#68 – Brandon Crockett
LA Based Musician Shares His Recovery Story
Brandon Crockett is a 32 year sober father, husband, brother, and son. He began his business career in 2010 in the world of entertainment when he produced the indie-comedy feature film ‘CornerStore’ in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. On the heels of his success with producing several short and feature length films in Michigan, Brandon fulfilled his dream of moving to Los Angeles and opening a music studio in 2013. After 5 years running the studio Brandon sold the business in order to have more time at home with his wife and new born son. Today he primarily works in real estate investments but did recently release a music project titled ‘2004: A Trap Odyssey’ under the name Nigel Donovan. Brandon sights sobriety as being the top priority in his life stating that when he puts his sobriety first that all of the other things seem to work themselves out.
Check out Brandon’s recent project here.
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Episode Transcript
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hello beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame and I am your host. Today we have Brandon Crockett. Hoo. Brandon is a 32 year old, sober father, husband, brother and son. He began his business career in 2010 in the world of entertainment when he produced the indie-comedy feature film, CornerStore, in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. On the heels of his success with producing several short and feature length films in Michigan, Brandon fulfilled his dream of moving to Los Angeles, and opening up a music studio in 2013. After five years running the studio, Brandon sold the business in order to have more time at home with his wife and newborn son.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Today he primarily works in real estate investments but did recently release a music project titled 2004: A Trap Odyssey, under the name Nigel Donovan. Brandon cites sobriety as being the top priority in his life, stating that when he puts his sobriety first that all other things seem to work themselves out. Isn’t that the truth? I was so excited to talk to Brandon and listen to what his journey has been, and really get the perspective of what it’s also like to be a person of color, who is sober and Brandon definitely went between different crowds and was able to assimilate and so I think that was a part of coming into his own and he has just made an incredible sober life for himself in Los Angeles. And I hope you enjoy your time with Brandon as much as I did. All right, episode 68. Let’s do this. (Singing). Brandon, thank you so much for being here.
Brandon Crockett:
Thank you for having me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So how long have you been sober?
Brandon Crockett:
12 years now. My sobriety date’s April 28th, 2008.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Awesome. 12 years. Did you ever think you were going to be sober that long?
Brandon Crockett:
Absolutely not. No. Definitely not.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did anyone else think you were going to be sober that long?
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely not. No. Absolutely not. It’s still shocking to say because once you get past the, in my experience, once I got past the first few years, things have flown by and all of a sudden, it’s 12 years. But in the beginning, I never imagined that people still can’t believe it or would never believe six months. You know what I mean.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, totally. Was it your intention to get sober for a long time when you came in?
Brandon Crockett:
I got sober when I was 20. And I-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, the underage, never had a legal drink club.
Brandon Crockett:
I’m one of those. I’ve never had a drink in a bar-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Me too.
Brandon Crockett:
… my entire life.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, I’ve had a drink in a bar. But you are in the club of, never had a legal drink.
Brandon Crockett:
Correct. That’s absolutely right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yep, yep. Me too.
Brandon Crockett:
Never in life have I. But no, it wasn’t necessarily something that I thought, this is for life, or this is I’m going to make it, I know it necessarily. But I did know well enough that everything that I was doing just wasn’t working. And it was a point where I just knew no, it’s not going to work. I can’t go back to it. How long this is going to last, I have no idea. But I knew at that time, I didn’t have any reservations necessarily about, “Oh, I feel I need one more or maybe in a couple of months I can smoke.” I had gone in and out enough time so I get past that point at least.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Got it. Got it. Okay. So you grew up in Detroit.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I grew up in a small suburb outside of Detroit, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And are you in LA now?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, I live in Los Angeles now, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. Okay. And a small suburb of Detroit, and you were adopted.
Brandon Crockett:
I was. I was adopted at birth, two really lovely parents. I mean everybody, may… There’s a lot of people who’ve been adopted or had foster experiences or whatever that may be. I have an older sister who was also adopted at birth. We have different biological parents, but to me, unless you would have told me until I was told that I was adopted, I never would have known. You wouldn’t have known looking at our family that either my sister or myself are adopted. And I never, I mean, maybe subconsciously, but I never really felt too weird about it or out of place, per se about being adopted. My parents were great. I think they just couldn’t have kids, and they were well into their careers when we were adopted. So I had a little older parents, but yeah, no I was…
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So how old were you when they told you this?
Brandon Crockett:
I don’t remember. It’s interesting. People do ask me that question. And I don’t actually remember. I just always remember knowing.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, okay, I’ve heard that before, actually.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I always wonder what it would be like to be told that information and particularly feel like people tell their kids around anywhere from eight to 10. And a lot of the time and I’m trying to picture myself getting that information. I mean, to be fair, we did tell my sister she was adopted when she was eight to 10. And she’s not adopted. So we just tried to mess with her, we took all her photos out of the albums, and-
Brandon Crockett:
That’s incredible.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It was, it was. It’s important older sibling work that I had to do.
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely. Definitely. I’m the younger sibling, so I was definitely the one. I was also, I grew up around a lot of my cousins and my sister and I was really the only boy around.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, okay.
Brandon Crockett:
So I was raised around a lot of women, and I was the youngest, so I was definitely the butt of all the jokes [crosstalk 00:06:10]. But that’s great.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But now it works to your benefit.
Brandon Crockett:
Absolutely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Now you understand us.
Brandon Crockett:
Absolutely. I do, I do. I connect with women really well, better than men I would say. Just even on a friend level, on an understanding level, I feel like. Yeah. And it’s funny my mom was like, “I knew you would always be confident with women because you were just raised around all women.” [inaudible 00:06:34].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. It’s not a scary thing. Yeah, that’s amazing. So awesome. You had two loving parents. So you didn’t feel different in your family system, but you did feel different in your neighborhood. Is that-
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, tell me about that.
Brandon Crockett:
That’d be a fair thing to say. Well, again, I grew up in this area, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I’m sure just by the name you can tell, the area’s definitely more upper middle class. The majority, I wouldn’t say I was the only black kid, but the majority of people I grew up with were white and Jewish. And fairly well-off families. And it seemed liked everybody, parents were also the same age, 15 years younger than my parents. My parents were… I was adopted when they were 40. So my parents were a little older. And I was one of the only black kids at my school, I wasn’t Jewish, I wasn’t having a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah. You know what I mean? And my mom was a really, she was a very successful elementary school principal to which especially from where she came from, she went to the University of Michigan, she came from really nothing and that was really great for our family, and she was the only one out of her siblings and her family that really moved into an upper middle class area.
Brandon Crockett:
But we still, as a kid I think it’s easy to compare and instead of seeing the similarities. So I always felt just a little, oh well we don’t do this like other people do or all my other friends have this or everybody had new cars at 16 I guess. You know what I mean? Little things that I think subconsciously made me just feel a little different.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did you feel more different because the being black or not being Jewish?
Brandon Crockett:
No. I think, not being Jewish, that’s funny. I don’t know, I guess a combination of both. But I think the weird thing for me too, was when I would… I spent a lot of time, again I spent a lot of time with family, cousins, aunts. Everybody went to our grandma’s house when we were kids. All the parents just dropped off all the cousins at our grandma’s house, we’d always hang out. And I remember being, I couldn’t have been older than 10. Probably seven or something, and being with my cousins and one of her friends was over, and I sound pretty nasally now, but as a kid, I probably was like, “Hi, I’m Brandon.” Super and… And I remember friends being hood and being like, “Why does your cousin talk like that?” And I didn’t understand what she was saying at the time. But that’s been my experience, is I always felt like I never fully fit in, in the neighborhood that I would be around with my family and my cousins. And I never really fully fit in with my friends that I grew up with.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Yeah. That makes sense. And your family and your cousins, they were not in Bloomfield Hills?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. No, they weren’t. My grandma and all my cousins were in the city of Detroit, on the east side of Detroit, which, looking back as I’ve gotten older, it’s been a huge blessing for me as I got sober and became comfortable, just who I am as a person and a man, who I was made up to be. My experiences, where some people may be uncomfortable in certain areas or around certain people, I just going to inner cities like Detroit, which can be a very tough city, was always a normal thing to me as a kid. It was never foreign to me as a child. So as I grew up, even though I didn’t grow up actually in the city, very much around it, going to church, going to cousins, as I’m older, I still have a certain type of comfort level and understanding in those areas where I feel. And vice versa. I live on the border of Beverly Hills area now. I think some people can feel uncomfortable in stuffy situations and whatever. I don’t know. I just…
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. When I was dating, but I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, so this was a long time ago.
Brandon Crockett:
Congratulations.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, thank you. I know, right? So this was a long time ago, but we would call a man like you portable.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Like, “Oh, he’s very portable.”
Brandon Crockett:
I would say so.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You can take him in any situation and he’ll be okay. Like, “Oh, no, you don’t want that one. He’s not portable.”
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely. I have some advantages, and I have tons of disadvantages. But I think I am a portable human.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You’re portable, there you go.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, I’m pretty comfortable. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. So I mean, it sounds like… I think what’s great about I mean, there’s lots of things that are great about your situation. But as it relates to being an alcoholic and being in recovery, is that so many of us, it’s something tragic happened to us. And it probably didn’t make us an alcoholic, but it’s an easy thing to point to. And so in your situation, with having this amazing childhood, having these great parents, having this eclectic background and upbringing and exposure, that is a really valuable experience for people to hear about because I hear a lot of people are like, “Well, I don’t have any reason to be an alcoholic. Nothing happened. My parents were good to me. I was lucky,” or whatever it is. And they’re like, “What’s wrong with me?” It’s almost like they feel more screwed up than the people who actually had the trauma. Because you can point to, I can say, “Oh, well, this happened. And that made me blah, blah, blah.” But the people who had the good childhoods, they’re like, “Well, what is wrong with me? I had a good childhood and I’m still drinking. I’m still smoking. What’s wrong with me?”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And so I really think it’s important for people who don’t have that thing they point to, to tell their story because I can’t tell you how many people tell me, “Ashley, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Nothing happened.” And then I’m like, “Nothing needs to happen.” This is not a happen situation. This is a compulsive urge to change the way you feel. Nothing needs to happen. So how did you get to the place where you started to struggle? Or what was your experimentation or your entrance exposure to alcohol and drugs?
Brandon Crockett:
Well, my exposure entry into everything, I mean, I think it’s interesting what you were saying. Because I know a lot of people too that have that same, I didn’t have all these weird things happen when I was a kid. And at the time, I think it’s just a part of being a kid or a teenager where it does seem my life’s the worst and it sucks and these things happen. As I did mention, I was really close to my grandma, my mom’s mom. And she died when I was in middle school, which was when I started smoking weed and drinking with my friends. And that was by middle school you’re pretty aware, you know what I mean? For me by 11, 12, I understood what was going on and I was very, very sad about that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That piece of it, just to stop on that, unless it was a tragedy, but typically that’s a coping mechanism for a natural thing that happens in your life. Is someone elderly passes away in your life that you loved very much. But it’s not what we would consider a tragedy, but it really points to the, goes back to using as a coping mechanism to not deal with feelings. So I think even more so, that experience shows that you were trying to deal with feelings that you didn’t know how to deal with but it wasn’t a tragedy. But it’s still a coping mechanism.
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely. And I think in general, my family, we don’t deal with feelings in the most normal way. We’re just weird that. Everyone to this day, I mean, I love my family to death. But we’re just weird. I was raised that way and I think it [crosstalk 00:15:15].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What does weird with feelings look like? Because I’ve seen some weird feelings.
Brandon Crockett:
I’ll give the example that stands out the most, and I give the most, was the day that I was moving to Los Angeles, I moved here May 9th of 2013. I was in the car, my mom, my dad and my sister driving me to the airport. And my dad who’s passed away now, God rest his soul, looks to my mom and says, “Did you tell Brandon?” And I’m like, “Tell me what?” They’re like, “No, we didn’t tell him yet.” I’m like, “Tell me what? What do you need to tell me?” And my mom and my, I don’t know who said it, but they were like, my sister April, who’s sitting next to me has cancer. And I’m like, “What do you mean she has cancer dude? What are you talking about?”
Brandon Crockett:
And then that was the whole 45 minute car ride to the airport, was just like, “Yeah, I have thyroid cancer and it’s going to be okay. But this is this.” And I’m like, “How long have you guys known this? Why would you not?” My family is just so weird like that. My sister’s great now, she’s very much past that situation. But it’s just a very much an example of… It’s more so my mom deals-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
… it’s just how she is. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right, right. They’ve clearly compartmentalized the situation and therefore it’s going to be presented to you as compartmentalized.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right.
Brandon Crockett:
And I do that now too, which I guess it’s ingrained in me, it’s weird, I try to get better at it, but I’m not. I’m really bad at telling people things.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, interesting.
Brandon Crockett:
People were like, “Oh, this just happen to you.” I was like, “Yeah, whatever.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right, right.
Brandon Crockett:
[inaudible 00:16:58].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It’s a good thing you’re portable though, so it’s-
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely I’m portable.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Just say look, “I’m portable, relax.”
Brandon Crockett:
But I think I got [crosstalk 00:17:09]-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, so you-
Brandon Crockett:
… the more you’re asking me. Yeah, sorry.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, no, no. It was great. All topics are on topic. Okay, so your grandmother passes away, you start smoking weed?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I was smoking weed. I mean the first time I smoked weed was with my friend Collin, this is going to sound very rich kid, we stole my friend Andrew’s, I forget his last name, my friend Andrew’s boat. He told us not to go on it go, we were like go on his pontoon boat, behind his mom’s house. We rolled a joint and smoke it, just me and Collin. Because we knew Andrew wouldn’t be cool with us smoking. And I just, there’s a lot of people that have that experience and that share in the rooms of, “Oh, I found it. And this is relieving my 13 year old stresses.” I wouldn’t say I had that moment. But I definitely, I was always, that was not a great kid. I was always in trouble. I was always doing shit I wasn’t supposed to.
Brandon Crockett:
And I definitely had this rebel moment of I’m doing what I want, we’re smoking and then high. And I just remember I eat a lot of candy and we went back into Andrew’s house and I’m eating his bag of Twizzlers. And I’m just like, “This is tight. This is cool.” You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
I feel good. I’m like-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, honestly, it sounds cool right now.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. No, it was really fun. He yelled at us for a minute, like, “Dude, my mom’s going to kill us.” But it was not a big deal.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
But again, at that moment, I don’t necessarily think I was like, “I found the solution.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right, right.
Brandon Crockett:
That feeling was like, “This is cool. I like this. This is fun. Let’s do it again next weekend.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes complete sense to me. I was going to ask you, I was like, so you definitely got good weed if you were in with the Jews in the suburbs. Because know that they were… So that’s great. Nothing worse than, that was so funny, I just, sidebar is that you’ll appreciate this. So a bunch of people at my company were talking about swag, giving people swag, company swag or whatever. But they were calling it schwag. And so everybody was calling it schwag. It was that I was in this big meeting and nobody in the meeting had a history with drugs and I was like, “I got to stop everybody.”
Brandon Crockett:
It’s incredible.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You can’t say schwag. They were like, “Why?” I’m like, “It’s not schwag, it’s swag. Because schwag is terrible marijuana.”
Brandon Crockett:
Oh, my God.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It was like, “Someone gives you schwag.” And everybody just looks at me and like, “Oh, my God, what have I done?”
Brandon Crockett:
That’s [crosstalk 00:19:52].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Just educating the public.
Brandon Crockett:
I haven’t heard that word in a really long time. But that’s so funny that in a corporate setting, that that was happening also.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And they were like, “Should we give them some schwag?” I was like, “Oh, my God, I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Brandon Crockett:
It definitely wasn’t schwag, it was really good purples, I remember. But I think we literally paid $50 for a half gram.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Of course.
Brandon Crockett:
I was from Collin’s brother. They ripped us off.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Of course. How could they not?
Brandon Crockett:
They definitely gave us a joint for 50 bucks.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Brandon Crockett:
But I would have done the same thing to them [inaudible 00:20:25].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So did you smoke in both communities? Did you smoke with your family and your cousins? And basically was it a thing you did over time, just in one part of your life? Was it compartmentalized or was it you smoked weed with whomever?
Brandon Crockett:
No, yeah. It was very much just my friends and my home area setting. Yeah, I was probably going to… My cousins aren’t in any of that stuff. A few male cousins who are, I can get into that later. But no, it wasn’t until later in my life. Later in my teens that I started, was more connected to street situations with them. But it just started out as drinking before school dances and smoking weed before school dances in middle school, on the weekends. And looking back, there was a moment that at the time I didn’t think was strange, but by the end of eighth grade, beginning of ninth grade, I was just like, “I love smoking weed.” We do this every weekend. But there was just this moment that clicked with me, it was like, “Why don’t I do it every day though? It’s so great.”
Brandon Crockett:
And at the time, I just thought that was just like, “Oh, I’m a genius. Seriously.” I was like, “I could smoke weed every day instead of just the weekends.” Not knowing that that was addict behavior. I just thought it was literally I’m smarter than everyone else. You guys only smoke on the weekends, why don’t we just smoke every day? So by ninth grade, it was very much that’s, yeah, that’s what I did and I didn’t know that it wasn’t abnormal. I thought everybody who smoked weed, snuck smoking weed at their house after school, by themselves, I just thought that was normal.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And did your sister know? Did your parents know? And at what-
Brandon Crockett:
Not at that time. I don’t think I really ever got caught smoking weed until maybe 11th grade maybe probably. No, my sister… Everybody in my family is pretty square and normal. I was just always the, I don’t know, just like the little nutcase running around. Always in trouble. I was actually so bad in elementary school. So my mom was a principal at one elementary school in the district, but we lived on the west side of Bloomfield, so I went to a different elementary school kindergarten through fourth grade but I got into so much trouble and was suspended so many times that they were like, “He cannot come back here in fifth grade.” So fifth grade, I had to go to my mom’s school, which everybody knows, my mom just loves the shit out of me. So it was like, I got a little special treatment even when I got in trouble and I was her son. So I think the teachers were nicer to me. But yeah, I couldn’t even go to the same elementary school because I had just gotten in so much trouble.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What kind of trouble?
Brandon Crockett:
I bullied kids, I was mean, I was just rude. I was just, I don’t know. I didn’t do schoolwork, I didn’t listen. You know what I mean? Probably in gym class. I just was a bad, I don’t know, I just always when I was really young was just on my own. I can do whatever I want.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You just weren’t interested in school, it sounds like. Just was not-
Brandon Crockett:
Not at all. No. Hell yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
Not interested in school at all. Definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How did things progress from weed? Or when did weed become the problem?
Brandon Crockett:
I don’t even know. Weed never seemed like a problem. I played football, basketball and I ran track in high school. And before football practice, before games, I’d smoke tons of weed it. It never ever, ever seemed weird or bad or I couldn’t handle it. I obviously since elementary school knew I didn’t like school, I didn’t do well in school. So by high school, I still didn’t care much for it, or I didn’t have any direction in my life at that point. But it was I don’t do good in these learning situations. Side note, I was diagnosed, which I think most kids were, with ADD in the ’90s. And given, I don’t know if I was given Adderall, but definitely Concerta which is the same thing, as a young kid, which I think also looking back was not a good thing.
Brandon Crockett:
But yeah, I think what we did do though, was smoking weed every single day constantly. I think it did lower my inhibitions or my ability to make sound decisions and by 10th grade I started getting into psychedelics and taking a lot of LSD and smoking DMT and listening to Pink Floyd.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I haven’t heard about DMT in a while. Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
Yes. Crazy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, I don’t know a lot of stoners who are known for their sound decision making.
Brandon Crockett:
Right. Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, that’s just not a… So I think you’re in good company.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. No. But that was where the progression was. It was like, “This is a crowd. We smoke weed every day.” And then on the weekends, we could try a little acid. Okay, that’s fine. Nothing crazy here. The interesting thing is I’ve never tried ecstasy and I’ve never done cocaine before or meth or anything. At that time, I was still very like, “Ah, ecstasy, they’re weird drugs.” I went to DEMF, it’s the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. I went there one year I wasn’t even into EDM music really, but liked to take acid and I just remember people taking E and being like, “That’s not the type of drug I do.” It’s very, just a different crowd takes E or does coke. But there was just, I feel that progression of once I’ve tried LSD or these other things, it’s like I’m not as afraid. Oh, that wasn’t as bad. We grew up on these commercials or things of drugs are going to… You smoke a joint and you’re going to-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You’re going to spontaneously combust.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, yeah. So when that doesn’t happen, and you’re like, “What do you mean? I smoke weed all day. And I just played an amazing football game. I think I’m okay, actually. So maybe they were lying to me about the other things too.” And I think being a teenager and confused and just trying to navigate teenage life, all of those things play a role of what I was willing to try or interested in trying or ended up trying, I should say.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, no, I mean, that makes complete sense to me. The DARE program I think, it left out the part that drugs are fun. It forgot to acknowledge that piece. Obviously we wouldn’t do them. If you just tell us drugs are just bad, and it’s just bad for you and you’re just going to drop dead if you smoke a joint. Well, then someone does it, they find out not only are they fun, but they didn’t drop dead. Now you’ve lost complete credibility. We’re not going to believe anything you say. So I think it was just a complete shit show on that front. So how did things start to get out of control for you? What was that, we talk about that invisible line you cross. And I don’t actually know totally where my invisible line is. But I know in the time period where I crossed that invisible line where there’s no going back from that. Where was that for you?
Brandon Crockett:
I think it was when I did try oxycodone or Oxycontin at the time. And again, not really knowing what it was. I had taken Xanax before, Vicodins. And again, I just thought it was the same thing. What happened was, when I was in high school, I sold a lot of weed. And I would sell weed to this kid who had already graduated. I would go to his house every day for lunch, and he ended up starting to trade me or… I had tried Oxy one time. And I was like, “Oh, that was fun. That was nice.” Same thing. “I didn’t die.” I didn’t move from a chair for three hours. And I felt incredible. That was amazing.
Brandon Crockett:
But again, after I tried it the first time it wasn’t something that I did every day after that. Probably three months later, six months later, where this guy that I was weed to, was like, “Dude, I’ll give you a little bump for some weed.” And I was like, “Sure. Okay, cool. I like that shit. It feels nice.” And I think it was that repetition that I didn’t even notice was every day, for lunch, I’d go by his house, I drop him some weed off, I snort a little line of Oxy to feel cool for the rest of the day. And then there was a point where, okay, well, I’ve just done that for 10 days in a row. For some reason I feel weird right now I need Oxy. And there’s that line, it’s one day and then the next.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
10 days in a row. Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
Without even noticing it. Without having any real knowledge of how addictive things are, or what physical drug opiate dependency is. I don’t know these things at 17 years old. I just, this feels great. I’m floating. This is awesome.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. So it just you dig yourself into that ditch, it’s like spending money on a credit card. It’s you just spending and spending and spending all weekend having fun and then you’re like, “How did I just spend $30,000? Now I’m screwed. What the f? And now I got to do something.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment. Hi, this is Ashley Loeb Blassingame. I am here to tell you that National Online Recovery Day will debut this year on September 22nd. In celebration, Lionrock Recovery is sponsoring a live sober influencer panel on getting clean and staying connected. Join me as I moderate an hour long interactive discussion with three prominent panelists live on the Lionrock Recovery’s Facebook page, September 22nd at 2:00 PM Pacific Time, 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Mark it down. Visit www.nationalonlinerecoveryday.com for more event details.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. And I think the thing for me with opiates was, I don’t know if you knew this but I did not. I knew that people got addicted. I had some information. I did not know that with opiates, you get sick. Once you’re addicted you get sick and you get well.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You don’t get high.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, correct.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And I remember getting to this place where it was like, okay wait a minute, well, well, we’re not getting high anymore I’m just getting sick and then I get well. Then I get normal. I’m like, “This is terrible. This is absolutely terrible.” I think with the other drugs, you’d still get a little bit high. There was still something going on there. But with opiates it just, the longer you do it, the more it’s just sick and well. And that part, I was super pissed that no one told me about.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. You don’t know. And it just happens. It just all just happened. And then that same friend who I was doing that with every day, there came a point in time, because people would just ask me, how do you start doing heroin at 17? And there was a point in time where I went to his house, again, this is probably two months into doing Oxys every day and knowing, “Okay, I need it a little bit. Just like I need weed. They’re the same thing.” This thought.
Brandon Crockett:
And then going over there one day and he’s like, “Oh, dude, I don’t have any Oxys today, but I have a little bit of dope, a little bit of heroin. It’s literally the same thing, but it’s cheaper.” I’m like, “It’s the same thing of nothing. Make a decision right now in this moment. Do you want it or do you want to feel like shit for the rest of the day?” Sure. I’ve tried everything else literally again, nothing’s happened, I’m okay, I’m fine. Sure. And then you cross that line again. And it’s like somebody says someday, “I’ve tried heroin dude, it’s f’ing, it’s nothing. It’s same, it’s like a [crosstalk 00:32:41].”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Well, because when people say heroin you think that it… I remember the first time seeing heroin and you guys probably had, but we on the West Coast referred to it as China white. And you guys probably had powder heroin. We had tar heroin, black tar heroin. So I never had powder heroin. And I remember someone bringing out, the first time seeing it, and in my head, heroin was a boogeyman that was going to come into the room. When someone said, “Oh, I’m a heroin addict or heroin,” it was almost the substance itself had some evil, I don’t know, theory, like it was going to hurt me right then and there.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And there was something about it just being put out and looking at it. And it was just this, I don’t know, it looked like a piece of hard candy and it wasn’t. The whole experience did not match, particularly the first couple of times, did not match what my head had made it to be. And so I was able to say. Seeing it, and then trying it and I was okay and it was just this little whatever and it was not this big. That basically made it okay in my head. Because had I been like, “Well, it looks okay, but it’s actually really dangerous. And it’s actually…” Had it not lived in this bubble in my head, I probably would have been more realistic about it. But because I was like, “Well, this, isn’t a… People are just crazy. They’re just saying,” all the things that I told myself and then you cross that line and yeah, I mean particularly if you’re already addicted. And it is cheaper.
Brandon Crockett:
I think I had a little different experience too. It’s easier when you grow up in the suburbs, and you don’t necessarily see drug addicts every day on the street. I think it was interesting with how I grew up in a small suburban area where it’s not in your face every day that you actually see the results of drug addiction. You don’t know or have these everyday stories of this person was normal and now they’re not and now they live on the street. You have this idea when you’re 15, 16, 17 years old that, oh, well, those people on drugs in the streets, you’re like that’s probably just how they are.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
They were born that way.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, they were literally born like that. You have no idea, these are normal people. And the interesting thing for me is that is exactly what I turned into, was a homeless junkie, teenage junkie running around the streets of Chicago and Detroit, with no family that wanted to speak to me or you know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How did you get from… Take us from Bloomfield to the streets of Chicago.
Brandon Crockett:
So I again, I had no direction in life. In high school, I had no real idea of what I wanted to do. But I did in 11th grade. I had a film teacher who was really cool, who was really great. She got me interested in film and art and it was creative and I liked to… It was like my own shit, she used to let me come there after school and edit videos. And it was something I finally in school liked by 11th grade. I got into Columbia College in Chicago. She helped me get into that school. She also helped me get into my second rehab, which is interesting. She helped me. Yeah, one day I was in class and had a break down and she literally sat there with me on our lunch break and called a bunch of rehabs and she’s an angel, Donna [inaudible 00:36:29].
Brandon Crockett:
And so I got into Columbia College in Chicago, which is Chicago’s like, Vegas to LA, it’s four hours, it’s very close. I even have a cousin that lives there. So it was a creative art school. And I went there, I’d been to rehab I think already two or three times going into Chicago, going into college. I was on a 30 day clean situation feeling, I got this new city I’ll be all right. And within the first 10 days of being there I found some shit on the streets and I was off and running. And there was an entire year, school year of… I mean, I got kicked out of the dorms by the second semester and kicked out of school by second semester. So I got kicked out of the dorms for stealing shit, I think.
Brandon Crockett:
Well, I didn’t get kicked out of school. I just didn’t go to any of my classes second semester. I maintained it, first semester I went to classes, showed up, I was shooting dope, showing up to school not no whatever. Second semester there was no time. This was full time job. There’s no way I’m robbing, stealing, I got to… So I didn’t go to classes and then the dorms, I’m having a really hard time remembering right now. But there was an incident. I stole something. I don’t know. I got kicked out of the dorms.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
When did you move from snorting to shooting?
Brandon Crockett:
In college, in Chicago. I actually, it’s interesting in life how we find our people.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
I was in class, in Chicago, and there was this kid. I’m still friends with him on Facebook today. And I look over and I’m like, “This f’ing guy is nodding out right now, man, what does he know that I don’t know?” You know what I mean? So again, I’m the shyest person in the world at that point in my life, but I go up to him after class and I’m like, “What’s up, dude?” And he was opposite of me, he’s out of a movie, this vibrant, skinny junky kid, like, “What’s up, dude?” And I was Trainspotting, literally, Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting.
Brandon Crockett:
And it was I told him I snorted, he started taking me to some of his spots and blah, blah. And he’s like, “Well, dude, it works so much easier.” And I’m deathly afraid of needles when I was a kid. I was deathly afraid. Even it’s interesting now, I’m still afraid of needles again. I’ve reverted back to, I turn into a five year old at the doctor and I’m like urgh. But for a couple of years I was-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Not afraid.
Brandon Crockett:
… not afraid at all. So he’s like, “Dude, it’s way quicker, it feels better.” All the shit. Okay. I watched him do it again one of those barriers, and I was one of those dudes too, walked around. Oh, my God, I would never shoot dope, that’s gross. What’s wrong with you people? You’re a real junkie, if you shoot. Again, that barrier was broken. And once it was, it was like, “Why the f didn’t anybody tell me about this earlier?” I can’t even snort it anymore. And it just got worse and worse.
Brandon Crockett:
And Chicago is a little different. There was housing projects where I used to go to get dope. There would be times where, I had a bus pass from school. So I’d take the bus pass, but I think I lost it or something at some point and I would walk, I lived at seventh in state and I used to go down to like 28th, 29th in state. So I’d walk 20, 30 blocks down there and back in the snow no matter what. Because sometimes all I would have is 10 bucks, that’s all I have is 10 bucks. I don’t even have bus fare, I got to get there. Like you said. And at that point it was just to get well. You know what I mean? High wasn’t even a thing anymore. It was like, “Well, I’m sick and I can’t get out of bed. So I need to.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So when you lost your housing, what did that look like?
Brandon Crockett:
I didn’t really have many belongings. And luckily, it was only for two or three weeks, maybe a month. I had one friend from home that lived there in a nice ass apartment. And just like any good junkie that lasted for about a week until he was like, “Dude, you got to get the f away from me and out of my place.” Sorry about my language. He kicked me out. I was living on the streets or sleeping outside. I stayed at the Jesus Saves Mission a couple of nights just bouncing around Chicago. And then when my parents came to pick me up, they had no idea and I just played it out.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So they didn’t know you were kicked out of school or the dorm?
Brandon Crockett:
I don’t think they knew until the semester was actually over how I wasn’t going to my classes, and I basically just had fails on every class. They never knew I was kicked out of the dorms.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay.
Brandon Crockett:
[crosstalk 00:41:25].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So they have no idea that you are homeless in Chicago.
Brandon Crockett:
No. No. Oh, no. My mom would had a heart attack.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, right. Okay.
Brandon Crockett:
She didn’t know. She didn’t know. Again, I was homeless in Chicago for maybe a month, three, four weeks. Bouncing around people’s couches. I left some of my stuff in my old dorm room because it was towards the end of the semester.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So they weren’t putting anyone in there.
Brandon Crockett:
No. And I think all I really had, that my parents picked me up with was a TV and clothes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
And a DVD.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
DVDs.
Brandon Crockett:
And honestly I don’t even know if I had DVD. I probably sold them. I sold everything. I sold everything. There’s no way I had things. So yeah they picked-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So your parents come get you.
Brandon Crockett:
That’s actually a gnarly story. Yeah. They picked me up, I used to do these things where I’d, I don’t know, I told them I had to go to the bathroom at this Panera Bread, I was in the building and then I go in there with this same kid that I was getting high with, like one last hurrah we’re in a stall together and my dad comes in the bathroom. And I just saw his feet or something, I don’t know. I knew he was in there.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Are you in a stall with this kid?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Man, I am in a stall with my homie-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
He’s like this is either-
Brandon Crockett:
… shooting up.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
This is either whoos or news.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Good thing, that time my dad didn’t catch me. But that actually happened a whole other time when I was back in Michigan after college and it was really sad where I made my dad, my parents aren’t very knowledgeable at these things. So I used to tell them, “Oh, I have to go this one liquor store in Pontiac, in the hood, they have two for one cigarettes. You got to take me to this one.” And I went there and I’d run around the store, grab dope and then I got in his car and I’m like, “Can we go to McDonald’s? I’m really hungry.” And we’d go to this McDonald’s and I’m in the bathroom. I was also really bad at hitting my veins-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, God.
Brandon Crockett:
… when I was doing drugs. And I was in-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You were a hot mess.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I was in this bathroom for probably 45 minutes, when my dad who’s 6’4” comes in there at some point, he’s like, “Are you okay? What are you doing in the bathroom for 45 minutes?” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just need a minute. Just give me a minute.” And he looks over the thing, he was tall, he looks over and he just sees me sitting there, I’m trying to shoot up and that was-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t imagine.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, man.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Even to this day, it’s a very heartbreaking thing to think about.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What was the look on his face?
Brandon Crockett:
I mean, I think it was one of those things that you’re just so confused and hurt and destroyed that he was just like, “Come out. Come out. What are you doing?”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Brandon Crockett:
The crazy thing about that, was in that wild moment of I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline or what but I just finally hit a vein and it was did it and came out and it was so crazy. Getting in his car. And yeah, that was the summer of 2007, went to a rehab then so that was probably my third rehab. Because of my college, I graduated high school ’06, went to college fall of ’06, spring of ’07 that incident happened.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
so he actually knew, come to think of it, I’m picturing him have no idea you’ve ever used drugs or ever it being a problem. But come to think of it, you’ve been to two rehabs already.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So it’s not-
Brandon Crockett:
No, it’s not.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
… that far fetched.
Brandon Crockett:
No. No.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay.
Brandon Crockett:
So my high school girlfriend, both of her parents were 20 something years A.A. sober. And she was my high school love, dated most of high school on and off. So her dad who looked at me and knew what was going on got me into my first rehab.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Got it. Okay. Okay. So your parents knew that you had a drug problem?
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. They knew I had a drug problem, but again, having no experience with it-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. They thought you were fixed.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Just like any normal human that has no idea of this stuff.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, right.
Brandon Crockett:
They were like-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
There were like, “Oh, you went to rehab.”
Brandon Crockett:
… “You go to rehab and then you’re fixed. Okay, cool. Great.” Oh, maybe-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, right.
Brandon Crockett:
… he needs one more time. Okay.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. So you go to your third rehab, and you come out of there.
Brandon Crockett:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That was summer of ’07. Stayed sober maybe 30 days, started getting high with some girl that I had met there. And I was just back in my parents’ house the summer or fall of ’07, not going back to college. Huge disappointment in life. And doing the same thing back and forth. And then Christmas of ’07, I stole gifts. Everybody’s gifts.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, geez.
Brandon Crockett:
We got these gifts, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, no.
Brandon Crockett:
Everybody got gifts and they were literally portable DVD players, I’m like, “I own this shit now.” I’m like all this stuff [crosstalk 00:46:28].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay I feel you. We’re about the same age.
Brandon Crockett:
I took them to the dope house thinking for some reason nobody was going to notice all of their Christmas gifts missing.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
oH, my God.
Brandon Crockett:
Literally two hours later my parents were like, “What the f happened to everything?”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You were like, “Santa came back.”
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I was like, “I don’t know man. Nobody was here, I guess.” Remembering these stories and talking about it, it’s so crazy right now. So sad. I did that. And then my dad was… And that was the first time even my sister broke down and was screaming, crying. It was that moment. And those moments that it’s hard unless you’ve had experience with it, where you just sit there even with the best intentions, it’s like you’re still a shell of yourself. So I’m looking at this happen and it’s I want to feel bad, but honestly I don’t. I’m watching my sister cry, my mom in tears and I’m even even a human.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, so I’ve had that experience. I’m picturing exactly the experience where my parents are sitting on the stairs and I’m telling them, in that moment, “Look, I don’t really care how you feel, because this is what I need to do. And I’m just here for the money and the shelter.” Literally telling them and they’re like, “We love you,” saying all this stuff. And I’m just like, “Cool.” And I think what happens is that, and I’m picturing your situation, is you’re so shut down, and you have to in order to survive in this craziness, you have to become somebody else. You have to, in order to survive. And so the other thing I felt was you do not. They’re crying, they’re upset and I’m like, “You don’t even understand what happens if I don’t do this.”
Brandon Crockett:
Right, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You don’t get it. And so my pain, because I know what’s going to happen, my pain feels bigger or looks bigger than their pain in that moment. And so I think that was part of why it was hard for me to… It’s like, you’re crying because I took your DVD player but you don’t understand it. If I don’t take your DVD player, my skin is going to light on fire. My eyes will never stop watering. I’m not going to sleep for a week. What are you crying about? This isn’t a big deal. What I’m dealing with is a big deal.
Brandon Crockett:
Right. I’ve never heard anybody, in all my 12 years of being sober verbalize it like that, but that is absolutely right. And that’s incredible. To hear you just even put it into words like that, that’s what it was. And also the things that you’re seeing out there and-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right, right, right. You’re like, “What do you know about,” that was the other thing, “what do you know about anything? You live in this little happy bubble.” And you’re so angry. I don’t know, I felt I was so angry at everything that it just, of course you and I look back and I know you’re a parent. So as parents I look back and as a mom I’m thinking about looking over that stall or seeing my kid, right? And it’s just like, oh, it just hits you but in the moment, you are a shell of yourself and you’re so angry and you’ve seen so much and you’re just you’re so tired. And you feel such shit about yourself. There’s no room left to feel shitty for someone else. It’s like-
Brandon Crockett:
Right, yeah. I had no emotions about it at the time.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
At all. None. And they kicked me out and that was the next road in my next stint of homelessness, where my dad was like, “You can’t live here anymore. We’ll find you a rehab.” At that time again, I’m… My birthday is the day after Christmas, so I guess I had just turned 20.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
My birthday is December 27th.
Brandon Crockett:
Oh, wow. That’s crazy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What year?
Brandon Crockett:
’87.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I’m ’86. Okay.
Brandon Crockett:
That’s crazy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. So you know what that’s like?
Brandon Crockett:
Oh, yeah, Christmas fading.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Brandon Crockett:
There was no birthday for me that year.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No. Yeah, yeah. Right.
Brandon Crockett:
Nobody is celebrating. I was 20, so I was still under their insurance. And he said, “We’ll get you into a rehab, but however long it is, after that, you cannot come back here.” So it was 30 days. I got high in that rehab, because I’m crazy. And yeah, so that was January of ’08 and my sobriety date is April 28th of ’08. So I went to this halfway house.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So take me to you getting sober. What was the change? What was the reason that it finally-
Brandon Crockett:
So I lived in this halfway house, parents wouldn’t talk to me, sister hated me, I had no friends, kicked out of college. I mean, I gave you the rundown of where my life was at. There was this guy who worked at that rehab, the last one I went to. His name was Lee. I had actually gone to that rehab twice. So that was my second time there. I knew Lee, he’s this old shiny suit wearing black dude, super prison four times, Cadillacs, very reformed, loud, tells me I’m an idiot, which I needed. He’s like, “You’re dumb. Your ideas are stupid.”
Brandon Crockett:
He had this thing in rehab, where I went to this all male rehab, and he would tell these grown men, all of us, say, “Do you love your mother?” And everybody, “Of course, I love my…” and he’s like, “You don’t love your f’ing mother. If you loved your mother, you wouldn’t let her around a drug addict like yourself.” He was very hard. But people needed it. And we all needed it. And so I lived at Lee’s house which was again, it was eight guys that just basically paid him rent, that were coming out of this rehab. And some of us stayed sober some of us didn’t at the time, but when I got there again, and I was high the day I got there, and he knew. And he didn’t say anything in front of my parents, and then he pulled me aside afterwards. But I mean, he treated me like a son, he called me a son years into my sobriety, because he never had kids. I got hired at that house for months, like I said, until April. And there was a moment where…
Brandon Crockett:
So basically, I would have these times in there where I’d get 14 days, I’d get seven days, I get whatever, the back and forth. And I think at one point I’d gotten maybe two weeks and he was always… Because he knew how my parents were. They have no idea about the street and they want to be very soothed. So he’s like, “He’s doing good,” and reassured them a little bit. And long story short, I came up on 300 bucks which was like a million dollars at the time. And I took that money and I bought 250 bucks worth of dope, were in a carton of new ports so E&J. I was real dirty too.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Ready to go.
Brandon Crockett:
And ready to rock. And I had everything. So I had this moment where I had everything. I had enough dope for three days. Nobody’s going to bother me in this dirty disgusting basement that I live in. I sit there, I listen to Alice In Chains and watch Celebrity Rehab. And just in this dark, so weird. I used to watch Celebrity Rehab in there. I’m in this dark, this dungeon of a room place but I have everything. And then I had this moment of just waking up, get high, I got it or even shoot and have enough to give me through the day. And I had this moment that even this is not enough.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Brandon Crockett:
What happens now? This is going to go away. Even this, where I have a carton of cigarettes, literally I was smoking them in the room, nobody’s bothering me and it’s still isn’t enough. It still has not fixed the problem. And he had kicked me out right before then and I was homeless again for a week. But he did it as a joke or a test, he told me later, but I needed it. I was sleeping again, I’m sleeping in crack houses in Detroit. I’m looking at my life of where I’m at 20 years old, no family, sleeping in this crack house with a dude with a pistol bigger than my body. It was just, wow, how did we end up here?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Yeah. How did we end up?
Brandon Crockett:
How did we end up here? And I had a moment of clarity then, of that last homelessness. And I had a moment of clarity when I was in my room getting high and by myself and there’s one morning I woke up, I shot up. I don’t remember anything except for just waking back up an hour later, and there’s still a belt on my arm and a needle. So whatever happened in that hour happened, and I was freaked out. Everybody was at work. Nobody was there, I could have died. Nothing but it was it. It just was it. I knew in that moment, this is going to suck. This is going to hurt really bad. I cannot just smoke weed sometimes, I cannot just drink a little bit of alcohol, I can’t just pop pills, I can’t do heroin on the weekends. None of it is it’s not working. I’ve tried it. I was tired.
Brandon Crockett:
I’ve related it to being in a abusive relationship or any relationship in life, when you’re done. You’re done. You know. You might take that person back 1000 times, but that one time, you’ve had enough was my moment and I was like, “This is going to suck.” Like you mentioned earlier, seven straight days, I could not sleep, cold sweats. I mean, Lee was also the guy where he knew I was withdrawing and one night, it’s 4:00 in the morning, I finally fall asleep. So he kicks. He’s always teaching lessons.
Brandon Crockett:
He kicked me out of my regular room and made me sleep on literally a cot in the hallway. And I couldn’t sleep tossing and turning all night cold sweats. It’s 4:00 AM. I’m like, “F this. I’m going into my old room. There’s nobody even in there.” Sneak back in there, I finally fall asleep. He comes down an hour later, “What are you doing here? Get your ass back on the cot.”I’m really crying, “Oh, my God, please let me…” But I needed that. I can look back at those moments now and just that, it’s where it takes me. It’s where I go. I’m extreme when it comes to that-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, I mean-
Brandon Crockett:
… lifestyle.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love that you said I was so tired because it’s funny, I related to that too. And I was 19 when I got sober. And I just felt first of all, I wasn’t dying. Everybody talks about dying and I was like, “I’m not dying. I’m just living in this really horrible space in between.” And my life was exhausting me. Exhausting. Every situation I got in, everything was so chaotic and complicated and exhausting and I felt exactly like that. Like, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m too tired. I’m too tired to live this life.”
Brandon Crockett:
I was just beaten. It was too hard to deal with. And I knew the withdrawals were going to happen in my bones. I remember I didn’t physically, my bones didn’t physically feel okay for 60 days, 45 days maybe.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, for sure. For sure.
Brandon Crockett:
It was bad. Obviously I got past the not being able to sleep thing after a week, of okay now at least fall asleep a little bit normally somewhat. But the actual physical, my body’s just not okay was for a while. And I remember being in meetings in early sobriety and just physically being just really still very like this. Very hunched over and just not able to do anything physically.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, just super uncomfortable. So you started going to meetings, and how long were you sober before you went to LA?
Brandon Crockett:
Oh, I was five years sober.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. So you-
Brandon Crockett:
I got sober in ’08 and I moved to Los Angeles in 2013.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, okay. And so what made you move to LA?
Brandon Crockett:
So when I got sober in Michigan after a year and a half or so I got back into film. I was writing and producing shorts in Michigan, while working nine to five jobs. And I did well in Michigan with doing film stuff. Me and my little crew of guys, who a couple of them were also sober, were writing and producing shorts. I ended up raising money, writing and producing a feature film, an indie feature film in Michigan, and the next step just seemed going to California, Los Angeles and continuing to pursue my goals in doing film in LA, writing and producing.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Awesome. And so you got on a plane and what’s-
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I saved up a little money. I worked a job, saved that money, had a goal of coming out here and yeah, I didn’t really have anything really lined up like that. I had friends that I knew that lived out here and friends of friends and stuff. But I just, yeah, I was 25, I want to pursue my goals and dreams. And it was a blessing to be able to do that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What’s happened since you moved to LA?
Brandon Crockett:
A lot. I was 25 and five years sober when I moved here, and already weathering out of the boring meetings in Michigan or what I thought were boring. I didn’t learn really, in my first five years that drugs and alcohol were just a symptom of all this. The real issue is me and the continual work I have to do it myself. So 25, a little bit of money saved up, freshly single, moving to Los Angeles, five years sober. I very much believed in my mind. I had graduated from A.A. and I didn’t need meetings anymore. As for old people and dudes who were really like, “You guys are weird.” And I’ve never been to a meeting in LA so I just-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
[crosstalk 01:00:26].
Brandon Crockett:
That’s was just fun. So I moved here and basically long story short as I went two and a half years without going to a meeting, because I just was, yeah, I was just going out and trying to be on the scene and girls and everything was way more important than… I just thought, ” I’m good.” And never in that time did I think about drinking, smoking weed. I’ve been in some questionable situations to think about getting high, but in 2015 I was just in such a dark place mentally, I had hit a crazy emotional bottom that I needed because I’m hard headed and I need these things to call back on in my life, which I hit that emotional rock bottom. And my higher power, the creator of this universe, whatever you want to call it, God is incredible and always works in amazing ways.
Brandon Crockett:
And in December of 2015, darkest, slowest, I’m at, still I’m seven years sober, but don’t go to meetings. My best friend Devin calls me and he’s like, “Hey, man, I’m in rehab again, in Utah, it sucks. It’s cold. I don’t want to be here. Can I come live with you? I’m going to call my mom and see if she lets me go to LA.” His parents will let him do whatever he wants, basically. And I was like, “All right, man. I mean, sure. If you actually get on a plane and come to LA, you can stay with me and I’ll help you get sober. Because I’m still the poster boy, I’m seven years sober. It’s crazy.” And he’s like, “All right, let me call him mom.” He calls me about two days later, “Yo, I’m coming on the 29th.” I’m like, “All right, dude, sure whatever. You can live on my couch.”
Brandon Crockett:
And he did. And he went to an outpatient here in LA and some of the guidelines of that were he had to go to the outpatient every morning or three times a week at, I don’t know, 7:00 AM. And he had to go to the meetings every day. And he didn’t have a car, obviously. So I had to take him to outpatient and I had to take him to meetings every day. And for me, I was like, “I’m in shit. I don’t really need it, but he’s f’d. He definitely [crosstalk 01:02:40].”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally. Totally.
Brandon Crockett:
He needs this shit. So I’m going to support him because I’m a good person. I’m a good friend.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right, right.
Brandon Crockett:
I got you dude. I’ll take you to meetings. And he didn’t stay sober in that time, but it catapulted me back into A.A. Catapulted me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, you probably were like, “Wait a minute. A.A meetings are like this?”
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, yeah. That was the first thing [crosstalk 01:02:59].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You were like, “Dude, there’s hot chicks at A.A meeting.”
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. I was shocked. I was like, “This isn’t even remotely what I’m used to of A.A.” And then it just also just became this weird thing of he’s like, “Yo, I just got a sponsor and I’m working the steps again.” And I’m like, “This shit is cool. It’s decent. Maybe I’ll get a sponsor and work this stuff.” You know what I mean? These little easy, or I think actually somebody asked me to sponsor them because I was seven years sober and I was like, “Sure.” And then I was like, “Dude, I don’t even really remember half of this stuff.” And I needed to get a sponsor to remember the stuff to sponsor this guy again. And I mean, yeah, [crosstalk 01:03:36].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What’s amazing about that is that the new comer by being of service, the thing that got you back plugged in, and the thing that we always talk about is being of service and being of service to the newcomer. That is what got you back in and probably saved you from another relapse. Because you were of service, you took your friend to meetings for him. You were of service to the newcomer and then you were of service to the person who asked you to sponsor them which required you to step your game up.
Brandon Crockett:
It was incredible.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It brought you right back in which is amazing.
Brandon Crockett:
And now I know. And it wasn’t until I worked back through the steps and got that clarity again it was almost having a spiritual experience or a white light again of that’s why… It was like a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Because I couldn’t understand. I got to this super dark place and I didn’t relate it to not going to meetings. I tried to go to Kabbalah, I tried yoga, I tried being a vegetarian. I just tried to fix all these things without going back to what really fixes it for me. But I needed that. If I do A.A and I put that and sobriety in the 12 steps, that type of lifestyle first, sure yoga helps. You know what I mean? Other stuff helps, but if I don’t do that stuff first, I have none of the other stuff. It just, mentally it changes my life.
Brandon Crockett:
And I try to work the steps at least once a year with a sponsor because I need it. I’m not one of those people who necessarily is like, “Oh, if I don’t go to a meeting for five days I’m going to die.” I’m definitely one of those people that’s like, it’s been like six months since I’ve done some shit I shouldn’t, and I’ve been a pretty shitty person for a little bit here. We need to get back on track. Or I’m not feeling great or I’m having difficulty handling certain situations, or I know I shouldn’t.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, right, right. Where my emotions in this situation are out of sync.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
There was a mismatch here. And how did you meet your wife?
Brandon Crockett:
I met my wife on Instagram.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hoo. Okay, cool.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. Online romance.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Online romance. Yeah. Okay. And how long sober were you when that happened?
Brandon Crockett:
I don’t know. Almost 10 years, I guess. Yeah, things moved fast. When I met my wife we met in October 2017, was our first date. And then by April of 2018, she was pregnant. And we were married in July of 2018. And now we have an 18 month old son, and she’s pregnant again.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, that’s so awesome. Congratulations.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, definitely. Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So when is the baby due?
Brandon Crockett:
In September. I have a son now and yeah, we’re expecting a daughter in September.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And how is your relationship different now that you’re regularly involved in program than relationships that you’ve had in the past?
Brandon Crockett:
I think I just I’m able to look at things more objectively, I guess, when I’m in the right type of headspace than not. I think not just romantic relationships, but personal relationships as well I may have sabotaged or ruined in the past, in that time between 2012 and 2015, where I just was, I was on no type of path or track mentally. I was just all over the place, it was like I had reverted back to my savage younger ways of a human, lie, cheat, steal, just sober. And so I sabotaged a lot of things that way during that time, whereas now, I have just been back to spirituality, you know what I mean? And constant work on myself. And it’s not easy, because as much as I work on myself, the rest of the world has no obligation to work on themselves. And I’m a very-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I hear that.
Brandon Crockett:
… stubborn person and-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We’re Capricorns.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. You get it. It’s-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, you want to hear something great about that, is that I have three and a half year old twin boys. And I’m a Capricorn. My husband is a Gemini and the Gemini are the twins. And I had twin Capricorn boys.
Brandon Crockett:
No way.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So there’s three of us in the house. We are the most stubborn people on the planet.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, we are. And it’s, I don’t know, again, I’m literally working on it. I think I need therapy about just how to be less stubborn. I don’t understand it. I have conversations with friends who are like, “Yeah, well, you should just drop it.” I’m like, “No, though.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No way.
Brandon Crockett:
It’s not how I [crosstalk 01:08:41].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You got to take it to the end.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. But it’s also, it’s bad in certain situations. And it’s great for certain situations.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, totally.
Brandon Crockett:
And I’m just a very passionate person who, if I want something I’m going to get it. You know what I mean? I’m going to strive for it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I do.
Brandon Crockett:
And so there’s some positive ways.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. It works for us in some areas and not in other areas, so we have to figure out how to apply it where it works and pull it back where it doesn’t. What do you have going on professionally? What’s coming up? What’s on the docket for Brandon?
Brandon Crockett:
It’s interesting, this whole quarantine thing, for me at least has made me… It’s the second time in my adult life where I’ve things have happened outside of my control where I feel professionally I have to take more control of certain things and make sure to diversify what I do. So again, I moved here doing film, got over the film industry in a couple of years, and I moved into music which is really big in my family. And I opened a music studio and I was running a music studio for a long time. And then I sold the music studio, got rid of that stuff when my wife got pregnant. And I still do some music stuff as far as booking artists and stuff like that for studio sessions. But since the birth of my son and being the head of my household and everything, I’ve just transitioned more of investing my money in things and learning new skills.
Brandon Crockett:
So the past couple years I’ve put money in the stock market, I day trade, which is great. I did recently record an album and release it, which was fun. But I did it during quarantine when I… So for me things are normally pretty crazy, with work, finding new things, finding new businesses, and running around with stuff. And then the quarantine happened and I didn’t really shut down but everything else did. So I would still do my same work stuff. I still had a pretty similar work schedule because I work for myself and work from home. But then it just got me into wanting to do more things and learning and reading and then I realized I still have so much equipment in my house, I can just record a whole album here and I did put it out and-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What’s the album called?
Brandon Crockett:
It’s called 2004: A Trap Odyssey.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Where can people find it?
Brandon Crockett:
On Spotify, Apple Music, it was released through a distribution company called Empire which is a great distribution company. I love them. They do a really good job. So it was fun. It was a blessing to just take time, record, put new music out, get back to being creative. And just push myself to do more of something that I got away with. Just focusing on a family and saving money and making sure my income stream is really, really good, comfortable too. Like, okay, well, things are a little different right now. And I have a little extra time on my hands which, the A.A in me, just always is looking for the blessing in things. And when quarantine happened, it’s hard for me not to feel really bad for a lot of people because it’s very, very, very negatively affected a lot of people’s lives. And I took it like, oh, well, I’m spending so much less money going out to dinner and ending my gym membership [crosstalk 01:12:14].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, we look for the blessing.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah. It’s just how I’m wired. And so yeah, I did that and I was fortunate enough to record a project and put it out, and it was fun.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I have one last question for you and it’s not a small one. But I just want to touch on it given the times of everything. You’re, I mean it being in LA, you had a son, you have a son of color and you’re a man of color during this time. What has the Black Lives Matter during quarantine and all of that talk that has come up recently, how has that felt for you? Have you felt the urge to be involved in that? Has fatherhood changed your feelings on it? Is it just not something you think about?
Brandon Crockett:
I think that I’m still somewhat processing a lot of it. Because for me, again, always sticking out in places a little bit and I’m immune to a lot of what’s going on, because I’m just, it’s normal in my life. Which is you could call it a good thing or a bad thing. I think I have a different perspective on it. Because I’m very used to people locking their car seven times when in a f’ing grocery store parking lot. You know what I mean? Or being judged, maybe when I walk into a fancy department store or whatever it is. You know what I mean? I’m very used to certain things or just knowing the inequality that exists and if I’m pulled over, or if my friend is pulled over. You know what I mean?
Brandon Crockett:
And so it’s jarring because there’s so much media coverage of what’s going on and you’re seeing these being really desensitized to these images of violence. But I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised about it happening. I think it’s great to see young people out and really voicing their opinions. And I think the most important part in my mind, for people who are protesting, is doing something past the protesting. You know what I mean? Actual change.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
[crosstalk 01:14:37].
Brandon Crockett:
Putting effort into actual change. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Crockett:
Yeah, absolutely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
A lot of friends of mine, particularly black male friends of mine who I’ve had this conversation with, they’re like, “Yeah, this is not news. You’re just seeing this for the first time.” It was almost like, finally. Finally it’s-
Brandon Crockett:
Definitely. Definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
… being talked about. Whereas I personally, and I hate to admit this, because it’s frankly embarrassing, but I just didn’t understand. I mean, I knew it was there, but I just didn’t understand it was just such a given. Such a given.
Brandon Crockett:
But I don’t think that’s something you should… I mean, I understand that there’s poverty in India, but I don’t actually understand it. You know what I mean? Because I don’t live in poverty in India, so I can be like, “Oh, that’s sad.” But I don’t get it because it’s not my experience. So when people who it’s not their experience, I understand and I did have that same feeling with what you were saying your friends were saying is, I did feel really good for a few weeks in June where it was finally, there’s a lot of people who are like, “This should change.” I can be pessimistic about will things actually change a lot?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. I think that’s fair.
Brandon Crockett:
It’s my nature. But I think there were these feelings of this is good to see in a large scale. If you see people in Europe-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right.
Brandon Crockett:
… protesting and all these things, it’s pretty incredible.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for coming and sharing your story and all of that. I am super grateful and love just getting different stories and different people. And I think that your story is one of hope. And it really, I love the piece where you take a break from that constant self work because I’ve had that experience too. And that emotional bottom, that emotional bottom and sobriety. So I just really appreciate your time and thank you for coming on and what is the name of your album again, so that people can go look it up called?
Brandon Crockett:
It’s called 2004: A Trap Odyssey.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Awesome. Okay.
Brandon Crockett:
Thank you so much.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
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