was hard. You know, she got stern with me. And then it dried my tears up. I'm like, what is she saying? She was letting me know that what you're fixing to go through is gonna be good for you. She said, take your medicine. In other words, God chastens the one that he loves. That he loves man and out of all I went through I knew that it had to be God. So even within that my wife would come up every two days, twice a week at the jail to see me. And last time that she came, we had a little argument. She had bought my mom up there with her to see me. And we had an argument and I kind of lashed out at her and I just turned my back on her and left out of the thing. But even when I left there and got to a prison she wrote me for a couple of times and sent me some money a couple of times. Wow. And I was kind of depending on that and depending on her and dependent on them letters but God had a plan for me and I had made a promise to the Lord and all of a sudden my wife just quit writing. And I was writing no answer. And I was writing no answer. And that went to reminding me of when God heartened Pharaoh's heart. He hardened her heart for her to turn her back on me. And when she turned her back on me that even made me seek God's face even more. More, yeah. And man I would have dreams about smoking crack every night I would dream about it. Wow. And I would just, I would kept on praying and asking the Lord to deliver me from this and deliver me from this. And I would wake up in the next morning after I'd undreamed about it and it was almost like I was angry with God. I said, Lord I ask you to take it away from me and you didn't take it away from me. And I'd go to bed and it didn't happen for like a week and one day I was out on the rec yard and I was walking around the yard and something just clearly come to me just like I'm talking to you and it says what did you dream about last night? And I thought for me. You didn't dream about anything. And it wasn't there. Wow. Man and they thought I was crazy. And I went to praising the Lord right there on the red yard because I knew that I had been delivered. It just asked me clearly just like I'm talking. It said, what did you dream about last night? That's a blessing. That's God. And I thought and I said, and man I just went to praising the Lord. I said, Lord thank you Jesus. Man it was the best feeling that you could ever have in your life. I was delivered. I was completely delivered and I was man and I tell you, there in prison I was set free. And that's when I ran into the man that I teach the Bible based recovery program through and he was teaching Bible based recovery and I was an addict. What was his name? His name is Pastor Dan Lund. Dan Lund, shout out Dan Lund for doing what he posed to do down there. Yes. Was he a chaplain? No, he was just a guy to come down there. Just a guy to come in the prison. All right. And he's teaching recovery out of a recovery Bible. I didn't bring one of my Bibles with me, but, and what's so good about this recovery Bible you can get sobriety and salvation at the same time. And that's what my Bible based recovery programs are based on that the Bible tells us that a man that builds his house on sand is a fool because what are you going to do when the wind and the rain comes and the storm and the wind beat up against it your house shall fall. But if you build your sobriety on a solid foundation and build it on Jesus, when the devil come with his fiery darts and the wiles of the temptation and the things that he come at you with you got something to stand on. You got God to stand on. You got his strength to stand on. And that's what he have, what that's what I have learned. Do I still have spanking thinking? Yes. Man, I've been riding down the road some time and I said, Lord, what did that thought come from? I think that's something that everybody encounters. There's nobody in this room that don't have the same thing going. That's right. So, and I think a lot of times people just because they hide it a little better, you seem to think that there's something that they're not because you don't see it. You know what you're thinking, but you can't see into what their thoughts are. And they don't broadcast it because you have a lot of people who are with the preachers or just individuals who will never say that I think of bad things sometimes. They will never make it known. That's right. But we all do it. But to me, when that attacks you, you have to first recognize, oh, that's the devil. Right. You're not gonna win today. You need to go on somewhere. In the name of... And that's really what it is. Let me just say, also the time when you was incarcerated and you all, and you heard this voice, I'm quite sure that you were reading your word and doing things that where you were filling yourself up. A lot of times people don't realize it, but when you get to a point where you're broken and God starts to replenish you with the word, if you got something to put in there, then it starts to fill you up. It's like a food. It's a nourishment spiritually. And so that's what happens and you have to take so much until you can break the curse that the devil is using against you. You are so exactly right, brother. Because that's exactly what... And that's why... You was reading your word. And that's why I tell you the part about how I was getting so angry with God because I felt that I was doing everything right. I get up and I still do that to this day. Like coming here today, I got up at three, I got up at 2, when I got up, it was 2.48 this morning. I got up to find for the Lord to give me a message for the church today. But when I'm just on a regular daily basis, I get up just like I was in prison, five o'clock every morning, give God the first part of my day. I haven't changed nothing from the day that he delivered and set me free. The same thing it took to get it, it's gonna be the same thing to take to keep it. And that's where I was and that's why I would get mad when I would dream about it. And I said, well, Lord, I'm doing everything I supposed to do. But you still had some things you had to let go. And God, I believe in forgiveness and forgiving yourself. I'm not even talking about others. Just forgiving yourself for what you've done to be in the situation you was in. You had to be able to do that. And when that truly happened, I believe that's when the whole bond is broken. Man, I don't know where you know that. No, no, no, I'm ready. I promise you I'm ready. That's pretty deep. Because that was the hardest thing in the world for me to do. Forgiving yourself. To forgive myself. And I tell my pastor sometime I still have struggles with that because I take it as a cop out. Because I know that I was wrong and I was wrong for the wrong that I done. And some people just, well, I forgive myself. Well, that was too easy for me. Man, God is so merciful. And that's what I had to learn that he loved me so much that I just didn't want it to be that easy. You know, I was wrong, Lord. I wanna be punished, but he said I forgive you. It's great. But even after that, even after you forgave yourself or you went through all of that, did you actually go back to the people that you wronged and actually asked them for forgiveness as well? Yes. That is step eight in the class that I teach. Step eight is make a list of all the persons you have harmed. And become willing to make amends to them all. And you can't go to everybody because if I did, I'd have to go to every house that I stole plants from. See, because that's what I did for a living. And that's sad, you know, because I knew the plants. I could go take off somebody's porch. I knew what this plant would be worth because I deal with plants. I dealt with them all my life. So that's what I do now in my landscaper. But, and so I would have to find every house that I ever went to in Longview and stole a plant off of. But sometimes that can even be good because you never know who you might touch behind that door that you're knocking on their door. Exactly, but another thing is also a part of the process is writing it down and writing down the things you done. That's right. There are so many different ways that you dump that you have to get that off of you. And I think that you know the process. And the word reads that God have mercy on a contrite spirit. Contrite. Contrite spirit because he knows that, I can't go back to everybody, but he knows my heart. He knows my feeling. And he knows, and that's just like the part of forgiving yourself. I was so remorseful and so hurt about after I just, after he took the blinders off because it talks about it in First Corinthians four and four about how the enemy of the world have your eyes blinded to you can't care to see. So after my blinders was took off and I saw how wrong and how hate and selfish and just corrupt that I was that even though that the forgiveness and it was all free that I didn't deserve it. Well, you know, that's what David said once he had come to a realization of what had happened with him in Second Samuel chapter 11 with Bathsheba. Yes. It's just something that basically you go through something sometimes and after you, it's like you woke up and you realized all the stuff that you done wasn't right. Yes. You couldn't just like when he got your eye killed and all that stuff. He was thinking about it. He was selfishly doing everything that he done. That's right. So at that point after he realized it after Nathan came to him, then he was able to understand that I, hey, I've done this wrong. And that's where you see Psalms, I believe 51 creating me a clean, hardly knew a right spirit in me. That's right. So this is the way that we feel after we go through a situation where we would beat down with the facts that we've done something that we should have known better than doing. Right. And then God shows it to the open eyes up to it. And that's where you have to deal with it. And I think that's what, I think that's why he left those examples for us. Right, right. So we could see those things and understand it. He says another thing in the Bible. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. But how can you love your neighbor if you don't love yourself? If you don't love yourself. So that's the stuff that you have to kind of articulate and maneuver in so that you can be healed. That's right. And that goes up a lot back to the steps in the recovery program. And that's what it talks about. It teaches you healing. It teaches you the aspect like step four said, take a searching and a fearless moral inventory of yourself. That means there's gonna be, there's gonna, time's gonna come up in your life where you wanna condemn somebody else or say something about somebody else, but check yourself. It's a sweep around your own front door. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these are the things that lead you to forgiveness. These are the kind of things that break, people don't believe it, that break strong hopes, take down barriers that the enemy they have put up against you. And until you break these things, just like you talked about me being in the word, and until you break these things, take nothing, get in. Well, see the thing, that's the thing that I really, when I teach, I teach about reading. Like what got you delivered was really God being in you. His word being in you. Now this is the problem I have with a lot of things that go on in our modern day Protestant Christian churches and people who say they believe in God. A lot of times the men, the men who have had these encounters, we have the word in us. We have to find a way to get this into the people. And I think a lot of times because of all of the bright lights and the stages and the pool pits and everything else, it gets lost in the sauce. I'm telling you now, we gotta do better at getting the word off the pages and in the hearts of every individual in order to get them saved. And we're not doing a good enough job in that aspect. And oh man, that's so powerful. It's the truth. That's powerful. I teach that way. That's powerful. Because I know it's not happening. And we let people off the handle by them not, they don't have to read. They just come here what we got to say. That's right. And we sound eloquent and with wisdom of words. And God give us it spiritually, but to them it's wisdom of words. But for us it's an encounter we had with God to get this knowledge. That's right. And so they're looking at it like it's a, oh, it's good, you know what I mean? But for us, we had to get this to be delivered. That's right. And I get it. So I love your story. Yes, sir. And you got to go deep. You got to get, it's got to get into you.