I'm on my way to LA right now. It's Saturday and I'm going on a medical trip. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive. Because that's where the bail bond business was. That's where I fought my federal case. That's where all my friends were. And that's where I lived my whole life. And that's what almost destroyed me, that place. So, here I go.
The Armor of Routine
The last year and a half my life has operated on a strict, deliberate track. I live in Houston. I wake up. I go to work at a law firm and I come home. The days are highly structured and completely predictable. When you spend years chasing the rush of the bail bond business — taking calls at 3:00 a.m., holding untraceable cash, doing more and more drugs to numb the pain — you adapt, and the noise feels alien.
But building a rigid, almost boring routine is not a punishment. It's armor. Knowing exactly where I need to be and what my responsibilities are keeps the chaos locked out. Right now, I'm headed to the airport for a mandatory three-day medical trip. The destination breaks that routine, and I'm flying back to LA — the exact environment where my former destructive patterns were forged.
What Actually Happened Was Grief
I thought this video was going to be different. Honestly, I thought I was going to come to LA and talk about staying strong and shit. Motivation, discipline, how I went back to the place where everything happened and handled it. That's what I thought it was going to be — but that's not what happened. What happened was grief. The only word I can put on it. Not fear exactly, not temptation, not even nostalgia. Grief.
I got there and it hit me in a way that I didn't expect. I was paranoid at first. I felt like I was still being watched. Like I was back in the old world where you have to watch cars, watch people, watch what you say. And I hated that feeling because I'm not even living like that anymore. But underneath that paranoia was something else. Sadness. Real sadness.
The Century Lounge
The first thing people saw when arriving in LA was the big controversial sign of my family's business — the Century Lounge. My family's strip club. That surrounded me when I was growing up. The place I spent most of my teenage years and into my 20s and 30s. It started when my uncle gave me two strippers, 500 bucks in cash, and a room at the Ritz-Carlton for my 16th birthday. When I had sex for the first time and I did coke for the first time.
Now, the first thing I saw at that very spot was a hotel construction site being temporarily used as a parking lot. Gone. That's what it used to look like.
The House in Sherman Oaks
So I decided to head to the San Fernando Valley to take a look at my old house in Sherman Oaks, where I had lived since I was 5 years old. It wasn't there anymore. They tore that down, too, and built in its place this. This is what it used to look like. Always a bunch of cars parked in front because I was renting out every room to strippers and their friends. They always knew someone who needed a place to stay.
And I didn't know what to do with that, because in my head the house still existed. I could still picture it. I could still remember walking in, remember the rooms, the driveway. Most of my memories are there. The way it felt to pull up. I dream about that house all the time. But in real life, it was gone. And that messed with me more than I thought it would.
Because you think home is a place where you belong. But sometimes home is just a memory you keep driving back to, hoping it still exists. And then one day you get there and realize the place moved on without you.
Bryan Cranston's House
So while there, I decided to drive up the street, three houses down, to check out Bryan Cranston's house. He's the guy that played the drug kingpin on Breaking Bad. He's the one who played a major part in the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association threatening me with a nuisance suit because of all the 24-hour traffic in and out of my house, accusing me of selling meth and running a brothel. How about the irony of that, huh? Well, he was only half right. No brothel. Of course, his house was still there.
The Bail Bond Office
Then I drove to my old bail bond office in Van Nuys. Same thing. Gone. This is what it used to look like.
That one hit me, too. Because the office was a huge part of who I thought I was. That was where I felt important, where the phone rang all the time, where people needed me, where I had money coming in, where I felt like I knew the system better than anybody else. Jails, courts, clients, attorneys, police stations, calls in the middle of the night. That was my life. And for a long time, I thought that made me somebody. Then I go back and there's nothing there. No office, no business, just a spot where something used to be.
No evidence left of my prior life. And that's a weird kind of pain — realizing a whole version of my life is gone.
The Body Remembers
The weird part is LA still feels the same. The air, the smell, the vibe, the streets. That part's still there. So your body thinks, "Okay, I know this place." But then you start looking around, and the actual life you remember isn't there anymore. The house is gone, the club, the office, the people, the friends — or whatever I thought they were, the ones who I won't take the chance to associate with anymore — are gone, too. Money's gone. And I don't say that with anger.
Back then, I didn't mind fake friends. I really didn't. Fake friends can be fun when life is good, when you have money, when you can get people into places and out of jail, when you're useful. I like being useful. I like being needed. I like being the guy who could make a call and fix something. But when the whole thing collapsed, most of that disappeared. And going back to LA made me feel the absence of it. Not just the loss, but the absence. Like standing in a room after all the furniture's been removed.
Being Clean Doesn't Make You Bulletproof
I've been clean since 2022. And before I went to LA, I think I had too much confidence in that. Not fake confidence, because I really believed it. I thought, "I'm good now. I work. I'm sober. Been to prison. Learned my lesson. I help people now. I have structure. I have answers." Then I went back. And I realized I don't have all the answers. I have some answers. I better have more awareness, and have a life that keeps me from drifting too far, but I'm far from bulletproof.
And that's hard to admit. Because when you make videos like this, there's a temptation to sound like you figured everything out. Like, do these five things and you'll be fine. But that's not real. At least it wasn't real for me on this trip. What's real is this: I went back to LA and felt vulnerable. I felt grief and loss. I felt embarrassed by how much it still affected me. And I had to admit that being clean for a few years doesn't mean the old stuff can't reach you.
A Friend Who Wasn't Doing Well
I also saw a friend while I was there, and she wasn't doing too well. I'm not saying that to judge. I'm saying it because it shook me up. She was paranoid, convinced she was being followed. And I knew that look. I knew that energy. I knew it because I've had it. And after I saw her, I didn't want to see anybody else. Not because I'm better, because I'm not. It scared me because I felt too close to it, too familiar. Like LA was showing me a version of what I could still become if I start lying to myself again.
Relapse can start when you get too confident. When you tell yourself you can handle more than you can. When you go back to what feels comfortable and forget that comfortable is not the same thing as safe.
Grief Isn't Only About Death
I've been thinking about David Kessler's book Finding Meaning. He talks about grief and meaning. And I used to think that grief was mostly about death, but it's not. He explains that you can grieve a life, you can grieve a house, you can grieve who you used to be, you can grieve money, status, friends, a business, a version of yourself that you know was unhealthy but still had power in your life.
That's the part that's hard to say out loud, because I'm not supposed to miss any of it. I'm supposed to say, "Thank God that life is gone." And I do say that, and I mean it. But I can also be honest enough to say that there was pain in seeing it gone.
Both things can be true. That life was killing me, but losing it still hurt.
Coming Back to Houston
Coming back to Houston was harder than I expected because Houston is where I'm safe. That's the truth. My job, my routine, my 9-to-5, the structure, the boring stuff. But that's what keeps me alive now. But I'm going to be honest. It's still hard for me to accept sometimes. I'm over 60 years old and I'm rebuilding a normal life after losing almost everything. That's not easy.
People tell me, "Just be grateful." But I am grateful. But gratitude doesn't erase grief. It doesn't erase regret. It doesn't erase the feeling of driving past a place where your old life used to be and realizing there's nothing left there for you. That's what this trip taught me. There's nothing left for me in that old life. Not really. There are memories and there are lessons and there are people I still care about from a distance, but the life itself is gone. And maybe that's a good thing, but it still hurts.
I'm Still Vulnerable
I also have to be honest about something else. I'm still vulnerable. Extremely vulnerable. I don't like saying that, but I am. The US Sentencing Commission reported that almost half of federal offenders released in one study were re-arrested within 8 years. Almost half. So when I talk about staying out, rebuilding, doing the right thing, I'm not talking about a safe distance. I'm in that risk group. I'm not above it.
I'm not special, and that's why going back to LA matters — because the danger is not just the drugs. The danger is thinking I'm past the danger. That's the kind of confidence that can get somebody like me in trouble.
Two Friends Named Kevin
I know many people who I've spoken to recently, and you know who I'm talking to. But specifically to my two friends, both named Kevin. Both of whom were in the midst of it with me, who left LA without going to prison. They figured it out earlier. They moved away, built lives, stayed out of the mess. I admire that. I really do. It took prison for me. It took losing not almost everything — everything. It took federal prison. It took being forced to stop.
Feeling It Instead of Running From It
I wish I could say that this trip made me strong, but it didn't. It made me feel human. It made me feel the grief I've been avoiding. The house is gone. The office is gone. Century Lounge is gone. The old life is gone. Maybe the point now is not to pretend that doesn't hurt, because it does, terribly. Maybe the point is to feel it without running from it — because that's what I used drugs for. Not to feel this, not to sit with this, not to admit what was gone.
So this time I felt it. I didn't like it, but I felt it. And then I got on a plane and came back to Houston, back to work, back to the routine, back to the life that doesn't always excite me but protects me. And that's what meaning looks like for me right now. Not some big inspirational speech — just accepting that the old life is over and staying alive long enough to build something better with what's left.