The Stigma of Addiction: Tony Hoffman (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of mental health speaker Tony Hoffman’s talk titled “The Stigma of Addiction” at TEDxFresnoState 2018 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

A Powerful Visualization

Before I start, I would like everybody to get a visualization. Leaving this building, getting in your car, as you get in your car and you leave, you’re driving down Shaw, and you notice a young man that’s leaned over in the gutter. And as you drive by this individual, you notice that he has a needle and that it’s in the gutter. As you drive by, you realize, oh my God, this young man is about to use heroin with this gutter water.

What do the next 10 years look like for an individual in that state? Are they successful? Do they get sober? Do they go to prison? Do they go to jail? Do they have a family? Do they die? Now I want you to understand this.

The Stigma of Addiction

It does not matter what that individual does from that point forward. There will be a stigma that follows that individual for the rest of their life. At 18 years old, I was on the cover of the BMX Racing Magazine, the largest BMX racing publication in the United States. And at 18 years old, I told myself, I’m going to smoke weed just one time, that’s it.

But at 18 years old, I didn’t know that this thing called addiction that ran in my family could be passed down to me. At 18 years old, I didn’t know that an addict didn’t get to choose whether or not he or she would become an addict. And at 18 years old, I didn’t know that when I smoked weed for the first time and told myself, I don’t want to smoke weed every single day like my friends do, I just want to see what everybody else is doing and try it and see what it’s like, that it wouldn’t just stop at weed.

It would continue on.

The Progression of Addiction

Because within three years, when I told myself, I’m only going to smoke weed one time, I was smoking weed every single day, but then it turned into using cocaine. Then I got introduced to a painkiller called Oxycontin. And then within three years of smoking weed and telling myself, I’m only going to do it one time, I was inside a house committing an armed robbery, stealing a large quantity of Oxycontin that was inside this house.

Lucky for me, I was given an opportunity to live clean and sober. I left the courts and went to a drug treatment facility, telling myself, I’m never going to use drugs again, because I don’t want to go to prison for 10 years like the judge told me. But I didn’t understand that there was going to be some things that I would have to do for me to actually get clean and sober.

The Challenges of Recovery

And it wasn’t just telling myself, I’m never going to use drugs again. I was going to have to change the way I thought. I was going to have to change the way I walked. I was going to have to change the places I go, the friends I had, the things I did.

I wasn’t ready to do those things at 21 years old. So when I got out of treatment, within 30 days, I relapsed. And 30 days after my relapse, I left my family again.

A Desperate Situation

The first time, I didn’t see them for three years. The second time, the time I’m about to talk about, it would be two years before I’d see my family again. Two years later, after I relapsed, I remember I called my best friend Nate.

I said, “Nate, I need a place to stay.” He says, “Come over, bro.” Nate always gave me a place to stay and food to eat. So I walked to Nate’s house.

A Turning Point

I get to his house. His dad answers the door. His dad answers the door and says, “Mijo, you can’t stay here anymore.” I said, “What do you mean, Alex?”

He said, “Mijo, somebody called me and told me you’re stealing credit cards.” I said, “Alex, I’m not stealing credit cards.” I really wasn’t. He said, “Mijo, you need to get your life together.”

I said, “Can I talk to Nate?” He said, “Yeah, Nate’s in his room.” So I walked into Nate’s room. The most vivid memory of 35 years of me being alive is right now.

ALSO READ: Juno Mac: What Do Sex Workers Want? at TEDxEastEnd (Full Transcript)

A Painful Realization

I walked into his room. I said, “Nate, I need a sleeping bag.” He said, “Why, Hoff?” I said, “Bro, I’m sleeping on the street tonight.”

He said, “Hoff, call somebody.” I said, “Bro, I’ve been calling people all night, man. I got a prepaid phone. I’m going to run out of minutes.”

“Just give me a sleeping bag, please.” He said, “Fine, Hoff, I’ll give you a sleeping bag.” So he gives me this sleeping bag. I remember walking out of his house.

A Moment of Truth

I hang a left. I’m going to go sleep at Clovis High School, the high school that I graduated from in 2002, because it’s raining and I need a place to stay dry. I’m going to sleep in the announcer’s tower at the baseball stadium. I hang a left towards his high school, and I get below the street light outside of Nate’s house, and I hear Nate’s voice.

He says, “Hoff.” And I turned and I looked at him. I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Look at yourself, bro.”

“What are you doing?” I said, “Don’t worry about it, Nate. I got it. Don’t worry about it, Nate.”

The Illusion of Control

I got it. That’s what we all said. We had it. 18-year-old kids. We’re just smoking weed. It’s not that big of a deal. These are pills that come from a doctor. It’s not that big of a deal.

What we didn’t understand was the stuff that came from the doctor was the same stuff that came from the cartel. It was just packaged different, and because it was packaged different, we thought that it was safe. But we didn’t realize we were becoming heroin addicts from the drug that came from a doctor.

The Last Goodbye

I didn’t know that that night that I heard Nate’s voice say, “Hoff,” and I turned to look at him. That would be the last time I got to hear my best friend’s voice. Maybe in August, he’s been dead for 10 years.

His dad walked into his room 10 years ago to give him a kiss on his forehead, just like he did every single morning to tell him he loved him, and now it’s found Nathan dead on the floor from a drug overdose. 11 people that I grew up with have died from drug overdoses.

I know more people that have died from drug overdoses than gotten clean and sober. That’s a fact. It’s not that you can’t get clean. It’s that when you walk through the door and you find out that you’re an addict, because you don’t get to choose whether you’re going to be an addict or not, you find out when you walk through this door that you cannot see that you are an addict, that you don’t get to just turn around and walk back out because you think you’re done.

The Struggle to Stop

Nathan didn’t want to use drugs anymore. That night that I went to sleep on the street, I didn’t want to use drugs anymore. I couldn’t figure out how to stop.

But that night would be the first night of six months that I slept on the street. I slept in dirt fields so people couldn’t find me. I slept behind dumpsters so people couldn’t find me. If I was lucky, I got a Motel 6. If I was luckier, I got a couch or somebody’s floor to sleep on.

A Spiritual Experience

The only reason I would get that, though, is because I had drugs to give somebody. But on January 21st, 2007, I had a spiritual experience that changed my life. On January 22nd, I was arrested in a home that I broke into that was up for rent, because I knew if I slept on the street on January 21st, 2007, it was so cold it would kill me.

So I broke into this house at 2 p.m. On January 22nd, I woke up to four cops with the guns drawn on me, and I knew my run was over.

A New Beginning

Thirty days later, I was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for the robbery I committed in 2005. When I got to prison, I remember I read this quote on the ceiling that somebody had written with a pencil. It said, “Be careful what you think, because your thoughts become your words.”

“Be careful what you say, because your words become your actions. Be careful what you do, because your actions become your habits. Be careful what you make a habit, because your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny.” And it made so much sense to me.

ALSO READ: Settle Down, Pay Attention, Say Thank You: A How-To by Kristen Race (Transcript)

Setting Goals

I told myself, I’m going to reshape my thinking. I’m going to reshape my acting. I’m going to reshape my habits.

I’m going to reshape my character, and I’m going to reshape my future. So I set four goals. I said, when I get out of here, I’m going to become a professional BMX athlete.

Ambitious Dreams

I’m going back to my gift, I told myself. I said, when I get out of here, I’m going to go to the Olympics. When I get out of here, I’m going to start a non-profit organization called the Free Will Project that uses action sports to work with kids in Southeast Fresno.

I said, when I get out of here, I’m going to become a professional speaker. But I didn’t know how I was going to go from a prison cell to the Olympics. But I learned this really valuable life lesson.

A Valuable Lesson

And that is, if you can be trusted with little, you’ll be trusted with much. And so I learned this really valuable thing that every addict needs to know if they want long-term recovery. And that is, all the small details in life are actually very important.

So I told myself, I need to learn how to brush my teeth every single day and treat it like the Olympics. So that’s exactly what I did. I learned how to brush my teeth every single day.

Building Habits

Then I learned how to organize my stuff. After I learned how to organize my stuff, I learned how to make my bed. After I learned how to make my bed, I learned how to physically train for the Olympics in prison, even though I wasn’t going to get to touch my bike for years.

And I was confronted by stigmas. A cop called me into the office when she heard about what I was talking about with eight other cops in the office. She says, “Hey, we hear when you get out of here, you’re going to race BMX professionally and go to the Olympics.”

Overcoming Doubts

I said, “That’s right.” She said, “No, you’re not. Don’t fool yourself, kid. You’re going to come back in here just like everybody else.”

But I walked back to my bunk and I said, don’t listen to that lady. Keep brushing your teeth. Keep making your bed.

Keep organizing your stuff. On December 13, 2008, nine years almost to this day, I met my parole officer that told my mother straight to her face, “Your son is going to go back to prison and it’s going to be your fault. Because you believe the story that your son is telling you. The only reason he’s telling you this story is because he needs a place to stay. I want to put your son in a halfway house, but I can’t do that because you are going to let him go home.”

Proving Them Wrong

“So I want you to know when he goes back to prison, it’s your fault.” Five months later, I raced my first professional BMX race ever. Hadn’t touched a bike in seven years. I took third place.

That first year, I won five races at the lower pro division, moved up to the Olympic level. One year after being back on my bicycle, I was invited to the Olympic training center to train with the top athletes in the world. In 2010, I picked up a microphone, not to make it a career.

A New Purpose

I just wanted to help people. I didn’t care who it was. I wanted to tell my story.

I wanted to inspire people to understand that people can change and people go through things. You’re not alone. You’ve got to speak up.

Overcoming Setbacks

But whatever it is that you’re facing, you can overcome it. In 2011, I blew my knee out at the end of my racing career at the elite level. But I told myself, there’s a reason why you blew your knee out.

Just keep brushing your teeth, keep making your bed, keep organizing your stuff. And then it came to me, this microphone was more important. And then it came to me that I needed to start the free will project, which I did in 2012.

Success and Recognition

By the time 2016 came around, I became one of the most sought-after substance abuse speakers in the country. By 2016, my nonprofit would go from raising $2,500 to over $120,000 a year, giving away $40,000 worth of bicycles, $10,000 worth of skateboards through summer camps and after school programs that we developed. I don’t have an education.

ALSO READ: 4 Key Ingredients To Turn A Case Study Into A Compelling Story: Stephen Semple (Transcript)

It was done on passion. By 2012, my BMX coaching that I got into went from no one wanting me to coach them because I was the next convict that just came back to the sport, so what does he know?

Achieving Dreams

To have a nobody, four years later, two world champions, three national champions, and 25 athletes from Australia to Bolivia. And I got a phone call in July 2016 from my top female athlete. She said, “Hoff, pack your bags. We’re going to the Olympics.”

In 2016, 10 years after the moment that I was homeless, I was blessed to be a part of the Rio Games. I accomplished all four goals that I set when I was in a prison cell, something that people told me could never be done. And now let’s go back to the young man that we visualized on Shaw using gutter water.

Full Circle

That was me. At my bottom, I had to pull cars over and lean over into gutters that had water in them and draw that water up to cook my heroin because my withdrawals were so bad I couldn’t wait. People said I couldn’t change.

People gave up on me. The stigma says drug addicts will never be good enough for employment. And we tell them that because typically a drug addict has a record that when they go to get a job, they have to check a box.

Breaking Stigmas

I’ve learned how to make a doctor’s salary, started four businesses, but today, if I went down to Best Buy and I tried to get a job, guess what? I ain’t getting one because I’ve got to check a box that says I’ve been arrested. The stigma says drug addicts lack willpower.

I don’t know many people that have made it to the Olympics, let alone started in a prison cell. The stigma says drug addicts chose that lifestyle. The only thing I chose to do was smoke weed one time and I swear to you, if somebody would have came to me and said, “Tony, if you smoke weed one time right now, within five years you will be homeless,” I would have said, “Are you sure?” And they would have said, “Yes, I’m very sure.”

Ongoing Challenges

I would have said, “Okay, I’m not doing it.” I recently dated a female. Her dad sent her an email. They had a weird form of communication.

He said, “I can’t believe the decision that you have decided to make by dating this man. He went to jail, not prison, excuse me, he went to prison, not jail, a place where the most unrehabilitative human beings go.” He said, “And I can’t believe that you would allow this human being to be around your two sons because I raised you better than that.” I’ve been sober for 12 years almost.

A Lifelong Mission

I dedicated my entire life to holding this microphone and talking about addiction and trying to help reshape people’s thinking when it comes to drug addicts. I’ve helped kids go from .7 GPAs to have 4.0s and talk about going to college. I wake up every single day for the last 11 years and the only thing that’s on my mind is how I can be a better person and I can help more people.

But every day for the rest of my life I will be confronted by stigmas and belief systems that people have about who I am because of my past. Every day I wake up and I grab this microphone, I’m going to confront those stigmas, I’m going to tell my story, and I’m going to help break those stigmas down. Thank you.