The Successful Degenerate

Journey of a Troubled Teen

• Brandon Caldwell • Season 1 • Episode 4

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What if your teenage years were spoiled by early drug encounters, a tumultuous relationship, and a close family member battling a life-altering disease? 

Join me as I recount my rocky journey to self-discovery, starting with my first interaction with Vicodin and Marijuana, a stressful relationship with a girl named Whitney, and the emotional upheaval of having my grandfather diagnosed with ALS. 

Life throws curveballs, but it's how we react to them that builds our character. 

I share my path from a troubled teen to a sales representative, navigating through mental health struggles and setting physical health goals. You'll hear about my friend Sam, an inspiring example of second-chance individuals breaking the cycle and making a difference. We'll reminisce about the first few days of experiencing freedom and remembering the friends we lost along the way. 

Join me in this journey of a troubled teen filled with transformations, trials, and triumphs. Let's discover together what it truly means to progress, improve, and succeed degenerates.

The Successful Degenerate is produced by Brandon Caldwell and Eric Smith from Abuveground.

Make sure to connect and follow on our socials. Rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe and follow on your favorite platforms so you're notified when new episodes go live!

https://www.instagram.com/thesuccessfuldegenerate/

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Speaker 1:

What's up everybody. Welcome to the successful degenerate podcast. I'm the host, brandon Caldwell, for those of you that don't know me, and I'm just incredibly grateful to everyone tuning in to listen Music playing. What's up everybody. This is the successful degenerate. Welcome back. Thank you again for tuning in and thank you so much for all the kind words I've been receiving in private messages, direct messages and also through LinkedIn. I cannot express enough how grateful I am for everyone tuning in to listen and their continued support as we grow the podcast. Don't forget everybody, go follow the successful degenerate at the successful degenerate to stay up to date on episode releases as well. As you know, this is a great way to stay up to date on changes that I'm currently making in my own life. Don't forget, please, everyone. Go ahead and follow, subscribe, download the show, share with your friends. It really, really does help us out as we continue to grow this podcast. The more ratings and reviews that we receive, the more likelihood of other listeners being able to join in and join this community of degenerates and other people that are out there to really help make a difference, especially concerning, you know, second chance employment opportunities.

Speaker 1:

I think today, guys, we start off by providing a quick update on what's going on in my life today. As you guys know, I currently work as a sales representative for a lending company, working the enterprise level, continue to grow and expand my skill sets on a day-to-day basis. But outside of that, guys, you know, I am not complete by any means. I continue to make mistakes in my own life, but the difference today is my mistakes no longer involve burning my life to the ground. You know, we're going through many changes, even in present day, you know, and my mental health, guys, continues to be a struggle at times. But again, the difference today is I know when to vocalize when I am struggling. I have resources and people in my life today that have my back. I am working on my physical health and what I have learned, you know, is that by focusing on the body. As the body becomes healthier, the mind will follow. So you know some things that I am doing today, guys. I am trying to work on eating better foods. We are going through some regular workouts throughout the week. Now, at this point, you know we are taking some swing lessons focusing on getting better, you know, getting the golf game right, but we are doing a lot of things, to stay busy, stay focused, continue to learn and grow.

Speaker 1:

Because, like I said again, guys, I am not perfect. I make mistakes on the regular. But what I try to do with those mistakes is I try to learn from them, really analyze. You know where I went wrong, you know what I should have done differently. If I heard anyone, I try to quickly apologize and be sincere with that apology and recognize you know my mistake and take ownership for that mistake. And it is different and it feels good, but understandably so.

Speaker 1:

You know, there are times where you know we are three years out. At this point I wish that I was a little bit further along. You know, I wish at times that the mental health was not so much a struggle, that the ebbs and flows were less frequent. But you know, it's getting better, guys. It's getting better and we just continue to talk to people, continue to make that a focus and really continue to just focus on ourselves. By focusing on ourselves, we're able to really give back, and I feel like that's my purpose here. I feel like we're at that point now where, by giving back, that's the only way that I'm going to be able to continue to progress. And I hope that's the case, because it's going to mean so much to me to really be able to help others that have been through similar or struggles or that may be facing some difficult times even to this present day.

Speaker 1:

But hey, guys, stay tuned for the full episode, as towards the end of this episode we're going to get into my first experience with Mary Jane marijuana, the weed. But first I want to provide an update on Sam. Remember last episode, guys, I kind of touched on Sam a little bit towards the end. He's my buddy that I spent a little bit of time with. I would say about a year and a half of almost the four years that I did was spent with Sam, and Sam and I were great friends.

Speaker 1:

But Sam got a job, guys. Hey, round of applause for Sam. Let's really. I mean, this is amazing. I wish I could have said that I had a part to play in it, but unfortunately that's not the case. This was all Sam's doing. It's not the prettiest of things, let's just be clear. But Sam will be cleaning and doing some dishes at a local restaurant here in Gilbert and I'm just happy to hear that Sam is back working, being productive again in society, and I know the feeling when that first day of work and you're just like, oh my god, this is happening. I have an opportunity now to really do some things. I'm going to be generating an income for myself and it's just a great feeling. And not to mention guys like Sam and I. We both worked in prison and the jobs that we had the best job that I ever had in prison, paid no more than $0.50 an hour so to be able to actually make a decent wage and buy things for yourself that just what a great feeling that is. And I cannot wait for Sam to experience that. He hasn't yet. I just talked to him a little bit ago. He has not received his first paycheck yet, but he is working and it should come here soon. So we'll check back with Sam and see what happens.

Speaker 1:

But why this matters, guys. We want to create even more opportunities for second chance individuals. We shouldn't work for months looking for employment to eventually have to settle for, unfortunately, a dishwashing job. I mean it's not right. Sam's a bright and intelligent young man who's got a lot to offer. He's strong, fully capable, obviously with his hands. If he was able to learn some sort of trade that would be able to excel him in life. But this is unfortunately the opportunity that's available to him right now and I know Sam wants nothing more than to make his parents proud and I know that one day he's going to do that and I'm sure they are proud of him today with the growth that he is showing and displaying and acting upon on a day-to-day basis. But I just wanted to provide that quick update on Sam. I'm just super happy for him. I know that's just a big step, guys.

Speaker 1:

But again, let's get back into it. Last episode we left off at the age of 15, during that time period that Brian and mom were going through a divorce. So I think this is the time, the moment, that we get into the first experience with opiates. I know I kind of touched on it towards the end of the last episode, but let's jump right into it. So first experience with opiates was Vicodin and happened at the age of 16. Like any I mean I shouldn't say like any, right, but I guess at the age of 16, had to get my wisdom teeth taken out, so was put under some anesthesia. They went in, extracted all four wisdom teeth. Was prescribed Vicodin.

Speaker 1:

Took the Vicodin for a few days, threw up a few times but liked the way that it made the pain go away and really kind of how it made me feel, right. But I took it as prescribed. There was at least half of the pill bottle leftover when I was done with it and I'd never felt the urge to go back to it. Right, sounds like something a normal person would do. But one thing I noticed was that I was able to to slow down my thoughts because it was apparent at this time that I definitely struggled from some racing thoughts, was having a hard time shutting the brain off, especially at night. Right, I found myself up, sometimes very late, watching TV or whatever it may be, just kind of going through different thoughts in my head and but this Vicodin for those few days. What I had noticed was that that didn't happen and this would become very significant as the drug usage and the types of drugs I end up getting into progress.

Speaker 1:

And after Brian left, a lot of self-discovery started to take place. I started to dedicate myself to year-round, to focusing on nothing but baseball. I made the freshman year, or I made the freshman team freshman year, and I ended up becoming a pretty decent player and was the starting catcher. Even more importantly at this time, I started to date this girl named Whitney and I started to date Whitney actually right before, sort of started talking to Whitney right before Brian left. But really the relationship I guess solidified itself after that had occurred, if you want to call it that right. I mean we're in freshman, almost sophomore year at this point that type of relationship, right. But you know, whitney didn't go and I didn't go to the same school. She went to a private girl's school in Phoenix. But I don't want to dive too deep into this relationship as it was a fairly typical, you know, young high school relationship. But what is important to touch on is this is the girl who I would end up losing my virginity to.

Speaker 1:

Okay, after it happened, let the stress of being a 15 year old boy and your girlfriend calling you telling you that she is late begin. The next video will come out right after this. Oh my God, no way. Like this is when you know teen mom is out on MTV and I'm like, am I going to need to be on this show at some point? Like what is going on here? This is not happening, you have got to be kidding me. But then at the same time, like I was always raised to, you know, accept responsibility, and that was going to. That's what I was going to plan on doing, right, but I am living in a mental nightmare at this point. So what do I decide to do? Right, I make a journal, start journaling. This journal entry that describes the whole situation, lays everything out. And what do I do? I leave the journal out. And who comes to read the journal? Mom does so. Now mom finds out about this. Right, the nightmare becomes worse. And the talk, introducing the talk.

Speaker 1:

Mom comes into my room one night, after, you know, I get home and she's like Brandon, I need to come talk to us. So she pulls me into her room and she sits me down and she's like what is this? What is going on? You're too young, are you kidding me? Is this really happening? You know, basically, like dude, wrap it up. Like what's going, like we talked about this, wrap the thing up. You know, next time you better wrap it up, otherwise there won't be a next time because I'm going to cut it off, right, that's basically how you know how the speech went at that point. But you know, come full circle.

Speaker 1:

About a week and a half went by of absolute, just pandemonium stress. But I wake up that morning, get a phone call hey, everything's okay, I am never going to touch you again. You, this is like. This is never going to happen to me again, but so it's a. It was a lot to deal with. Right, like Brian just left here I am losing my virginity for the first time and think that this girl's pregnant. So, by the way, not to mention a huge shift in the family dynamic.

Speaker 1:

Right, mom bought me a car at this point, a couple months before my 16th birthday, so I could learn how to drive the car, and it was a manual transmission, so she wanted me to have some practice. But my grandpa would come over and take me driving and teach me how to change you know, change gears, park, turn. You know all the, all the typical stuff that you need to learn you know as you're learning to drive. But this would just be one of several things that my grandpa spent time with me doing after Brian moved out, to make sure that I still had that solid male role model in my life and I'll never forget it. My grandpa is I know I've mentioned this before, but the single, most honest, best man that I've ever met in my life. He is, he's just a. He was a huge role model. I mean, he, he did everything right. He did everything right and not to mention, he was just absolutely hilarious. My grandpa was so, so funny.

Speaker 1:

But it was also during this time period that I should point out that grandpa was diagnosed with ALS, essentially a form of Lou Gehrig's disease, where the muscle starts to deteriorate, deteriorate over time. But what we need to recognize too is that muscles don't just exist in your arms and your legs. Of course, you know your, your heart is a muscle, your lungs are a muscle, and so Grandpa started to lose physical ability to do certain things and time was starting to run out, and so that was another thing that at this time and I'm not gonna sit here and complain about it Like life is life, right, things happen, but it just seemed to be a lot and we're going through a lot, but that's okay. We put our game face on and we tackle life head on. But at this point this is sophomore year in high school. I'm now at Dobson High School and I'm 100% dedicated to nothing but really school and baseball, and also, of course, whitney Continue to date, whitney.

Speaker 1:

Really all through sophomore year leading into those next summer months going into junior year, I didn't get along with some of the guys on the baseball team. I definitely did not like the head coach, even though I'm on varsity baseball, made varsity baseball with my sophomore year and I couldn't really stand showing up to practice every day and even ended up in a scuffle with someone towards I believe it was actually even the last day of practice. So I decided to quit the team. Baseball became no longer important and not only did I quit baseball, but it was also time to quit Whitney. So we had really essentially given up social life and sports all at the same time. And one decision and it was a huge turning point because at this point in time I'm now looking for new friends in a new life outside of school, being that so much of my time was taken up with baseball and then with Whitney.

Speaker 1:

But this is an instrumental change and it was one that really significantly changed junior and senior year for me, for high school, which, looking back on, no matter what, two of the single best years of my life, I mean it was so much fun, I had a blast, it was amazing and it was as if there was not a care, right. But down below there was all this stuff that just kind of existed, that was just being ignored and only recognized at times that it was necessary to recognize, right? But introducing you now to the homies, let's get into the homies. Kurt, kevin, greg and Matt Of the four today I don't really talk to.

Speaker 1:

I don't talk to any of them for the most part. I check in with Kevin every so often, miss the guide of death, but unfortunately Matt's no longer with us. He did pass away a couple of years ago from what Most likely, I guess, was drug alcohol related, but we don't know that for sure. Right, it was his liver, and or I don't know that for sure, let's just put it that way, I just know it was his liver, it was cirrhosis. I know Matt struggled for a long time with heroin, as did I, of course, and did a lot of our friends or acquaintances at the time.

Speaker 1:

But anyways, let's get back into it. Because I was driving and my friends were quickly becoming my life outside of school, I was never really home to spend time with Megan, andrew and mom. I would come home to eat, of course, but at this time it wasn't like we were having family meals together, right, what was to eat was normally the fastest and easiest thing to make, or something that we could make ourselves. This wasn't mom's fault. She was a career woman with three children to raise, not to mention she was making a ton of money at this point and was on a harder path to becoming vice president. But I was working, starting this summer after sophomore year, as a camp counselor at a special needs camp that the city of Tempe put on every summer called Camp Challenge, and then I was working as a ice attendant at the local ice rink called Polarice. So I got to work, got busy, but outside of work in school I was with my friends.

Speaker 1:

Now let's get into the first experience with weed. My first experience with weed came with my friends, matt, of course. I say of course Matt, because it seemed like everybody at the time had their first experience with weed with Matt. I know Kevin did for sure. I'm sure that means Kirk did too, but anyways, it was with Matt and it was with our friend named Corey. Corey's been in my life still to this day. Corey is in my life and we'll get into Corey absolutely because Corey is, she's a super important person to me. She's just an acquaintance at this point in time, but she will always be a lifelong friend and I will always consider that. But anyways, corey and Matt we were.

Speaker 1:

We decided to go down to this little park down the street from my mom's house and we're sitting there and Corey's got this little metal, this little metal pipe that I think she took from her sister or something, and this weed she took from her sister, I think too. I can't remember, but that does sound right, that does sound like that could definitely be a possibility. But we're standing there in this little park, right, and they load this bowl up and they start smoking and they pass it to me and I go to smoke it and I have no idea what I'm doing at this time, right, so I'm not inhaling property, like shit's not happening, I'm not feeling nothing. And there's Corey and Matt stoned and I'm like what's going on here? How can I not get this right? So I'm like, screw it.

Speaker 1:

But mom was dating at the time, so she was gone a lot on the weekends and of course, I mean she wouldn't tell us that she was dating, but she would tell us that she'd go spend the weekend with the girls, which, of course, sounded believable enough at the time, and we were happy for her right. She was happy, but you know, which meant that we you know Andrew and I had a lot of alone time on the weekends at the house, as you know, during these years, and you know Matt and Corey. So they're stoned, and I decided to be a great idea hey, let's go take them to the ice rink and let's go ice skating, right? Well, they don't ice skate, I ice skate. And I'm like what am I? What's going on? What are we doing here, right? Well, I don't understand that. They're just lazy and being stoned, right, cause I've never done this before and I'm just out here skating by myself. So I'm like, screw it, let's go home. So we go home. Anyways, long story long.

Speaker 1:

That was essentially the first experience with weed. It failed, but the next time it was successful, and it wasn't until a few months after that, matt and I would go to a park after work. We worked together at this point as bussers, together at the local Rigatoni's restaurant, and that's when I got stoned for the first time. You know, from that night forward, we will let me tell you the story, okay? So we went to the park. We were with a buddy of ours that we worked with, a server who, of course, was much older, right, I think he was I don't know early 20, something like that. So we go to this park and we're laughing, smoking. We were giggling and then I mean I'm telling you like we cannot stop laughing and I'm like this is the greatest thing in the world. This is amazing. We're like just giggly, like this. What's the danger in this? Right, this is great.

Speaker 1:

And so from that night forward, we were pretty much smoking weed on a nightly basis and then eventually it grew into, you know, the before school, during school, during the lunch hour, and then, of course, after school and at night. You know, it became a lifestyle for us and no matter how ridiculous that sounds, but when do we go from here? So eventually, as Matt, kurt, kevin, greg and I continue to become popular with the ladies, another group of guys wants to join forces and we become this massive group of homies, right that ultimately, we really considered each other brothers. And I start dating Caitlyn number one at this point, and I have to say Caitlyn number one because there's two Caitlons. There's another Caitlyn that comes after Caitlyn number one that we'll get into later. So we have to identify as Caitlyn number one, caitlyn number two and, unless you have a better suggestion, that's just what we're gonna go with. But we'll dive into the relationship with Caitlyn number one and really get into how that relationship began to shape the years to come. I graduated high school at this point in time my grandpa unfortunately we lost him the month after I graduated high school, but he was there to watch me graduate. It meant the world to me, but then we lost him shortly after that.

Speaker 1:

But on the next episode, guys, as we continue to dive into the relationship with Caitlyn number one, we're gonna go into some significant, significant events. Unfortunately, I started to lose friends at this point in time. I lost two friends back to back, one to a murder suicide and then another one to a motorcycle accident, actually in the opposite order my buddy, joe Mug, to the motorcycle accident first and then Chip, of course, to the murder suicide that happened after that. So we're gonna get into some pretty significant heavy duty stories, along with how, brandon, how does the drug problem progress from here? Well, towards the end of the relationship with Caitlyn number one, we start a new career in a new industry that's gonna give us some pretty significant access to the opiates in the pills.

Speaker 1:

Oxy-co-oxy-cotton, at this time is going rampant. Pharmacies are being robbed left and right and the problem especially here in Arizona and I know in other states around the nation as well but the Oxy-cotton problem becomes a significant, significant, significant problem. So we're gonna get into some deep things, guys. But really, again, thank you so much for tuning in, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope that you guys continue to tune in for further episodes as we dive further into the story. But really, from here we're gonna get into some interviews after the story, some advocacy work, some magic is gonna take place and it's gonna be amazing. So again, guys, go follow us at the successful degenerate. And again, huge shout out to Eric at Above Ground doing some amazing things for me with this podcast and really for all his support. Thank you, eric, thank you, thank you, thank you. But till next time, degenerates, talk to you later. Please subscribe for more of this.

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Brandon Caldwell

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