It’s possible to reconstruct your entire life even when you’ve reached absolute rock bottom, and Overcoming Deep Addiction is the first decisive step. Host Zander Sprague sits down with social media creator and recovery advocate Bryan Blackmon to unpack his journey from homelessness to long-term sobriety. He describes how a single, powerful moment in front of a bathroom mirror shifted his mindset from self-destruction to realizing his true value. You’ll learn how he built the Crab Crew Life community and why resilience and adaptability are essential to navigating recovery. We talk about shifting your daily perspective, focusing on the small wins, and creating a strong foundation to move forward. It’s time to stop letting past habits dictate your future and start choosing your own epic path today.
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From Homeless And Addicted To Building A Global Community With Bryan Blackmon
Welcome, Epic people, to another exciting episode of the show. I have Bryan Blackmon with me. Bryan, thank you so much for being here. Tell us who you are and what you do.
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. My name is Bryan Blackmon, and I do TikTok and many other things. I have a degree in audio and video production, so I do a lot of concerts, setting up lighting, audio, and video in the LA area. Mainly, my full-time gig has become social media of all things.
Now I know that you have a rather epic story here, Bryan, and I would love to dive into that. Tell us a little bit about your background, about the journey that you have been on.
I come from Fort Worth, Texas. Started drinking and drugging heavily around the age of fifteen. That continued throughout my entire teenage years, young adult years, and up until a little over two years ago now. That has just been my life. That is just what I have done. That is who I have known myself to be. It is just an alcoholic drug addict chasing that to make me feel whole, to make me feel like I was somebody in this world. It has just been all that I have known since I was really young, like I said. I moved to California on a dream, and things got even crazier, wilder, and more disturbing in some parts. Now I have got 886 days sober, a little over two years and four months sober. Living my best life.
Congratulations on that. I cannot say I know it’s challenging because I would not say that, but I would say what I know of addiction and recovery and stuff is that it’s one day at a time, and it’s challenging, and like anything, some days are easier than others. With my degree in mental health, I also know that human beings are creatures of habit. I have to imagine that after so many years of doing that, it’s a pattern.
“I’m having a stressful day, I’ll have a dry call, I’ll take some drugs, and whatever.” Patterns are hard, especially when they’re so long established. How do I do something new? Kudos to you for your path. For you, what was it that started the drinking and drugging and stuff? Was it like the, and I’ll call it, put it in “classic.” You started with marijuana, and that was not doing it, so you went to other drugs? What were the what what was your alcohol of choice? Was it anything that’s fermented that is more like it?
You said something a minute ago that I had a stressful day, or maybe things just did not go as I wanted them to, let’s say, and that would be a reason to drink. Mine was a lot easier than that. Mine was just waking up. I did not have to have a bad day. I did not have to have a good day. It is what I fed myself from the moment that I got up. It started when I was thirteen. I had moved to my aunt and uncle’s house because I was so out of control. My parents had just gotten a divorce. They sent me to live with my aunt and uncle to try to see if that would help.
I had a beer at a party at thirteen that they were throwing with one of my neighbors. I just felt this warm, peaceful feeling rush over my body. I have always struggled with emotions. I feel other people’s emotions. I feel this world intensely, and the vibrations and the frequencies of it. Back then, as a young kid, I did not understand what that meant or what was happening on the outside of me that was hurting the inside of me or triggering the inside of me. When I had that first drink, I felt like I could breathe. I felt peaceful. I did not understand what that meant, but it was interesting.
It put a smile on my face. I do remember that very distinctly. Time went on, and it was in high school when I smoked weed for the first time. High school parties and the beer came in, and the alcohol came in, the liquor. I just became a garbage disposal. I liked it all. To bring that seriousness of how I liked it all, it led to the cocaine, led to the hallucinogenics, the acid, the mushrooms. At a party one night when I was in the tenth grade, a buddy of mine brought me into the bathroom, and there was a line of coke on the back of the toilet and a line of this brown powder.
I asked what that was, and he said it was heroin. You’ve got to do them both with each other. It is the best feeling ever. Most people, I think, would have been like, I do not know if I’m ready to, especially in the tenth grade. Going into the eleventh grade. There was no question for me. I just was like, “Okay.” I did it, and I thought I was going to die. I just kept doing it, and I thought I was going to die every time I did it. I just kept doing it. That was the extent of how my internal body operated when it came to drugs and alcohol. I like to push that button and see how far I can take it.
It doesn’t take a massive leap to change. You just need to choose one consistent, intentional step forward.
I’ve read and heard that it’s chasing the dragon. That first time you have heroin or some opiate, you’re like that high is great and then you’re chasing to try and get that high, but you never quite get that same high. Is that correct?
Absolutely. It got to the point where it was fun, I enjoyed it, it was a lifestyle. I grew up playing guitar in local bands, and I come from a musically inclined family. The whole rock star. That’s all I ever wanted to do was live the rock star life. I fulfilled that.
Fulfilling the drinking and drugging part of it.
The sex, drugs, and rock and roll, man. I achieved that. There is no doubt about it. The lifestyle of it. It got to where it no longer fed me this piece. Now it felt like I was back to square one of this disturbance internally. Without that in my body, I cannot function. It got to the point where as I just had to have that in me, then it started creating a different disturbance. That was an ugly, wretched, dark feeling. I was so far in, getting out was not really an option. In a lot of ways, I never wanted to get out. I never wanted to stop doing drugs or drinking. I would get sober for my family to get out of probation, parole, prisons, jails, institutions, just to try to get my way with things, but never did I want to.
Clearly, there was a moment over 800 days ago where perhaps you said, “I cannot do this anymore.” What was that rock bottom? How did you get there? I can imagine, after all those years, that’s honestly all you knew.
I cannot say that I know what happened other than it was a power greater than myself that tapped me not only on my heart, but in every cell of my body. I was brushing my teeth 886 or 887, one of the two days ago. I was brushing my teeth, and I looked in the mirror, and the light that was inside me was no longer shining. It had not shone in many years. I had lost that. It was pretty dim and grim in every aspect. I was brushing my teeth, man, and I just saw this shell of a human.
What happened was every voice, every spirit, the angel, the devil, my own conscious and subconscious mind that I know of myself were not fighting each other. It was not saying this and saying that and fighting this and fighting that voice and fighting the angel and the devil. Everything just came together in one spirit, and all I heard were the words, “You are worth it.” It rang throughout my entire spirit. At that moment, I decided I’d had enough. That’s what it took, man. It could not have been for my family. It could not have been for any other reason. It finally landed in me, and me wanting to make that change.
What I know and do the work I do, change comes because we get to a point where we’re like, this is no longer serving me, be it drinking, drugging, the way you’re eating, your lack of exercise, whatever. It does not matter what it is. Everyone has those times in their life where they’re like, “I know I need to change my eating, I’m gaining weight, I do not like how I look, I do not like how I feel.” Until you get to a point where you yourself decide I need to change this and change it.
Change is scary. It’s a basic thing. I talk about it all the time on the show that we like comfort. It’s how we’ve gotten as a species, knowing the familiar makes us feel good. The unknown is scary, but that’s where change happens. You have this moment, and you’re like, “This is no longer working.” What were some of the big challenges about going into, I’m guessing that you went to some facility to help you detoxify safely, so you did not die.
I did try that. It did not work. I’ve gone through so many withdrawals and so many rehabs and so many sober living homes in my life. Trying to do this for all the wrong reasons, I knew personally how my body was going to react. I did not know how hard it was going to be this time because I was doing a lot of meth, taking a lot of pills, and drinking a lot. I knew the withdrawals were going to be extremely uncomfortable this time.
I just did not understand how much fentanyl was being used to cut methamphetamines. I knew it was happening, I just did not know how much of it was really going on. I checked myself into a 30-day program. The people who were there it was a men’s facility, and they were relapsing in front of me. They were bringing drugs in, doing a bunch of bad things, and trying to hide it, but they did not hide it too well because they’re acting out.
I saw that, and it ripped. Dude, I was angry. I checked myself out, I called my neighbor, she came and picked me up, and I locked myself in my bedroom for 30 days and kicked it myself. It lasted about three months before I could finally start to even function like a normal person again. It was so bad this time that I prayed to just go ahead and take me. I just did not think that I was going to pull through this. I definitely do not recommend doing it that way to anybody. Disclaimer.
Aside from the fentanyl laced methamphetamine and all of that, alcohol withdrawal alone can kill you, and unfortunately does kill people. Where I went to high school, right now, literally right next to us, was a big alcohol and drug recovery hospital. We saw the EMS wagon going up multiple times a week because someone had an alcohol withdrawal that was not going well, and they needed to go to the hospital. I’m happy. Are you participating in any of the alcoholics anonymous narcotics anonymous or anything?
In the beginning, I did. Once I got through the 30 days, I got up and started going to a local AA group down the street from where I met. I did that every single day, every morning, sometimes at noon, and then I would go back at five, so many days it was three times a day. I would go, and that was just to get out of my own head, and just doing it was hard enough getting out of bed to even go anywhere. I knew that if I stayed at home, my mental health was going to really start getting at me. Once that happened, I knew that I had a bigger chance of relapsing or going backwards if I did not just involve myself with something else besides myself.
You can’t get sober or change your life for anyone else. It has to start when you look in the mirror and believe you’re worth it.
I have to imagine that anyone going through anything, other people who get it who understand who may be slightly farther down the road, but to be able to talk about the things that you want to talk about not have to explain take fifteen minutes to explain to your friend who is so well meaning, but just has not experienced it does not know it to walk in and just say, “A recovering alcoholic. Boy, how I want a beer.” They go, “I feel you right.” Being that old talk about like, here’s someone who gets me, so now I get to talk about this thing that is weighing on me.
I started realizing this as I got sober, like in the beginning, one of the things that really triggered it well, I mean, there were several factors, but one of them was I started noticing people just walking down the street being just out and about wherever, and I would see other men, I could tell they were not alcoholics or drug addicts. There are no dark circles. They do not look like a skeleton. I started really envying that. When I started going to the meetings, it was like you were saying, it is a lot easier to speak to somebody who has been there.
That is one thing that always just frustrated me about the rehabs that I went to, because I would say 95% of the employees at these rehabs and sober living homes that I went to were book smart. They had the degree on the wall, but they had never smoked crack behind a dumpster on December 24th, Christmas Eve, before you go to the midnight church service with your parents, and they are waiting on you, wondering where you’re at.
Walking into a church, cracked out. Looking and smelling literally like shit. If you have never been in that position, it got really hard for me to want to confide in somebody like that. Sure, there is book smarts that you can talk to me about. Maybe how emotions work and things like that. I get that. If you have never been that far down, it was hard for me to want to listen to you.
Look, I’ve done a variety of things I’ve done in my life. In the past, I’ve run marathons. I can describe it eloquently, but if you have not actually done that, no matter how well I describe it, you will not actually know. You and I could talk for hours, and you could describe what your addictions are like. I will not know that. I have not lived that experience. You’re right. I’m book smart. I can talk to you about the emotions, the triggers, and stuff.
I do not because I’m like, I do not know that experience. As someone who’s lost a sibling, people who have not lost a sibling have no idea what that experience is like. You’re working your program. Now I know from when you reached out to me. You have the crab. I’m interested in taking some minutes and talking about the crab life, I think it’s what you call it.
The Crab Crew Life.
Crab crew life. Let’s talk about that, Bryan.
If you put crabs in a bucket, they’ll pull down the one trying to escape. Don’t let your old circle drag you back into the chaos.
Here’s the thing. I started doing TikTok live streaming. I really went viral with my TikTok videos, and my 85-year-old landlord, who helped me get off the streets. I was homeless, sleeping in my car here in Huntington Beach, California. She and I crossed paths. It was meant to be. We were putting each other’s lives on the line for a reason. She also helped me get sober in the sense that she let me stay under her roof when I finally told her how I was living my life and what I was going through. I started live-streaming and sharing my story.
When you’re live-streaming, there are virtual gifts that people can send you. One of them was a crab, and it dances on your head, and its little pinching things go like this or whatever. I’m just always making people laugh and goofy and silly. I’d said, “You just gave me crabs right here on TikTok, right in front of everybody, and it just became this thing.” I started researching, like, what is it? Why did this moment happen? I got curious as to why this moment, because then I started getting crab gifts from all over the world. It just became this thing.
I was like, “What is happening here?” I found out that crabs are super resilient. They’re adaptive. They figure out their way in life. It started becoming the crab cruise. All the people who would show up in my life every day, we built a community at first, and now it’s become like a family. I found out that there’s an actual theory called the crab mentality.
That’s what really fascinated me because if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, one will try to crawl out, and the rest of them will pull it back down and not let it get out. To my brain, all this happened, and then I found this out about the crab, and I started relating it to my own sobriety, my own new life. I have had to come, become resilient. I have had to become adaptive. I do not know what it’s like to live in a sober mind, body, and spirit. I have no idea.
Dude, you’ve got many years of not knowing that now, now you’re certain this whole thing, and you’re like, here I am, over twenty-five, being kind to both of us here, my friend and I do not know how to live this life. What is this? To quote the talking heads. “How did I get here? This is not my car. This is not my beautiful house.”
Great analogy. It just became this thing. The people who show up and have really become not only my support group, but each other’s support group. I really started putting it to pen and paper. I cannot get this whole thing out of my head. Like, “Why is this happening? What is this becoming and what can I do with it?” I started writing like the four pillars of WordCrab. Resilience and adaptability are already in there. I went and got crab crew tattooed on my knuckles. I got the crab tattooed here. I started thinking about, “What did I have to do first?”
I had to get clean. I had to clear the chaos in my head and in my body and my spirit and my being. I had to learn how to be resilient. I started thinking about, I’ve been resilient my whole life because you do not live in tents and drug addicts and be alone in Venice Beach, California, Santa Monica, Culver City, Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, and then to Huntington Beach and all the other things I’ve done in my life that I’ve bounced back from. No matter what darkness I got to, I was always able to figure out my way. Did not say it was a good way. Did not say it was the most positive way.
I just figured out how to bounce back in the depths of hell. I started thinking that I had to clean my mind, body, and spirit of the chaos. I had to learn how to become resilient, but now resilient in a different way for a better purpose, and being adaptive. We cannot control the wind or the storm, but we can control our sail and maneuver in a different way. The B for belief. I had to believe, I had to revert back to that day that I got sober, and believing that those words were true, that I was worth it. This also lands on the bottom of it all, which is the foundation. I had to believe that I was worth so much more and a much better, joyful, peaceful, grateful life.
I could go build a house right now in the sand right here in Huntington Beach, California, and it might work for a few days, but I’m telling you, with the waves that are here right now, it’s going to knock it down. The wind blows really hard. It’s going to shake it. I had to build that foundation on believing in myself and staying grateful for the little things in life. Once I found that, how to love myself again, how to believe in myself, and how to be grateful for the little things in life, my foundation became really strong, and then I just started building the rest of it on top.
In my book, I talk about it on the podcast all the time. I have what I call the 97/3 rule, which is I’m a firm believer that 97% on average, 97% of our day is good, and up to 3% is not so good. Certainly, we have days where bad things are happening. We have a really bad day, absolutely.
Life is going to hit you.
In general, there’s 97% of your day is good. You’re right. It’s not the big things, it’s the little things that we somehow ignore. Look, Bryan, you and I woke up this morning. I did not doubt that I would wake up, no, but I’m serious.
What’s so awesome about this is that on my live streams, and every day before I even my feet hit the floor, I stay grateful for five things. Number one, I was given another chance at life. I have breathed my eyes open. I have a roof over my head. I’ve got shoes on my feet. I’ve got clothes on my back, and I’ve got food in my stomach. Those simple things. You cannot go do anything successful without those simple ingredients, absolutely.
That’s from a psychologist. I’ll use my book smarts here and go, “Yeah, that’s Maslow’s hierarchy.” At the base is that you have basically food, shelter, and safety. If you do not have that, you cannot go up. If you do not have food, shelter, and safety, you cannot help someone else. You’ve got to take care of yourself. It’s that 97/3 rule, and I love to do this with my guests. In high school, what was your least favorite subject, and please do not say all of them.
Math.
We can’t control the wind or the storm, but we can always adjust our sail and maneuver a different way.
Absolutely, I totally agree with you. Here’s the question, Bryan. If in high school you got a 97 on a math test, how would you feel?
Ecstatic.
You’d be telling your friends, your family. Would you be bitching about the three points you did not get?
Absolutely not.
No. I’d then like to bring it back into our own lives. Some things do not go well. When I talk to people, I do mental health counseling. I tell my clients, and they’re complaining about these little things that happen. They’re important. I’m not discounting them. You’re forgetting all you’re forgetting the 97 that did go right to this. There is somehow this human, and I’m curious about this human thing of, “How was your day?” People recite all the stuff that did not go right. I’m like, there had to be some good. It was not a completely crappy day. You made it, you got up, you went to work, you came home.
There are lots of good things that happened along the way. Sure, it’s not to ignore it, but I also like to talk about how in baseball, you make it into the Hall of Fame because you have a batting average of over 300, which is awesome. If we apply it to our daily life, let’s say, Bryan, you’re doing nine hours of work, family, and recovery. If you want a Hall of Fame day, you only have to get three hours right. That does not seem like a particularly high bar. I just need to get three hours of my day right, and it’s a hall of fame day.
I love this because all of that, the perspective, the way we look at life. I love to share with people, even if you’re having that bad day, the first thing that somebody says is, “How are you doing today?” You complain. You are doing nothing but affirming to this world that everything is bad for you. Even if you do not feel good, if you respond with, great, I’m wonderful, thank you for asking, how are you? It raises your vibration.
Now, when you respond like that, that person who asked you that also gets a smile on their face and a warm fuzzy feeling, like, “Man, they’re doing good. I’m glad I asked.” What does that do? If everything is frequency and vibration, and it can neither be created nor destroyed, do you have an opportunity to raise your vibration or stay in the low vibration? All of that for me, and what I have found in my sobriety is that looking inward and creating the best place inward, mind, body, and spirit, this world is like the mirror effect. The world will reflect back to you good things.
Years ago, I was reading a book, I believe it’s called The Buddhist, and the diamond cutter, and it was this Buddhist monk who went to work in the diamond cutting industry district in New York and stuff. I cannot tell you much about the book, but what I do remember is that it’s funny how, when we read books sometimes, I know we’re one thing away, and that’s a good thing. There were like 50 things. Like, “I get it. I’m an author. If people take one thing away from my books, awesome.” Anyway, but in Buddhism, there’s this concept that things are not inherently good or bad. It’s how we interpret that. The sun is out here, and it’s going to be really warm.
I can view it as good or bad, but the sun being out is not inherently good or bad in and of itself. It just is. How we interpret what’s going on in our lives. I do go, “This did not go well. The internet went out. I cannot make this meeting. I cannot do this.” I stop and go, “Wait a minute. Let me list the things that are going well.” It’s not these magnificent things. They’re small things. There’s so much that’s gone well that allows me to be here to talk to you. There’s stuff going well for you that allows you to be here to talk with me. That’s awesome.
It’s all in your perception. I do not even know it’s a theory I do not know where I heard how long ago but i’ve always found it fascinating that if you and i are standing on the honey to be here john right and we we look back down the pier at the same in the the city and whatever else or to painting for that matter to look at the exact same painting in a in a museum. Somebody says, “Bryan, what do you see?” I describe what I see. They asked Zander, “What do you see?” He describes something completely different, but we’re looking at the exact same picture. It’s all in your perception.
I have one thing that I’ve really struggled with, but I’ve gotten so much better at definitely over the last year is realizing, I’m not I do not talk about religion. I’m very spiritual. I believe in a power greater than myself, and I rely on that to become closer to something greater than myself. I have understood or grown to understand that even those bad things that 3% or those that 3%. If you look at it from a perspective, good, bad, or indifferent, it is happening for me, not to me.
Stop being the meanest person in your own life. It’s time to become your own number one cheerleader.
Even the bad things or the things that you think are bad in your life right now, if you can stop for just a second and learn how to be resilient and adaptive in those, in that 3%, and realize that it’s like you prayed to God and you asked for patience. You think God’s just all of a sudden going to go, “Here’s your patience.” No, he’s going to put somebody in your life that’s going to make you build patience. He’s going to put God’s source of love, whatever you want to call it, in these situations, people, places, and things in your life that help you become more patient.
One last thing that I want to say is I love resilience because we are all so much more resilient than we actually believe we are, but we get in situations, and you do not have any other choice. You have to be resilient. For example, because we’re in California, we can say homeless or domestically challenged, residentially underserved. You do not have a choice.
You’re like, “I got to find some food, and I got to find someplace that I feel is relatively safe for me to sleep.” You do not have any other option. That’s what you have to do. All of us are so much more resilient, and we have chances every day, every week to prove our own resilience and remind ourselves that we are so adaptive. Look, we would not be here as a species if we were not adaptive. We cannot learn and overcome stuff. Like, “What am I going to do? I got to figure this out.”
If you think about it, people have started here at birth. Now you’re here, you’re 30, you’re 40 or 50, whatever. All of those things, good, bad, or indifferent, that have happened in your life, you have overcome and gotten to where you’re at now. I love doing my best to get people to understand that you are so much more powerful, resilient, and adaptive than you are letting yourself think that you are.
We look at the meanest person in our life, which is ourselves. I tell people, “Stop. Do not be the meanest person in your life. You should be your number one cheerleader. You’ve got to believe in you, because if you do not believe in you, how’s anyone else?”
It all starts within. As within, so without. As above, so below. And the quicker I learned that, I do not do things for applause anymore.
In all honesty, when I started doing this TikTok thing, there were so many people, so many people that just love what I do and love each other, and they love communicating with each other and making comments on these live streams. We have a lot of fun. It got to the point where it was for me, and I love the applause, and I love the attention out of it. As I’ve grown in my sobriety and in my purpose and what desire I have to just help people become a better version of themselves, I’ve realized that I do not want to do anything for applause or notoriety.
If one person hears my laughter and they laugh harder than they did, that day or they thought about their own life from a different perspective like you were saying earlier in your book if one person walks away with some knowledge that you were doing your best to put out there if one person walks away with something from it you feel like your job is done look I think we’re all that is a great feeling.
It all starts within. As within, so without. As above, so below. The quicker I learned that, I do not do things for applause anymore. In all honesty, when I started doing this TikTok thing, there were so many people who just loved what I do and love each other. They love communicating with each other and making comments on his livestreams. We had a lot of fun. It got to the point where it was for me. I love the applause, and I love the attention out of it.
As I have grown my sobriety and in my purpose and what I desire, I just have to help people become a better version of themselves. I’ve realized that I do not want to do anything for applause. If one person hears my laughter and they laugh harder than they did that day, or they think about their own life from a different perspective. As you’re saying earlier in your book, if one person walks away, was there knowledge that you were doing your best to put out there? If one person walks away with something from it, it’s like your job is done. That is a great feeling.
Bryan, you and I, I’m sure we could talk for literally hours here. This is great. I want to thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me, man.
How could people find you? How can they find your live stream? They just want to reach out and have more Bryan. How can they do that?
Thank you. If you go to CrabCrewLife.com. I’ve also built a transformation. I do not like the word course, but it’s a transformation. I’ve spent the last six months building this. I’m really proud of it. You can go to my TikTok, which is Bryan Blackmon. I usually live-stream. My schedule is off right now. I’m taking some time away from it, but I’ll be back. If you want to learn more about Bryan, just go to CrabCrewLife.com, and all my links and everything are there in my bio.
Bryan, I want to thank you so much. Dude, what an epic journey you’ve been on. I so appreciate you coming on and sharing it and inspiring us all.
Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it.
No problem. I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. As always, remember epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
About Bryan Blackmon
Bryan Blackmon left Texas for California chasing a dream — and ended up homeless, sleeping in his car, drowning in alcohol and addiction.
Then an 85-year-old landlord named Elaine changed everything. She didn’t just give him a room. She gave him a reason to rise.
Now sober, viral, and on a mission — Bryan built Crab Crew Life to prove that no matter how deep you’ve dug your hole, you can claw your way back out.