 So it's 8.30 in the morning and I just woke up to a message from my little sister saying wasn't yesterday your nine year so bad anniversary and I thought to myself wait a second it is. So it feels like I've been not drinking and doing drugs for so long that it's not a novelty anymore it's actually just my life so these anniversaries they come along and I'm like oh wait that's right it's become the norm now for me to not drink and not party and things like this but also I've been extremely busy and I just don't have time to think about those types of things right now I've got a million things on my plate and you know under a lot of stress and you know working for something that I'm very passionate about so I don't think about my my past all that much anymore which wasn't always like that when I first went sober and went vegan I was riddled with trauma I had nightmares every night I was always thinking about violence I had a very bad complex PTSD it would manifest in all different types of ways and that's what happens when you're around the gang culture for long enough from around 14 years old I started hanging around low level street gangs and then obviously I started becoming more and more violent I was a good kid but what happens is the environment starts to shape you you need to defend yourself in environments like that one way to defend yourself is to act in an offensive manner so do something violent and people will remember it that's what I did um you know from 16 17 18 I started getting more and more violent smashing bottles on people's heads and think I was around 17 the first time I'd stabbed someone with a bayonet it gets worse and worse and worse as as you get older and as you start drinking more and taking drugs and getting involved in just higher level street violence but around 20 years old I started hanging around with um the big boys then that was more of a the higher level organized crime figures uh I was around some of the most dangerous underworld figures in in Adelaide and in Australia so that was my life from 20 onwards I then became a part of a very notorious high level gang I don't mention names it was very serious and things were happening all the time you you would hear of shootings and you know it was just uh can't really get into the details which I don't need to get into details you can just maybe you could just put one and two together but with that environment comes addiction and with trauma comes more addiction and more drugs and you use drugs to deal with the environment and it's just just the vicious circle and you deal drugs to get more drugs and before you know it you're a full blown addict and you don't realize that and alcohol was one of those drugs that helps you deal with anxiety and and helps you handle social situations and my family all like to drink and my friends all like to drink and I was a big drinker I used to drink every single day often and my story goes I got I got busted with a gun and people like say oh you know you got busted with a gun why did you have a gun well you know other people had guns if you don't have a gun when other people who are dangerous have guns and they might be looking for you then you're pretty silly in that world you need to uh if of course you might say we'll just go to the police but that's just not an option in that world you don't go to the police you defend yourself you protect yourself and you know that's uh that type of world you you either have a weapon on you you protect yourself or you run to the police and you never show your face in the neighborhood ever again so that wasn't me so my my option was to defend myself I had a firearm on me and it was for self-defense basically it was for my own protection and uh you know I got caught with that firearm I went to prison briefly um and then I got released on house arrest to await my full sentence on house arrest I was still using drugs alcohol got really obese did a juice fast found this juice fasting guy on youtube got a seed planted about you know eating animals in karma stayed in the gangs stayed in the high-level gangs got locked up when I was locked up I got sober see my life with new eyes you know I know this story so well now so it's said it so many times but uh you know see my life with new eyes I've seen all the people in there you know good people and not so good people but they were doing long stints in prison some people doing life over one silly mistake and I just like started looking at the gang culture started looking at prison system and I was like I don't want to spend my rest of my life here when I got released I was released on parole I couldn't take any drugs or alcohol so uh because I didn't want to give a dirty urine test and end up back in prison it's because I didn't like prison I didn't I didn't like being surrounded by people all the time I like being by myself and you have no privacy in prison it's just a matter of time before something hectic goes down you know it's just the guards tell you what you can and can't do they strip search you randomly you know you just be out in the yard and they'll just take you into a room and make you strip down naked and squat over a mirror you have no autonomy in there so I don't want to go back there but I went vegan after criticizing my mum about smoking and she said kind of look in the mirror in in her own way and uh you know I went vegan that day uh November the first 2013 you know I've been sober and vegan ever since now the biggest culprits for me were alcohol methamphetamine maybe secondary to those two would be like Xanax and barbiturates alcohol and methamphetamine were my my worst drugs I'd say they're the ones who really that really got me how have I stayed sober from them for nine years he might ask well there's a combination of factors that go into it and the number one factor I would say is to remove yourself from the friend group that use drugs and alcohol it's change your environment would be my number one tip when I got went to prison my environment changed I couldn't get access to drugs in there I could but it's kind of frowned upon in my gangs I didn't want to be the the druggy in the gang you know so when I got to prison you have no privacy so I wasn't going to take any drugs in that in there so if you're in an environment now where there's drugs around you I get it some people can't change your environment they're in a horrible circumstance and I get that that this advice is not for you but if you have the freedom to be able to change your environment that that is what I would recommend the next thing would be to have a focus exercise is a very very good one because that gives you sort of a dopamine rush your heart pumping your blood pumping gives it can give you like this tingling feeling when you when you do really hard cardio and that is kind of a replacement for drugs so I recommend like getting on a bike and just riding for you know 100 kilometers and you know hiking for hours and hours or going to the gym and boxing boxing for hours I used to box for hours a box for a year straight when I got out of prison I was pretty good at one point I was boxing four times a week and I was running on the other days and I was cycling everywhere um because I needed to keep my mind just stimulated exercise is amazing for trauma just exercise your ass off if you're an addict and you want to get sober the friend group thing is huge for alcohol because it only takes one beer in my opinion which is why I don't give myself any beers I don't even have a sip of wine at Christmas time I don't touch alcohol it's not even like an option for me if you're an alcoholic you give yourself permission once you've basically opened up the floodgates if you've never had willpower before what makes you think you're going to just develop it you have to stay away from these substances completely that is my don't people say why can't you just have one or two drinks come on just have one or two drinks you know it's not like that it's like if you're you know on a diet you just have one or two donuts it just doesn't work like that and now nine years sober I can speak with authority on this I think you know because I was one of the worst and now I'm clean so it all comes down to a decision and you have to make a decision you have to think to yourself do I want to throw everything away to get drunk or to get on drugs that's what I weigh up because I ruined my entire life and I was on a one-way ticket to prison forever killing myself killing someone else going clinically insane losing your whole family they're your options there's not many good options with drugs and alcohol I'm not as concerned about psychedelics and things people do to for a purpose to enhance their consciousness or to help treat trauma I'm talking about illicit substances that do nothing but cause addiction and just ruin your life some people can have a couple beers no problem that's not me and I think you'll work it out that that's not you too if that's the case but it's a decision between ruining your life and having a life that you deserve and you only get one life I think I've still got friends to this day who are still doing exactly the same thing and one day they're gonna wake up they're gonna be 50 sitting in the prison cell and I didn't want that to be me you don't get any other chances after that I was running the gauntlet like that every single day so focusing on something other than myself was a big part of this as well so focusing on the animals the animal what the animals are going through the suffering of the animals and I think self-care is important and thinking about yourself is important to a certain extent but I wouldn't get like self-absorbed because that leads to depression and that leads to just me me me but if you focus on like say human beings outside of yourself helping the youth I wanted to get into the youth work or helping other people pull themselves out of gangs and but for me it was the animals the animals I felt were suffering more than any human in my vicinity and that was I really didn't understand the extent of the suffering till I've been an animal rights activist for a little while and you know just focusing on helping those beings and developing my platforms and every single day working to expose what happens to animals and persuade people to choose a different lifestyle has been a massive massive part of why I've stayed sober because that's way more important to me than than getting drunk and going down the pub and having a big fight you know like I just it doesn't do it for me anymore when I first put up my first post about being six months sober it was pretty funny you know because I just got out of prison I was one month out of prison six months sober and like I remember people going ah you know this is just a phase one year sober oh this is just a phase he's going to go back on it like he's going to get back on it two years sober I remember making my first two-year sober video and there I was like you know like I was a bit nervous and I was you can tell like I definitely wasn't as confident as I'm now then I had three years sober four years sober five years sober I remember thinking halfway through like about five years I was like maybe I can make it to 10 years you know then I had my six years sober seven years sober eight years sober last year and here we are nine years sober next year is my 10 years sober and that's a huge milestone that'll be a decade just no self-caused problems no real self-caused problems I mean I still obviously still get problems but nowhere near like the ones that I used to have my message to anyone who's trying to get sober you deserve better live a life of purpose outside of yourself help others if you're in a situation where you can have choice some people they need help because they're in a horrible situation they might be on the streets they might have no family they might not know where to start but many people can help themselves and I think that's a big takeaway message that you need to help yourself you need to pull yourself out of this no one's going to actually help you you can't rely on other people to do this for you you have to make that decision when you take your life into your own hands you start living your life your life doesn't happen to you they let the addiction take them and the next minute they're in prison or next minute they lost everything or next minute they've lost their life being in control of your life being in control of the decisions you make you got to be strong you got to be so strong you have to be stronger than those drugs and that alcohol and your friends like wanting to pull you into their hole with them you know you have to be really strong you have to be by yourself for a while if you knew me back then you would have thought I was lost hope there was no hope for me that's just some of my friends thought like you know he's gone my family as well my poor family my brothers sisters if you knew me back then you would have thought there's no way I would have made it to where I am now so the reason I'm saying that is because if I can do it then so can you here's to my nine years sober thank you to everyone who supported my animal rights activism my journey who's been with me since day dot thank you so much I appreciate it a lot and let's just hope I don't miss my 10 years sober and wake up the next morning and go the hell but thank you everyone and I'll see you all in the next video stay sober be vegan anyway be the change you want to see in the world good quote try to make a difference you know like you want to take action in your life and you know affect others around you positively and that's a gift you can sort of give back it's never too late to change your ways it's never too late so whatever hole you're in you can pull yourself out of that man because anything is possible