Real stories, told by real people.
We're back with another one, I hope this finds you all in good spirits. Today D'Angelo joins us, and he's got a story to tell.
The healing power of forgiveness. Coming from an abusive home. D'Angelo was surrounded by violence, and drugs. He took to the streets at 11 years old, trying to escape it. From juvenile halls to becoming a registered nurse as an adult, working in trauma units. D'Angelo would eventually find himself in the belly of the beast. Addicted to drugs, robbing banks, leading to an eleven year prison bid.
The good news, D'Angelo is now a free man, and shares life behind the walls. He talks about when things started to change for him, and what helped him deal with those inner demons. He's an author as well - ‘On My Own-Reflecting on Yesterday' , his memoir, is now available. He also has plans on working on children's books, and educational material on addiction. Writing, and penning has been therapy for him. This is about redemption, forgiveness, and not being bound to the past. After all D'Angelo's been through, he made it out the other side, bringing hope with him, and embracing a new day. I'm pleased to introduce another GIANTS AMONGST US. Enjoy the Show.
'Til next time
and very soon,
PEACE!!
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D'Angelo Stefani :
On My Own: Reflecting on Yesterday : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CY9T9GB5
Website: www.dangelostefani.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/boston2tulsa
Email: dangelo@dangelostefani.com
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Multispective Podcast :
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00:00:00
I'll be waiting for the man to come along and discover me.
00:00:25
So you must be pretty upset after the Yankees lost.
00:00:32
You mean Mickey Man will cry?
00:00:34
The paper said that the Mick was crying.
00:00:36
Mickey Man, was that what you're upset about?
00:00:39
Mickey Man will make some hundred thousand dollars a year.
00:00:40
How much does your father make?
00:00:42
I don't know.
00:00:43
You don't know?
00:00:45
We'll see if your father can't pay the rent.
00:00:46
Go away to Mickey Man, I'll see what he tells you.
00:00:48
Mickey Man don't care about you, so why should you care about him?
00:00:51
Nobody cares.
00:00:53
I'm sorry, I got to tell you.
00:00:56
This is Giants Amongst Us, where we share in the unique human experience and where you're going to hear each and every time real stories told by real people.
00:01:12
People just like yourself.
00:01:14
It's good to be back.
00:01:15
I hope you guys are in a good place.
00:01:17
I hope you're in a good headspace.
00:01:20
And I hope you guys are enjoying some good weather out there.
00:01:23
Over here, in this side of town, it's been a little tricky so far in April.
00:01:29
But my wife and I, in a couple of days, we have a week's time that we're going to spend in Greece.
00:01:36
It'll be my first time, so that's going to be lovely.
00:01:40
So yeah, welcome to the show.
00:01:42
Today, D'Angelo joins us.
00:01:44
And he's got a story to tell.
00:01:46
Trauma and uncertainty.
00:01:49
An abusive home.
00:01:51
Bouncing from one foster care to the next.
00:01:54
D'Angelo, he took to the streets at 11 years old.
00:01:57
Trying to escape the violence and get away from the abuse going on in his household.
00:02:02
A child that was hurting.
00:02:04
Longing for love and acceptance and some type of stability in life.
00:02:08
From the juvenile halls, throughout his adolescence, to becoming a registered nurse as an adult.
00:02:15
Working with the trauma units while still struggling with his own trauma.
00:02:19
D'Angelo eventually found himself in the belly of the beast.
00:02:23
Addicted to drugs, robbing banks, and then came an 11 year prison bid.
00:02:28
But if you know anything about the show, the story doesn't end there.
00:02:32
After serving his time, D'Angelo's back and he's got a new pep in his step.
00:02:37
An author of his new book, which is a memoir, and it's something that he's going to talk about.
00:02:42
Plus, he's also working on some children's books.
00:02:45
So that's on deck.
00:02:47
Writing and penning his thoughts and emotions is something that D'Angelo has found helpful throughout the process of his transformation,
00:02:55
forgiveness, redemption, and not being bound to the past.
00:02:59
This is a journey about letting go and moving towards the promise of a new tomorrow.
00:03:06
Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, this is D'Angelo and his story.
00:03:12
Alright, thanks for checking back in.
00:03:15
This is Giant's Amongst Us, where we share in a unique human experience.
00:03:20
I'd like to welcome a guest, D'Angelo.
00:03:22
He took time out of his day to have a little sit down with us.
00:03:26
He could have been anywhere, could have been doing anything.
00:03:29
So thank you for sharing some of your time with us today. How's it going?
00:03:33
Good. Things are good. I'm just kind of just waking up, but things are good. Things are real good.
00:03:39
Alright, alright. So just to kick this thing off and give us a background of where you come from and how it was for you growing up.
00:03:49
You might share some of that with us today.
00:03:51
Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, a predominantly Italian neighborhood.
00:03:57
My father, you know, he left when I was young, so it was just kind of me and my sisters.
00:04:05
Around age 11, so I ran away. You know, things at home weren't too good. I left and never went back.
00:04:13
You know, moved to Arizona. I lived kind of everywhere. Went to nursing school, Arizona State, became an RN, and then that's when the craziness happened.
00:04:23
Oh, so you were actually an art. I know you told me beforehand you were a registered nurse.
00:04:29
Yeah, I was a trauma nurse. I worked at, actually, when I lived in Vegas, I worked at UMC, the same hospital.
00:04:36
They brought a two-pot game when he got shot. So yeah.
00:04:40
Oh, wow. Okay. Wait, so you were there when it happened, when they brought him in?
00:04:44
No, I wasn't working there then, but I was just the same hospital.
00:04:48
Okay, got it. Yeah. You have a book that's available, and I'd like you to speak about that a little bit later, but I was reading some of the opening pages in.
00:04:58
And from early on, it seemed like you had a tough shake at it. There was some mention of, I don't know, the tampering with your food and your drink?
00:05:07
Yeah, my childhood was rough. You know, I didn't have the quote-unquote normal childhood.
00:05:15
There was a lot of chaos in my home. My parents were both drug addicts.
00:05:20
As I got older, I started remembering things, so I would ask my sisters about it and then come to find out they were, you know, I became a drug addict when I was four or five because they were putting heroin in my bottle, meth.
00:05:33
I mean, just a lot of stuff. And I think that's when the switch got turned on and my addiction really started, but it wasn't until I got older.
00:05:41
And I actually, I got into drugs that I realized, maybe this started a lot earlier than now.
00:05:48
Right. So even through your teenage years, you were using or it was something that developed, I guess, probably when you had access to it as a nurse?
00:05:57
Yeah, as a teen, really, no. As a teen, I was into sports a lot. I played baseball, hockey. I played pretty much everything.
00:06:07
But as I got older, when I became a nurse, that's kind of around the time where I was meeting, actually the first time I got high was with a doctor that I worked with.
00:06:19
So my teenage years were spent kind of normal, but as I got older, that's when the drugs really started to come around and I had a lot of access to them.
00:06:28
Did you see that a lot with people that you work with, the drug use or people taking a little bit extra off the side?
00:06:37
Oh, yeah. It's medication diversion. It's rampant. I know a lot of nurses that have done it.
00:06:45
Today, it's not so easy to do it. But back then, they didn't have the med cards where you required a code or you weren't required to have a witness there when you got the meds.
00:06:57
So people, you could just take it. The patient might say, hey, I didn't get my pain meds, but it's their word against yours.
00:07:05
So a lot of doctors I've seen got high, a lot of nurses. In the medical field, it's rampant.
00:07:13
There was a short little run where I was working in a convalescent home and I was just doing like helping with room transfers and kind of like a co-helper for maintenance and stuff like that.
00:07:26
But even then, this was back in the early 2000s, even then you would see the LVNs or the RNs and they had access to it.
00:07:34
And a few times they even shot me a little something on the side. You just open the door. It was as easy as that.
00:07:40
You open the door and all the medications were there. I don't even know if they were keeping inventory. They can just fudge the numbers. It wasn't really a big thing.
00:07:50
Exactly. And not to make excuses, but in the medical field, especially in nursing, you see a lot of stuff. You see stuff that most people will never see.
00:08:04
I worked trauma, so I was exposed to a lot of stuff. And so the drugs kind of made it where you could cope with that.
00:08:13
So I'm not like I said, not to make excuses, but I understand why it happens.
00:08:18
How long were you working as a nurse?
00:08:20
I worked for about six years.
00:08:22
Trauma. Six years working trauma?
00:08:25
Yeah. I worked a burn unit for about a year so I could get my financial aid. If you work in an undeserved area, they'll forgive your loan.
00:08:34
So I did that. But other than that, trauma is basically what I worked.
00:08:38
That's a tough field right there. You were in those hours were crazy too, weren't they?
00:08:43
Definitely. It wasn't unheard of to work 16 hours a day. That was the norm.
00:08:50
Were you seeing a little bit of everything? Overdoses? Accidents?
00:08:56
I've seen a lot of stuff like you said, gunshots, accidents. But in saying that, I say this.
00:09:04
When you see that kind of stuff, you find a way to cope with it. Like I said, some people get high.
00:09:09
Some people, we don't make jokes about it, but we find a way to deal with it.
00:09:15
So it wasn't unheard of to have somebody come in with stab wounds or a husband murder his wife.
00:09:22
He's there and you've got to take care of him. You've got to kind of keep your feelings.
00:09:28
It's tough. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.
00:09:32
Especially while the hours is one thing, but then you need the manpower. And like you said, there's a lot of people that are doing some extra stuff on the side.
00:09:42
Sometimes to cope with it and then you develop habits. But how are they with or back then, how were they with the tolerance?
00:09:50
Were there random drug tests? It was kind of like just look the other way. Don't ask, don't tell.
00:09:56
From what I understand, there's such a shortage of nurses. So if you don't kill somebody, you're going to keep your job.
00:10:04
They have the peer program, which is basically probation for healthcare workers.
00:10:09
So if you get a dirty UA, they're not going to fire you. You're going to go get counseling.
00:10:14
You know, you're going to, they're going to try to help you because they need you.
00:10:18
So it's not like you get a dirty UA and you're, hey, you're fired. I've never seen that happen.
00:10:23
If you get caught diverting medication, yeah, then you're done. But as far as use and having a drug problem, they try to help you.
00:10:30
Right. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. The manpower is supplying demand. Like if you're not a complete threat to somebody's life or their well-being, then they're going to try to work with you and help you to keep you on staff.
00:10:43
Yeah, that's how it goes.
00:10:45
So what led to the change you said you were there for six years? What happened? Did you end up resigning, call it quits or life happened?
00:10:54
Life happened. One day I traded my stethoscope in for a syringe. You know, I started doing the drugs, like you said, hanging around the wrong people.
00:11:04
She's with my childhood, we're starting to surface and from a child, I adapted to the way of, hey, when things get bad, I can just run away from it. And when I found heroin or meth, that was my escape.
00:11:21
Yeah, you said that you left the house at 11. Were you on the streets or were you staying with just bouncing from place to place? Just to take it back there real quick. Man, I mean, 11 years old, you can't really fend for yourself in a normal sense as getting a nine to five or anything.
00:11:40
No, no, you're on your own. And no, I was on the streets. I was sleeping and unlocked cars at night in the backseat. I was shoplifting during the day. I'd be at the mall.
00:11:54
You know, whatever it took to survive, that's what I would do. Eventually, you know, I get caught doing something stupid and I go to juvenile hall for a couple months and then they ship me off to a foster home where things were any better than they were at my house. So I would run away again.
00:12:10
And that cycle repeated itself until I was 18.
00:12:14
Yeah, because you go from that and then you get into your studies and end up getting certified as a registered nurse. So that was a nice change for a brief moment. And I guess things happen and you fell back into the belly of the beast.
00:12:32
Yeah, that's exactly it. When I was my last foster home I went to, it was really, it was different from anywhere else I've ever been.
00:12:43
The people there were, they wanted to help me. And one day they asked me, they said, hey, what do you want to do? Because when you turn 18, you can't stay here anymore. You're an adult, you're out of here.
00:12:54
And so I remember when I broke my arm when I was a kid, I was about five years old, I broke my arm. And when I went to the hospital, the doctors and the nurses, they were so, they were kind, you know, they were, they really cared.
00:13:08
And that was, I never had that as a kid. So as I got older, I said, you know what, that's what I want to do. I want to help people. And so, you know, they, they helped me enroll in college and off I went.
00:13:19
Right. I'm glad that you pointed that out because that was a thought of mine. I was wondering what led you to want to become a registered nurse and work in that field. But you explain yourself.
00:13:32
I actually wanted to become a doctor. Like that was my dream. But after nursing school, four years of school, I said, I'm done. I'm done with school. I'm not, I can't do it. I'm done.
00:13:41
How many, how many years are they putting in? Is it like eight years? Double that?
00:13:49
A doctor?
00:13:50
Yeah, doctor.
00:13:51
You, you have to go to, to pre-med, then you got to go to med school, then you got to do internships. And it's like 14 years, 12, 14 years before you become a doctor. So there's no way. I just did four years of nursing school. I don't even know how I graduated, but I did. And I'm done.
00:14:09
I'm good.
00:14:10
And rode that train doing well for yourself. And, man, it was that poison, huh, getting involved with the poison. And was it one of those things where you, you tried it out out of curiosity, or like you said, there was some things coming up probably from past trauma that was undoubted with, along with the demand of your job.
00:14:35
And it led to you wanting to cope with all of it in a certain way.
00:14:40
Yeah, it was, it was a little combination of everything, you know, before the drugs, I think my escape was, was work, you know, there was a time where I didn't mind work in 16 hours, or if another nurse called in, yeah, I'll pick up her shift because it was a distraction from what was going on, eternally and emotionally, you know, at that time.
00:15:02
But when I got introduced to the drugs, I said, you know what, this is a lot better. So I'm done with nursing. I'm done with the medical field. I'm just going to get high.
00:15:13
You know, the stuff that I did, there's no way I could have done it sober. Absolutely not. For one, that's not who I am. And for two, you know, I would have kind of weighed the consequences a little bit more than I did, you know, when I got into the stuff I was doing,
00:15:31
I was beyond high, and I just didn't care. I really didn't. I didn't care about anything. I didn't care about myself. If I get killed during this, I don't care. You know, maybe there were a time where I was trying to, I was kind of hoping that things would go sideways and, you know, I could die because I was tired of life.
00:15:53
I was tired of my childhood coming back every time things got good, you know, and I didn't know how to deal with it. I had nobody to talk to. It wasn't like it was today where, you know, there's, I mean, there's therapists back then, but it was different.
00:16:07
It was a different time, but there's no way I could have done any of the things I did if I wasn't high.
00:16:13
Like say when, when these emotions and these, these past memories would come up, were you the type to just bottle it in or would you, would you let it out in aggression, or would you just go to, to the dope to kind of, you know, appease that unwanted feeling in those emotions.
00:16:30
For the most part, I did, I kept everything inside. I didn't express anything. The only time I would, I would express it is when I got high.
00:16:38
Yeah. You know, anytime I would put a needle in my arm, I was dealing with my past. That's how I dealt with it. Always ever since I was a kid, not talking about stuff is how I dealt with it.
00:16:48
And, you know, at the end of the day, that comes back to bite you in the butt because you, you let it out in a way that normally wouldn't and not people that you shouldn't.
00:16:56
So as I've gotten older and I've gone through the stuff that I have, I'm at a point where I talk about stuff now. I really do. I don't keep it bottled in.
00:17:06
If it's anger, I'm going to let it out, but in a constructive kind of way.
00:17:10
Yeah. Cause I was the same way. I just bottled everything up.
00:17:13
Now, DeAngelo, we were talking a bit offline and you do have a book out that is published that's available. And is it available?
00:17:22
Do you know all of the platforms that people can find it on the Amazon's or where people can, can get their hands on it if they're curious and they want to read more about it.
00:17:31
You know, the title of it is On My Own. And like I said, I read a few chapters, but I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it sometime this week.
00:17:41
Yeah, it just came out a couple of days ago. So it is on Amazon. It's Kindle and paperback.
00:17:47
Oh, fresh out. All right.
00:17:48
Fresh out. You know, I, I've been writing this book my entire life. When I was in prison, I just, you know, decided to use a pencil and paper to do it.
00:17:57
So I've been writing this book and I, and writing has been another way for me to express my emotions in a positive way.
00:18:06
Journaling, fleshing out everything that you were experiencing, things that you probably hadn't dealt with for years and just laying it all on the paper.
00:18:18
That's the way that I've learned that a lot of people find a sense of like healing and just trying to make sense of all that chaos that's going on inside of them.
00:18:28
Now we talked a little bit offline and I was shocked to know that you, you know, you just recently came home and now experiencing life on the outside.
00:18:40
Can you share with us what led you to having to spend a long time behind those walls?
00:18:49
Yeah, like I said, when I, when I stopped nursing and I got high, I talk a lot about this in my book, but I, I met a girl and then the next day we got married.
00:19:02
That's where I was in my life. I had a bunch of holes that I was trying to fill with nonsense.
00:19:07
We got married the next day and the next day we robbed our first bank and it was her night together was not a good mix at all.
00:19:17
But we got into some stuff. We, we robbed Walmart's massage parlors, 13 banks.
00:19:25
We just, we were out there just, you know, getting high. That's what my life was. It was wake up, get high, go rob a bank, come home, get high again.
00:19:35
And that was, that's what I did for two months straight.
00:19:39
And two months you robbed, you were able to rob 13 banks?
00:19:43
Yeah, we were, we were living in Vegas at the time and, you know, there wasn't, it wasn't unheard of for us to, to go out at night to a club or something and just spend all the money and the next morning wake up and be broke and be like, Hey, the rents do we had both quit her jobs.
00:20:00
She worked at the Tropicana. I was, no, it was the Flamingo. She worked at one of them hotels out there, but she quit her job. I didn't have a job.
00:20:09
We had rent due, we had car payments. And so, and we had this image we had to keep up because everybody that we knew our so-called friends didn't know what we were doing.
00:20:19
They thought that I was still working at UMC and she was still at the hospital. So it was kind of like we had to do it. And we just found a way, you know, that's, that's what we were doing.
00:20:29
That's, that's what we did. Whatever it took to get money, we did it.
00:20:33
In a sense, almost like living a double life, huh? They have you, they have you pegged doing one thing, but little do they know what's really going on.
00:20:41
Oh, it was exhausting. I remember when I came out to Oklahoma the first time to meet her family. And like I said, we had this image to keep up and we had no money to get home.
00:20:54
This is when things were progressing to be super, super crazy. We had no money to get home. So we went and robbed two banks and we went to dinner the next morning and woke up, robbed two banks and went to lunch with her mom.
00:21:09
And that's what we were doing. We had to keep up the image and it worked for a while. But, you know, all, all things coming to an end and I'm glad it did.
00:21:19
So when we got arrested, it was the biggest relief that I ever had. You know, some people say, well, weren't you trying to get away?
00:21:28
You know, for the longest time, as I'm writing this book, I'm starting to realize things that, hey, I was trying to get caught because it was becoming too much.
00:21:37
It was becoming way too much, way too much.
00:21:39
It sounds like it in a way it was a cry for help doing things just recklessly, obnoxiously and hoping this thing just comes crashing down.
00:21:49
And I don't know, maybe to put you in a place where you're forced to start rethinking things, hashing things out and working on trying to stir things in a different direction.
00:22:02
Exactly. And to be honest, I think prison saved my life. I really, really do because the time when we got arrested, my inner self-talk was screw everything.
00:22:14
I don't care about anything. My wife, I hated her. Oh, I hated her. But our marriage was held together by the crimes we did together.
00:22:24
She knew she couldn't leave because I knew stuff, not that I would tell, but I couldn't leave because the stuff that I knew about her, she knew about me.
00:22:33
And so that's what our, we didn't have a relationship. We hardly talked. We talked more during a bank robbery than we did at home.
00:22:43
So that's to show you what kind of relationship we had.
00:22:46
You both had the dirt on one another. I'm curious, man, I mean, that's a long run to get away with robbing banks and not getting caught.
00:22:56
How were you guys? I mean, you don't have to spill all the beans, but I mean, for the most part, were you sliding like a note their way, or are you just going in reckless and saying, give me everything with the pistol out?
00:23:10
It started with a note, but we realized that with a note, we're getting $3, $4 at a time and that's just not going to cut it.
00:23:20
You know, we had guns, you know, one of my charges is, is threatening and intimidating with a firearm or robbing with a firearm or robbery out of force and fear.
00:23:30
So we always had a weapon, but we've never had to use it. But when you see here, here's our MO. If I was robbing the bank, because we take turns, either she would do it and I would drive or I would do it.
00:23:41
She would drive. But when I did it, I would go in dressed up in a suit and a tie, look real nice. And I'd have a laptop carrying a laptop carrying case with me inside the laptop case would be a plastic bag.
00:23:55
And I'd go in and I'd say, Hey, I need to speak to the manager about my account. Sometimes they would say, All right, we'll have a seat. And I would make a scene that way the manager came out and when she came out, she say, Let's go talk in my office.
00:24:09
We get in the office. I pulled the gun out and I tell you, you know, you know what it is, let's go. And so we go and I put the money in the bag and walk out the bank and get in the car and I was gone.
00:24:21
And we were doing this in different states. So when they put us on the news, nobody knew who we were because we weren't from there.
00:24:29
Yeah, because banks, they have cameras. I know this was back in the 2000s. It wasn't like it was yesterday, but I mean, they still had cameras and that was the whole point.
00:24:39
I guess you guys from bouncing bouncing from one place to the other. Like once it got hot in one place, you just take that show on the road and hit another one, huh?
00:24:46
Yeah. And honestly, I didn't care if we got my my carrying a self talk was so negative. You know, I didn't care. I really did.
00:24:56
Were there any times I know you said you were hoping to get caught? But I mean, were there other times where you felt like you were just on a suicide mission?
00:25:04
You wouldn't even mind if it ended in that way?
00:25:07
Definitely. You know, especially toward the end, for me, it was, I want to see how long I can stay in this bank.
00:25:15
You know, I want to loli gag around in this bank until the cops do come and then we can hold court right here because I didn't care anymore.
00:25:23
You know, I, I didn't care if I died. I didn't care if somebody else got hurt. I like I really didn't care. And so that's that was my mindset was if it goes down, it goes down where at first I remember the first bank I robbed.
00:25:35
I was extremely nervous. You know, I didn't know. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to do.
00:25:41
You know, we researched a little bit of stuff online, but you know, there's no manual. This is how to rob a bank.
00:25:47
So the first one was extremely, extremely terrifying and nervous. But yeah, after I got in the car, I said, that wasn't hard. That wasn't hard at all.
00:25:56
And then we took it to the next level with guns. And then we took it to the next level with threatening the tellers.
00:26:02
You know, it was it got out of hand real quick.
00:26:05
That's a scary place to be once you once you start pushing it to that level and you don't even have any fear.
00:26:12
You did a long stretch, man. I know you mentioned that they they kind of bust you around to a lot of different places.
00:26:20
In your experience, what is the reform program like? Because there's some people that that have a belief that in prison, you know, sometimes it turns an animal into a beast.
00:26:32
And in other people, they they say, no, you know, I was able to to find out who I was as a person and I was able to use my time wisely.
00:26:42
I guess in a way, it just does it depend on how you approach the situation or how was it for you in that whole process?
00:26:51
For me, it was to rewind a little bit. When I went to federal prison, I was sent to my first place. I went was Florence, Colorado.
00:27:00
I was in the Max there. I didn't understand why I was in such high custody. I hadn't killed anybody. I mean, I was probably the only one there with a release date.
00:27:10
You know, the guys that were there, they weren't going to home anywhere. They weren't, you know, they didn't have anything to look forward to.
00:27:17
So the environment there was was tense. It was it was just you could fill in the air.
00:27:23
So if somebody's going into that kind of environment and they're trying to work on themselves, it's extremely hard.
00:27:29
You know, it's kind of hard to to reflect on your past and deal with your emotions when you're trying to you're worried about and I can stab.
00:27:35
My whole time there, I never seen one fight. It was all stabbing. And it happened often. I was on the yard where they stabbed the warden in the kitchen because the food was cold.
00:27:44
You know, how do you work on yourself in that kind of environment? It's very hard. It wasn't until when I first went in, I adapted quick because I still had that mentality of I don't care.
00:27:56
So I was picking up violations. You know, I served a lot more time than I should have because I had lost on my good time because I was acting stupid in prison fights, you know, doing this, doing that.
00:28:08
But it wasn't until I was shipped to a lower security where I finally was able to have access to counselors, a drug program so I could figure out why I was getting high.
00:28:19
You know, there's always a reason behind somebody's addiction. Nobody just starts getting high for no reason.
00:28:25
So when I got to the lower security, I was taking time for myself. I began writing my book. You know, it didn't even start out as a book. It started out as, hey, I want to get this stuff out.
00:28:37
That way I can deal with it. The environment, prison environment, you know, you do the time you don't let the time do you.
00:28:44
So you got to find your own program. If you go in there with with the mindset of I'm going to get in all kind of stuff.
00:28:50
Well, you're going to find it if you want problems there. You're going to you're going to find them but try to associate with people like not to name drop but when I was it in Louisiana at Beaumont, the the guy I talked to the most was Jean Gotti, John Gotti's brother.
00:29:08
He was a great man, you know, great individual and he you know the stuff he had been through he was in the mindset of he's still trying to get his life together and I admired that so at the time I didn't practice I didn't put any of his ice in the practice.
00:29:22
But I remember that I carried that with me. I got to a point where I needed to figure out why I did what I did and when I got out I didn't want to continue.
00:29:32
So I took time and the environment I was in made that made that possible.
00:29:37
I don't let the time don't let the time do you I've heard that before. How many years into it before they put you on a low, a low level.
00:29:46
It was medium, medium security. I went to FCI Phoenix. I did my last two and a half years.
00:29:52
Okay, so there wasn't really any time or a place like you said for you to worry about trying to sort yourself out you're just trying to make it through the day you know it's it's like a dog eat dog world kind of thing.
00:30:04
Exactly. I mean I was in Florence, Colorado, Beaumont, Texas with a called Bloody Beaumont.
00:30:10
I was in Big Sandy, Kentucky. I went to all the bad places for some reason I don't know why but in the federal system you get shipped a lot.
00:30:19
Don't get don't get comfortable where you're at because the next day you can be on a bus to across the country. That's how it works.
00:30:25
Man, so what was during that time that's high level high stress you're on edge all day.
00:30:32
Yeah, Paul, Louisiana. That's where I was at Paul.
00:30:35
Where was your mind at during that time? You know, I'm curious like where your mind was at during that time because that's the hell of a way to be where it's you know you got to be on edge and on on your peas and queues.
00:30:46
You have to and there's a what's funny is there's a on the yard like my practice was I wouldn't I would try to avoid the kitchen the chow hall because that's usually where all the bad stuff went down.
00:30:59
Whenever something happened with somebody was getting stabbed or maybe there was a fight on the intercom, it would come on and it would say all inmates lay flat on the ground and they will shoot you.
00:31:10
You know, they from the guard tower, they don't fire warning shots, you will get shot.
00:31:14
I remember a time where a guy was getting stabbed and he wouldn't stop stabbing him and so the tower opened up on him and and and shot him and killed him and so in that environment, you're not thinking about getting out of prison.
00:31:26
You're not thinking about what your girls doing. You're thinking about making it to the next day.
00:31:31
So it wasn't up until those last two years and you had mentioned you served 11 years if I'm not mistaken.
00:31:39
Yes, correct.
00:31:41
So those those last two years is where you you were at a medium level to where you can you can kind of let your hair down a little bit so to speak and you weren't so much on edge to worrying about, you know, this guy or that guy or if I'm going to get hit with a guard tower bullet or I'm going to get, you know, stabbing
00:32:01
the side from somebody but were you immediately able to turn that switch off to being, you know, standoffish and and on your P's and Q's to to wanting to start to look for help or to seek out and sort some things out of what you were dealing with internally.
00:32:20
Definitely not. You know, when I when I arrived at the FCI Phoenix, I was still in in USP mode.
00:32:27
I got there and, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I was surprised when there was grass and there were trees and there were no gun towers.
00:32:37
But mentally, I was still in maximum security mode. So if you didn't say excuse me or it was going down and that's the mindset I had and it took a couple times for me to go to lockdown for me to realize hey, this this environment is different.
00:32:52
I don't have to be like that here. I don't have to worry about the politics. I mean, there's still politics there, but it's not as bad. You know, if you get caught eating with another race, you're not going to get stabbed.
00:33:03
You know, it's still frowned upon but it was it took it took about almost six months for me to really say hey, this environment's different.
00:33:14
I can go ahead and start working to worry about tomorrow and not worry about, you know, what happened in the past, you know, I'm not in maximum security and more.
00:33:23
The people were different. The guards treat you different. You have more access to to to a lot of things and I had a violent crime.
00:33:32
So I didn't qualify for any good time. You know, there are programs to our debt program where they'll knock a year off your sentence.
00:33:40
I didn't qualify for any of that. But I took those classes and actually I actually served three extra months just to complete the our debt program because I had that's something I had to do.
00:33:53
I wasn't getting out of prison. The same person I was when I went in. There was no way I wouldn't make it.
00:34:00
I really focused on myself and I look and looked for an outlet, a more constructive outlet for my past and for my emotions and I found it.
00:34:10
During that time, were you were you doing things on your own when it came to that? Did you have any kind of support from the outs or it was you most of the time spending time alone and getting to know yourself, learn yourself, understand why you feel the way you feel and, you know, working from the inside out.
00:34:28
Yeah, and you know what? I'm thankful for that because, you know, I didn't have a girlfriend and that has got to be the hardest time in the world to do because I've seen guys stress out and get into trouble because their girls not answering the phone or something like that.
00:34:46
It's a hard time to do so I didn't have anybody. I didn't get mail. I didn't make phone calls really. I didn't get visits. So it was D'Angelo with D'Angelo. You know, I had to learn to get comfortable with myself because at that time that's all I had.
00:35:00
I mean, you're spending the majority of your time alone in solitude. You had, I don't know if you had a cellmate during that time, but for the majority of the time you, you're forced to get comfortable with yourself in some shape or form.
00:35:16
How is that process like for you in the beginning dealing with things that were always pushed down or covered up with dope or drugs or other things that we use to stop out the feelings and emotions that we're dealing with?
00:35:32
But how was that process like in the beginning that that internal dialogue and coming to grips with things that you were either running from or just trying to cover up for so long?
00:35:45
It was tough. It was lonely. It was a lonely experience, but I've always been on my own. I've always been comfortable by myself, you know, maybe not with myself, but I didn't have to be surrounded by people to be okay.
00:35:57
But I had a doctor there, a psychiatrist that I would talk to, and she really got me thinking when she would give me these exercises to do, you know, if I'm feeling some kind of way, write them down and then we'll talk about it.
00:36:12
And the whole process of me, I think it began with learning how to forgive, really, you know, not only the people, not, you know, my family, the stuff I went through as a kid, but myself, you know, I learned, myself talk became, hey, that wasn't your fault, you were a kid, you know,
00:36:32
you went through it, but that's not who you are. Yeah, you robbed banks and you did this, but that's not who you are is what you did. So I had to learn who D'Angelo really was because I never knew who I was.
00:36:44
I really didn't. I wouldn't in the direction that the wind was blowing at all my life. So I when I did come to terms with who I am and who I want to be, things became a lot easier because now I had a goal.
00:36:58
I had an in game, a way that a way of life that I really wanted to pursue that was positive and that's what I do. You know, I love helping people, but that wasn't who I was when I went to prison.
00:37:10
Definitely not. That's who I've always wanted to be. I just didn't know how to get there. So learning how to forgive, express how I'm feeling, you know, whether through talk or writing has really, really helped.
00:37:21
That was one of the main things you said in the beginning. You said, you know, this was my whole point of me being able to share my story. And if it could help one person, I'm a happy man and coming from where you came from.
00:37:33
And sometimes, yeah, we can be our own worst critic and we all have our past, but to be able to turn it around and now do something that that is, you know, bringing you a bit of joy, peace and happiness and feeling like you've accomplished something.
00:37:50
You've accomplished something because you have. I mean, you can definitely be proud of yourself. I know we just met, but I mean, I get the positivity and I get the spirit that you have behind you.
00:38:00
And that's something that I could respect. And I'm thankful that I was able to connect with you today about your book that you wrote on my own. Did that start those last two years you were serving?
00:38:11
It actually started about six months to a year before I got there. I, I didn't have going to the shoe, which is basically a hole. I was in lockdown. I had no cellmate. It was just me.
00:38:24
And I had this little bitty pencil and I had paper and I just began to write and the feeling I got after I would write an incident that happened growing up.
00:38:35
It was like the world was lifted off my shoulders and I became addicted to that feeling. So I would write and I would write, but it wasn't till I got out. I got to the, to the medium to the FCI.
00:38:47
Did I really say, Hey, I want to share my story. I want this to become a book. And then you have, you know, you have your guys in there that, oh, that's not going to happen. You're not going to do this.
00:38:57
You're not going to do that. So that was my motivation. You know, but really what I wanted to do was get my story out. And I went, you know, I want one kid to read my book and say, Hey, I'm going through the same thing you went through, but I don't have to go down the road you went to because I know I can, you know, deal with it.
00:39:17
I know how to deal with my emotions now. I don't have to, I mean, I was an arsonist growing up when I would get mad. I'd burn something. You know, I, I was at a car. I mean, I didn't care. That's the only way I could release the stuff I was going through the pain and the motions.
00:39:34
At my book, as far as my book goes, it was not only an outlet for me. I want it to be, you know, a helpful thing for somebody else. I want all the craziness that I went through not to be for nothing. I want it to be positive.
00:39:50
You're right. I want somebody to say, Hey, that's where you were before, but look where you're at now. That's really, really what I want. I'm proud of myself now. And I want, you know, other people that are going through what I'm going through, whether it was drug addiction, you know, prison, horrible childhood to have an example of somebody that went through the same thing and look what they're doing now.
00:40:14
That's right. Exactly. Look what they're doing now. Yeah, it's not like that old saying I heard. It's not where you're from, but where you're at. And I mean, we're talking about presently, we all have our past and that shapes us. But some things, they're out of our control.
00:40:32
Like for you, your childhood, there was a time and a place when those things were out of your control, things that were happening around you, things that happened to you. And of course, you know, we end up making our choices and decisions that can lead us to some sometimes a path that is destructive.
00:40:50
But you really took it upon yourself to take accountability, responsibility for your actions, for your livelihood, for your new experiences in life. And man, I'm really impressed with the whole book writing process.
00:41:06
I wanted to ask you, did you didn't have any outside help that was all you? I'm sure you worked with an editor or something or someone to help you kind of polish it up. But the majority, that was all you?
00:41:18
That was all me. I didn't even work with an editor. I really didn't. I probably wrote. Oh, you did. I probably wrote this book 13 times, because there was more not not only was more stuff coming up. But as I wrote, I became a better writer.
00:41:35
You know, I'm not an author. I'm really not. I've never written a book before. But the more I write, and then I'd reread it, I would find better ways to express it. And I found that if I just say what happens, instead of trying to try to be Stephen King or trying to be, you know,
00:41:52
earn a family, I just be D'Angelo, it's going to be authentic and it's going to sound good. And, you know, I've, from the most part, the reviews I've been getting are really positive. I'm not going to press everybody with my story. And I recall a time where not too long ago, I went for a job
00:42:09
interview. And I really wanted this job. And I ace the interview, got it offered, went to take the drug test, pass the drug test. And then they did the background check. And my crimes look really bad on paper, you know, there's kidnapping, threatening and intimidating
00:42:27
and armed bank robbery, unarmed bank robbery, conspiracy. So on paper, it looks like I'm this monster, where I didn't put nobody in the trunk, you know, in kidnapping is if I tell you to move in you with a, you know, with a gun, that's
00:42:41
a lie. I forced you to, I forced you to leave where you were. But they don't want to hear that they see what's on the paper. So a lot of people aren't going to accept the fact that people change. And I'm okay with that, because I've accepted it. So the people that
00:42:58
matter to me now, my family, my girlfriend, my friends, that's who that's who matters. So that's, that's really what I did, what I did it for.
00:43:07
And touching on that, how you, you mentioned going to an interview, you know, acing it and they're seeing you as the perfect fit for the position but then running a background or like, you know, when I don't know if I really want to take a chance with this man anymore.
00:43:21
I'm curious as to how your motivation or your spirit was in the beginning, the transition, you know, being released and being a free man and just, for instance, trying to get back in the working field or to be able to make a living for yourself. And you mentioned this, this instance, but did you deal with a lot of doors being shut on you on the
00:43:41
county you're past and I know it's unfortunate sometimes that you have a record and it's five years free isn't enough, six years is like, when do you consider somebody reformed and changed and a new man everybody's different, every individual is different.
00:43:57
But yeah, that's just the way it is. And how was it for you? Like, did you, did you deal with a lot of that at first? And how did you, how did you get past it or how did you work through it?
00:44:08
Well, when I was released, when I went to the halfway house, I got lucky, and I got a job two days later tearing down transmissions. Wasn't the best job, but it was a job and, you know, I really wanted to get back into the medical field.
00:44:23
So I tried my luck, you know, I said, Hey, let me try to apply for this position. And, and either my background was my, my charges were so old, it didn't come back or they saw that my charges weren't directly related to patient care and they didn't care.
00:44:39
You know, they let me in and, and that's what I've been doing, but I wanted to work with kids. And so I applied for this job, not too long ago and that's when they did the fingerprint and my violent crimes came up and they said, Absolutely not.
00:44:54
You know, doors are going to be shut. People have to understand that when you get out of prison. More likely you're not going to land the job that you want, you know, but you have to use common sense to if, if you rob the bank, go don't go apply for a job at a bank, you're not going to get it.
00:45:08
You know, if you're in there for forgery, don't, don't go try to get a job at the post office or something. You have to be smart, you know, don't look for the job, look for a job. And that's going to be your best bet when you get out.
00:45:21
Yeah, I hear that a lot too. From people, you know, they were locked up for X amount of years, they get out. And because of those doors being shut on them, the frustration of being rejected.
00:45:34
And sometimes you can feel like things are helpless and, and you can fall back to your ways, you know, and end up doing the things that that got you there in the first place. And, but it seems like from your perspective and on your side, you, you already had a game plan before you got out and you stuck to the script.
00:45:53
Yeah, you know, the most important thing when you're in prison is you have to start preparing for your release if you have one. And you have to do that early on, you have to have a plan when you get out.
00:46:05
And you also got to understand that not everything is going to go according to your plan, you're going to have to adjust. But if you don't prepare for the outside, you're, you're going to feel lost, you know, you're going to, you're going to feel like that anyway, but at least when you have a plan, you have some sort of path that you can go down.
00:46:22
And see what happens, you know, but if you get out and you say, Hey, I'm just going to take it day by day, you can do that. I mean, in some regards, yeah, emotionally, stuff like that, you're going to have to take a day by day.
00:46:33
But as far as employment goes, you got to hit the ground running, you really, really do it. If, if you're really determined to make it out there, you got to hit the ground running. And that's what I did. I told myself, I'm going to have a job at this.
00:46:44
You know, it's funny, every morning real quick, I got out in December. And this is how how I stuck to my plan. When I got out in December, I had a job interview, the net or two days later, and I had to take the bus.
00:46:57
Well, I didn't know the bus didn't run all the way toward to my to my interview. So I had to walk now I'm in dress shoes. I'm looking nice. I had to walk in the snow, almost a mile and a half to this interview.
00:47:11
And I don't know, because of that, I got the job or they just I was qualified or whatever. But that's how determined I was. And that's how you have to be when you get out. You can't let one no stop you.
00:47:23
When you just spoke on that right now that I don't know if you've seen the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness that reminded me of a scene when he was he had a Sunday's best on going for a job interview and he had to go through all this, you know, this chaos to get to the interview.
00:47:37
And by the time he got there, his, his clothes were a mess. But he got there for the interview, he wasn't going to let nothing stop him. And if I'm not mistaken, I think they ended up giving him the job.
00:47:49
But it's that it's that determination where it doesn't matter what's in front of me. I mean, you've, you've been through hell and back. So you already had that grit about you in a mile and a half in the snow, you said in the snow.
00:48:04
And, you know, unlike Will Smith, I had both my shoes. I remember he showed up missing a shoe.
00:48:10
Yeah, okay. See, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. But no, I was my pants were messed up. I had frostbite on my face. Yeah, it was bad. It was cold. It was extremely, extremely cold.
00:48:22
But I had a plan and I even had a plan if I was told no, you know, people have people make plans that here's what I'm going to do, but they don't have a plan that if what are you going to do if that doesn't work out.
00:48:32
And that's where a lot of failure comes in. But I did if he if I wasn't going to get this job, well, guess what, it was on to the next one.
00:48:39
I might my focus and my mindset was, hey, I'm going to be where God wants me to be. I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do. If I if I follow this plan, I'm things are going to work out.
00:48:50
Right on. Plan A plan B plan C. I mean, that's just like a fighter, you know, when they get out there, they have a they have a game plan that first round, second round things aren't looking the way they are.
00:49:01
They thought it was it was going to play out and they start making their adjustments. They go in the corner. They, you know, they change it a little bit and you have that strategy where you're able to make adjustments and capitalize on what you've seen.
00:49:15
That was there as far as openings and things like that, or you end up just get beaten down and you really stuck to your guns and you kept to it. And man, that's something I could really respect, you know, serving a X amount of X amount of years and there's there's going to be door to door.
00:49:30
There's going to be doors, closers. There's going to be a lot of avenues that that were once there that won't be there, but you kept at it and you kept your eyes on the prize and it played out played out in your favor.
00:49:40
Yeah.
00:49:41
To be honest, though, I've had some bad times since I've been out. Not everything has been, you know, Rosie and a gun according to plan, you know, I've relapsed. I have and I've come very close to returning to custody because I'm still dealing with stuff.
00:49:57
I'm not okay. I'm far from okay. I know how to deal with things now in a different way. But I have bad days. My self talk isn't always positive. But I surround myself with people that are there when that does happen.
00:50:13
My girlfriend, if I'm having a bad day, you know, we talk about things we try to if I want to, you know, there are times where I don't want to talk about things, but I'm not perfect.
00:50:22
I'm still learning how to live. You know, I'm almost 50. And I haven't even lived yet. You know, I, that's how I feel. There's a lot of things that I haven't experienced. You know, every day, there's something new that I've never done, whether it's going outside at nighttime.
00:50:39
You know, when you're in prison, you don't go outside at nighttime. You don't, you know, you're locked down. So or walking on the carpet with no shoes on, you know, there's, there's always a first, you know, and it's, I'm still getting a judge.
00:50:51
I'm still getting adjusted to society. I mean, there's, there are times where I was snapping at people and lining Taco Bell because they cut in front of me, you know, I still carry the prison mentality and in some ways that's good.
00:51:04
But in other ways, it's not going to do you any good. The only thing it's going to do is get you right back to prison. So I'm learning how to leave that behind. Not only that, but my childhood leave everything behind, deal with it and keep it moving.
00:51:17
You know, don't dwell and stuff, you know, get up and keep moving, go on to the next thing.
00:51:23
11 years, man. That's a long time to be down and getting up and things have changed, especially with technology and just the way things are moving. It's only been a few years since you've been out.
00:51:36
What are like a couple of things that, that were really tough, you know, from your transition from, from being behind the walls to, to being a free man?
00:51:46
I think one of the biggest things is or was money, you know, yeah, they had credit cards and stuff like that when I was out back then, but now it's like nobody carries cash anymore.
00:51:59
Everything's on your phone, you know, they didn't have, you know, door dash and all that stuff when I was out. Now you don't even have to leave your house anymore and I, I'm amazed by that.
00:52:09
I'm taking back sometimes where literally you could stay in your house all day and have anything you want brought to you. That's, that was one of the things.
00:52:19
The public transportation, it's not what it used to be, you know, just a lot of things like I was mentioned earlier when I was before I got arrested, I had a sidekick for a phone, T-Mobile sidekick.
00:52:32
That was the greatest thing in the world. My girlfriend bought me the, the Z Fold flip phone. I am amazed by this phone. It's like a mini TV, you know, they didn't have that stuff back then.
00:52:43
There's just the cars nowadays. They're, they don't, they drive themselves basically.
00:52:49
Yeah.
00:52:50
Times have, have changed and, and you either have to adapt or you're going to get left behind because this world doesn't wait for nobody.
00:52:58
This world is going to keep moving regardless of either you're here or not. One of the things I was, when I was in prison, I'm like, when I get out, I'm getting back on MySpace.
00:53:06
There's not even MySpace anymore, you know, Facebook and all that stuff. I was, people are like, they ain't got that crap no more. What are you talking about?
00:53:12
I'm like, they don't. They're like, no, Facebook ain't, MySpace ain't around anymore.
00:53:18
Yeah. So everything is going digital pretty much. I mean, that's the way they're living in a digital world now.
00:53:24
With that being said, and you have your book that you worked on that it was, are you, I'm still impressed with that. Do you still write?
00:53:33
I do. I've started to write stories for kids, basically life lessons in a way that children can comprehend.
00:53:41
I write, you know, my feelings down still. I, I want to write another book because there's a lot of stuff in my book I never wrote about.
00:53:50
Situations, I mean, I could write a whole book about prison, you know, but stuff I went through, how I progressed from it.
00:53:57
You know, I just wrote a book. It's coming out, I think next week, it's about drug addiction. You know, it's steps that you can take and tools that you can use to prevent relapse and stay sober.
00:54:09
You know, that's what I want to do.
00:54:11
Okay.
00:54:12
I have to do something with this crap I've been through. I have to, I have to get it out there so it helps somebody. I mean, I have to, or it's all for nothing.
00:54:19
Amen. You have your book available. Once we get offline, you can share the links with me and for sure I'll be sure to include it in the show notes.
00:54:29
So when this show is published, people can have access to it so they could click on whatever link they need to click on to get them to where they need to get to so they can get their hands on the book.
00:54:39
And it's like a memoir of yours, isn't it?
00:54:42
It is. It's my theory. I mean, that's, I wrote that in the hole with the little bitty lottery pencil and any kind of paper I could find. And I kept it with me and it's just, it's progressed to what it is now.
00:54:58
And it's just to imagine putting a whole book out there from start to finish. I know you said you did it about 13 times. You were rehashing it out and just figuring out ways to express yourself in a different way and adding different color and flavors to it and things like that.
00:55:14
It's an art. It's a beautiful art. And this is what I wanted to bring up because you mentioned relapsing.
00:55:21
It all happens. We're human beings and you had your battles with addiction and you said that you're also working on writing a book, having to do with addictions.
00:55:31
Are there any things in general that have helped you? I know you mentioned writing. That's one thing that has helped been therapeutic for you, but other things that have helped you to remain sober and try to push that line and walk in that direction.
00:55:45
For addiction, I think it looks different for everybody. But what we all have in common is that our addiction is just a symptom.
00:55:56
We are going through something that is letting the addiction take its place. So like I said earlier, people just don't get high for nothing.
00:56:06
I got high because I'm trying to run from my past and I deal with it. Some people drink, some people shoot heroin, some people eat. Addiction is addiction.
00:56:18
As far as drug addiction goes, I think the number one thing is distancing yourself from those that you used to get high with.
00:56:26
Surrounding yourself, whether it's NA or whether it's just people that don't get high, you have to surround yourself with those people because you could be clean and sober for 20 years and then you're at Walmart and you run into Joe who you used to shoot dope with.
00:56:43
There's a good chance that if you hang out with Joe and he's still shooting dope, you're going to get high again. You're going to relapse.
00:56:49
So your environment has to change. Your mind, your self-talk has to change and you have to want to get sober.
00:56:59
I mean, you could take a drug addict and you can give them all the tools in the world. You can show them how to stay sober. You can do this and do that.
00:57:06
But unless he wants to get sober, you're talking to a wall. Nothing's going to change. So change happens within and when it does happen, it's different for everybody.
00:57:16
Rock bottom, I don't believe in that. I don't believe that people can't change until they hit rock bottom.
00:57:21
I know people that were wanting done a rehab, they had a drug problem. They went to rehab. They did the program. They got out. They never got high again.
00:57:29
And there's other people that you think they're never going to get sober. Their rock bottom must be real, real, real deep. But when you're ready to change is when the task of getting sober can begin.
00:57:41
I agree with you on that, especially when it comes to it coming down to you. I mean, of course, we're each different and we're going to deal with it differently where we all had or have our own struggles with it, but it's going to look different for everybody.
00:57:57
And I'm on that same line where I feel like until that person is ready, and also it's a big thing with changing your environment and getting away from whatever it is that that is going to be that kind of influence.
00:58:11
Like they say, if you hang around nine businessmen, you're going to be the 10th. So it really does come down to your environment.
00:58:18
And also that plays a big factor. But then also, and ultimately it's when that person is ready to start making some changes in the let go. It's like when you get to a point where you're just sick and tired of being sick and tired and you take that next step.
00:58:32
I agree. And not only that, getting sober is a process. And within that process, relapses happen. It's part of the process. Don't get hard on yourself and give up because you slipped up and when it got high, it happens.
00:58:47
It's part of the process. But you need to deal with whatever is causing you to get high. I had to deal with my childhood. I had to deal with past traumas that I went through.
00:58:58
That's why I was getting high. Joe might be getting high because he has depression or whatever it is. You have to deal with that. Until you deal with that, you're not going to get sober. You're really not.
00:59:13
Yeah, I'm with you on that. So man, D'Angelo, you got a lot of things going on. You got a lot of things in the fire. You said you have a couple of books, children books. You plan to put those out too? Or is it just something you do as a hobby?
00:59:27
Or you also want to make them available for parents or kids to interact with or read?
00:59:35
I really want to put them out in juvenile halls. I spent a lot of time in juvie. A lot of time. We didn't have books. Nobody gave a crap. Really, there was a job for them.
00:59:48
But if kids can get a hold of these books, and I write it in a way that 10-year-old Tommy sees that there's a way to deal with stuff that's going on in his home and it's not his fault, then that's what I want to do. As far as if I still write like myself, I do.
01:00:06
But the children's books, I'm definitely going to publish. I'm going to try to get them published. And then the drug addiction book, that comes out, like I said, I think next week.
01:00:15
Oh, you're already done with it, pretty much. Yeah, it's done. I have a publisher now where it obviously goes through the editing process and whatnot, so that publishing is a process too. So I'm just waiting on them.
01:00:28
And I'm doing good. I'm making something positive out of this chaotic life that I've lived.
01:00:36
That's what it sounds like. What's that process look like? You have a little ritual when you get in your zone and start writing, or it's just like whenever the muse hits you, that's when you start putting everything on paper? How does that look like for you? Do you set a time aside on a specific day and say, I'm going to try to get a few pages done today?
01:00:59
I think a little bit of both. I just published this story on Amazon. They have this thing where you can write short stories. And I wrote a story about a man who played the piano while he was in prison. He did a lot of time. He got out of prison and he became famous for playing the piano.
01:01:18
Well, one day he was accused of a murder. And when it was all said and done, he got acquitted. But the point was, all those people that were surrounding him while he was famous, where were they when he was accused of murder?
01:01:32
The takeaway from that is, if people are really your friends, they're going to stick by you no matter what. And there's inspiration for that story came from my girlfriend. The stuff I've been through, she's never left my side.
01:01:48
I can mess up one day, she's still there. She might not be happy, but she's still there. And you have to surround yourself with friends. I have a lot of acquaintances, but I have very, very few friends.
01:02:00
And if you surround yourself with friends, positive people that are going in the same direction as you and are not going to give up on you, no matter what, you're going to be successful.
01:02:09
Yep. Iron sharpening iron. Yeah, when you're young, you know, you have a, there's a group of people and it seems like sometimes you're in the business of collecting friends or something just so you can see what you can get off of this person.
01:02:23
But then as you get older and you start, you start evolving as a person, that circle gets a lot tighter and smaller. And you really take into account and appreciate those that you still have around you that they've seen you.
01:02:37
They've seen you in your dark times, they've seen you in your worst times, but they're still right there by your side. That's a beautiful thing to have.
01:02:45
I definitely, I definitely agree. It's funny. I'll see on Facebook and I'll see these people that have 6700 friends and I'm like, there's no way you know all those people. There's no way, you know, right.
01:02:57
They shouldn't call them friends. They should call them something else. You know, I have everybody on my Facebook. I know I've either done time with them, or I've known them from before.
01:03:08
But friends are very few and the ones that people do have should have, you know, the same, the same wants that you want for your life. You know, they should be able to push you to where you want to go.
01:03:22
Now they don't have to be tolerant. If you treat them like crap, they ain't got to stick around because they're your friends. No, but friends are just, you know, they're very valuable and you shouldn't collect them.
01:03:34
You know, you need to earn the friendship.
01:03:35
Definitely, definitely. This has been a great conversation and we had a hiccup. We were able to hook back up and finish this talk out and hear a lot of, you know, things that you had going on in your life, how you were able to make some changes, adjust, come out of it, working on it, still working on it as we all are, works in progress.
01:03:58
Do you have any links or anything? Like say if someone wants to get in touch with you and check you out.
01:04:04
Yeah, I have a website, DeAngeloStefani.com. They can get a hold of me there. Of course, they can. I'm on Facebook. My books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble is pretty much anywhere, you know, you buy books. It's on, you know, an e-book and it's a paperback.
01:04:21
So, I mean, if people want to contact, connect with me, I'm open for it. I'm here to listen, you know, to help any way I can. I think that's my purpose. So, yeah, get a hold of me. We'll chop it up. We'll, you know, we'll figure out what's going on.
01:04:37
For sure, man. DeAngelo, it's been a pleasure to have you on. And before we wrap this thing up, you have any final words or anything you'd like to leave off with?
01:04:46
You know, I just want to say the whole takeaway from my life, you know, for somebody looking at me now is that, like you said, this is a process. I haven't always been where I'm at now. There were days in the past where I never thought I could get to where I am now.
01:05:05
And so, for people out there that's going through some stuff, just know that things will get better. You know, things don't have to be the way they are. But in order for that to happen, the first step has to be with you. You have to make that first step.
01:05:19
Nobody's going to do it for you. Nobody cares. You know, there's a movie, The Bronx Tale, and there's a scene in there where the guy tells the kid, you know, nobody cares. And they don't.
01:05:30
You know, this world is cruel. It's tough. But if you want to change and you want to make it, it starts with you.
01:05:37
The Bronx Tale, that's a 90s classic, man. I had that on VHS.
01:05:43
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, that's one of my favorites. That's a great movie.
01:05:49
You hit it on the spot with that. Appreciate your time, your words, your spirit, and everything that you're doing nowadays. That direction that you're taking it and the things you're involved with is positive. It's uplifting and you're building.
01:06:04
You know, you're building rather than destroying and taking.
01:06:08
One last thing I wanted to say, if there are writers out there that have, you know, maybe not a story like mine, but they write their feelings down, you know, my publisher that I have, that's what they do.
01:06:22
And so if you want to contact me, I could definitely get you in touch with them. I think writing is a great outlet. And I think everybody has a story. And I think everybody should tell their story. I really do.
01:06:32
Cool. Yeah, for sure. We're going to leave that there too, so people can hook up and link up with you if that's something that they do and want to pursue.
01:06:40
Cool, man. Hey, D'Angelo, stay blessed, my man.
01:06:43
Hey, you too, man. It was good talking to you. And maybe we can do it again. And, you know, I wish you the best, buddy.
01:06:50
I'm reminded of a quote, man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be. That was by Vick Tour Franco.
01:07:05
And D'Angelo, it sounds like that's exactly what he's doing from turning a negative into a positive through his writing with offering hope to anybody who may be going through the same type of struggles.
01:07:20
His book on my own, reflecting on yesterday that's available wherever books are sold. And he also has the children books in the pipeline, along with the educational material and his writing on addiction.
01:07:33
We all have a past, but it's not where you're from. It's where you're at. I say that to say this.
01:07:40
D'Angelo, he isn't letting his past abuse, trauma, addiction, crimes and mistakes dictate who he is as a person today.
01:07:50
There's an old proverb about shedding the old skin so that the new skin can grow and a new life can begin.
01:07:57
D'Angelo, appreciate your time and the words that you shared with us today. You are a giant amongst us. Stay up, stay at it and stay blessed.
01:08:09
And for those of you interested in sending some warm words to D'Angelo or checking out the material he's producing, what he's creating, the books that he has available, all of his information will be in the description box so you can have at it.
01:08:25
And to you all who each and every time check in and plug in, thank you for lending an ear.
01:08:31
Be sure to tell a friend to tell a friend and tell that friend to come back again. That's how we're going to get the word out there.
01:08:38
And as these lights dim over here and it's about time to wind down, allow me to shout out the multi-spective podcast.
01:08:47
You guys be sure to check them out. To Jenica and the rest of the staff over there at Multi-spective Podcast, keep doing a good deed. Respect.
01:08:58
Multi-spective is a podcast where we interview individuals around the world with unique stories and experiences.
01:09:05
Guests share in detail some of the traumas they've faced.
01:09:08
You know, because I feel in some ways so disgusting and broken on the inside, you know, I'm going to work on my outside and that's going to make me feel better.
01:09:18
Mental health issues they've lived with.
01:09:21
I was very hyper, like I felt good. That's one thing of mania, like you feel good.
01:09:30
Decisions they've made.
01:09:33
My life changed drastically in that moment. That one moment, I can't even begin to describe to people how hard, how good, how scary, how disturbing and emotional that moment was, smoking crack.
01:09:46
And more importantly, how they found strength, resilience and healing.
01:09:50
Just being able to think and have conversations and walk places, that really helped me, you know, accelerate the process of, you know, rebuilding burnt bridges.
01:10:02
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01:10:25
You all be safe, be sane, be free and we're going to catch up and do this again real soon.
01:10:33
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01:10:47
I'd be happy to connect until next time and very soon. Peace.
01:11:17
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