Overcoming Drug Addiction, Self-Hate & The Prison System (Derrick Broze on The Shannon Joy Show)

Without further ado, I'd like to welcome into the Joy Virtual Studio. Derek Bro is a longtime friend of the Shannon Joy show and an amazing source of, of truth and good journalism independence outside of the two party political paradigm. He is the founder and the editor in chief over at the Conscious Resistance Network and he is known for his in depth reporting and analysis from outside the two party political paradigm. He's also written a brand new book, his memoir, A Man of My Word. You've lived a lot of life and in a short amount of time, Derek and I continue to be so impressed with your wisdom and the information that you put out and your understanding about the politics of the day. We need more like you. Welcome once again to the Shannon Joy Show. How are you doing?

I'm doing great, Shannon. Thank you so much for having me on. And thank you for being a voice for a reason right now.

I, I'll tell you what, 20, 26, I, I mean I thought 25 was a fire hose in my face. I thought 24 was a little wacky. 23, 22, 20, I mean, it just seems like everything is just accelerating to the point of insanity and absurdity and hypocrisy and tyranny and it's coming from both sides of the political aisle. You understand this better than anyone. I do want to discuss with you the news of the day. I want to talk about the new right, the influencer class and their push for a techno fascist police state here in the United States of America. It's the number one threat that we face today. Tragically, it's coming from the right. If there was a Democrat in office, office, it would be coming from them. But right now we have the right in power and so we're going to get into that. But before that, Derek, let's talk about you. Let's talk about your platform and your book because I, you know, it'd be great for the audience to get to know you a little bit. You've been on the show before. But I want you to be able to take this opportunity to promote your book and your story and your backstory so that people understand where your analysis come from. It comes from what makes you tick and why you've come to the conclusions that you've come to. So let's start there. The book is A Man of My Word and tell us all about it and where people can get it.

Thank you so much for that, Shannon. And yeah, I mean, I definitely think that everything I went through at a young age, I just turned 41. A couple weeks ago. And this book came out just a couple weeks after the 20th anniversary of my arrest in November 16, 2005, when I was 20 years old, about to turn 21. I had been addicted to crystal meth for about 11 months leading up to that point. And I'd been bouncing between various drugs and alcohol for the two years preceding that, pretty much right after high school, went into college and got into partying and all that. And all of that preceded my waking up experience, which would come a few years later, you know, starting to question government and really influenced by Ron Paul and some of the people around at that time, 2009, 2010, and eventually getting into activism and getting into independent journalism, which is what most people know me for today, the journey I've been on the last 16 years. But this book is a very detailed and gritty and raw and honest, even in the, you know, warts and all the ugly parts of things that I wouldn't say I'm proud of, but they're things that I. I lived through and that I experienced and that they got me to where I am today. And I felt that it was important to share this because, for one, every time I have shared this story, just even briefly, when I give public presentations, I kind of mentioned, yeah, I went through drug addiction, I went to prison at 20 years old, and I turned my life around. Even just kind of sharing that very limited story, people would come up to me and without, you know, without a doubt, every time somebody would come up to me, it would be either a young person or a parent and say, my son is dealing with addiction. My daughter's dealing with addiction. I've dealt with addiction, or I've never dealt with drug addiction, but I've struggled in this way or this other way. And I started to recognize that by sharing the story and being open about my own struggles, it created that space where people could share their own stories and maybe feel a little bit more comfortable sharing things that we don't always talk about very publicly. Because I think even in the truth Freedom space, this broader movement community, that even in that space, outside of the mainstream normie world, there is still a kind of stigma around addiction and around just the different interpersonal struggles that many of us do face. And sometimes, especially through the Internet, and those of us who gain some level of influence, we want to portray ourselves as a certain level of, like, we got our stuff together, right?

Right.

Everything's looking good and, you know, just kind of maintaining that presence. But in reality, many of us are dealing with Whether it's addictions or alcoholism or these days, porn addiction is another one. Gambling, mental health struggles, these are all things that I dealt with very deeply and especially at a young age. I mean, I tried to kill myself about five times before I turned 18. I dealt with mental health issues, you know, being diagnosed and it was doing self harm. I was cutting myself and this was all well before I ever tried drugs. Drugs just event kind of took over as I kind of used those mechanisms as a way to cope with all the stuff I was dealing with. And so I decided a couple years ago that as the 20th anniversary of my arrest approached that I was going to really tell my full story with all the, you know, like I said, the, the dark and the ugly parts of things that I went through, things that I did to other people, just the ways I was living, which was not healthy obviously when you're addicted to drugs and kind of going down that road, you know, I ended up homeless for a while. I ended up kind of being taken under the wing of a, of a career criminal, a drug dealer who was in and out of prison, who sort of played almost a father role to me at some points, filling a role that I didn't have. And it just sucked me into this whole world that I wasn't prepared for. And so as you said, the book is called A Man of My Word. The full title is A Man of My Word How I Overcame Addiction, Depression and Mental and Physical Prisons. People can learn more about it at A Man ofmyword.com. and as I said, I mean now that I'm sharing the book, it's been out for two weeks now, getting really positive reviews from other, you know, independent journalists and people I respect, but just people who happen to follow my work who are also dealing with these, these struggles. And I mean, in the book I detail not only my, my going down the path of drug addiction, but what preceded that. You know, once I got arrested at 20 years old, 21 years old, and I had to accept that I wasn't going to go anywhere. I got sentenced to two year felony probation plus a concurrent prison sentence. So I had to do 11 months the first time. And then I kind of bounced back and forth. I got out after a year, was out for five months, got sent back for another three months. I did that whole game until by October 2008, I was finally released after doing 19 months in Texas state institutions. I was a felon. Technically, I still am a felon in Texas even though it's been 20 years. I actually tried to get it expunged a couple years ago. Not because it really affects my life so much, because of the path that I've created for myself. You know, being an independent journalist, most people don't care about something that happened to me 20 years ago. But in that mainstream world, for example, in Texas, where I'm originally from, if I was to go try to find an apartment today or house, the felony would absolutely come up. Even though it's been 20 years, it's non violent drug charge has nothing to do with violence or weapons or any of that stuff. It is still something that in that mainstream world they, they hang over, over my head. And so the book also talks about that, like the prison system, probation system, the parole system, the drug war and all these things that were really new to me. Like I said, this kind of eventually did wake me up. I actually consider this to be my first awakening because when I did get arrested and I accept that I was there, I had this really powerful experience that I think is useful and maybe not something that most people experience because it was this reality, this understanding that no matter how much I wanted to go, you know, cry or complain or be angry or get on the phone and cry to my girlfriend or my mom or my lawyer or friends or whatever, I wasn't leaving these four walls until they told me I could leave. And that's a very disempowering feeling. But it's actually in that space where I kind of, I basically just said, you know, look, I can't go anywhere. I'm not going to go anywhere. I started journaling every day. I was also, you know, getting sober after being, being bouncing off these drugs for a couple years and drugs and alcohol. And as I started to just slow down and start to journal, I also was very lucky to have a very powerful spiritual influence in my life. My grandmother, who's since deceased, she started to send me books about prayer and meditation while I was in jail. And that really at the time I'd been, I was very anti religious and very anti anything associated with what I, you know, God or anything like that. Just being young, angry kind of teenager and also having grown up with the father in and out of my life because of prison and his struggles and his lies. It. I just wasn't in a place where I thought, yeah, God, that, that doesn't even, that doesn't exist. Or if it does exist, God hasn't been here for me. So it was very angry. And. But then at that space of just like, all right, I have to like Figure out how did I get here, why am I here? Why am I repeating the same mistakes that I've been mad at my father for my whole life? And so my grandma started sending me these books and it was the beginning of me starting open up spiritually as well. And that was really my, like I said, my first awakening, well before I started to wake up to politics and so called conspiracies. I mean I never really trusted the government as a young kid, but I didn't have any kind of deeper Phil. Philosophical or understanding that would come later. But yeah, in that space of getting locked up, that's where I really started to do this kind of internal exploration and healing. And so the book is broken into three parts. The first part, the first 10 or 11 chapters is basically my, you know, my, my struggle and my race to the rock bottom of, you know, detailing my early life of my father coming in and out of my life and how that affected me at a young kid. I started cutting myself at like 7 years old and just really doing a lot of self harm and yeah, and I really struggled with a lot of mental health issues. And eventually that led to me being the angry teenager who was getting into fights, getting arrested and, and this is, this is before I ever tried drugs. This was just like I didn't know how to handle all this stuff going on. And I, I blamed like a lot of young kids. I think in the situation I blamed myself or thought maybe there's something wrong with me, maybe that's why my dad doesn't want to be around or he chooses drugs over his kids. And then by time I graduated high school, I actually graduated a semester early. While all my friends were in senior year. I was starting community college and I was, you know, moved into my first apartment, had a full time job and it was just kind of too much. And I started getting to drinking and then ecstasy and then Xanax and it was just one thing after another until January 2005 I tried Crystal meth. And then that pretty much grabbed me right away until I was living on the streets and, and got pulled into the drug world. And then eventually I did get myself sober. Thankfully I was able to just walk away from all of it, but I was still kind of in that mindset. And so I continued to sell drugs and that's how I ended up getting arrested. So when I found myself locked up, I'm just like looking back and like, holy crap, how did I get here? And then with time it became more clear, like I obviously have some trauma related to my father and related to this relationship. And so the book details all that. It details my own experiences going in and out of jail and prison and. And different rehab facilities and then eventually getting out. And the book ends pretty much at the very beginning of my activism. And I. I don't want to give away the end, but I definitely did make time to. To go to my father and to, you know, meet him as an adult. We really basically were strangers and kind of tell him who I was and. And forgive him for the things that he had done or that I felt he had done. Unfortunately, he did eventually die of a drug overdose in 2018. But the. The book kind of covers all of those ups and downs and. And my hope and my prayer is that by sharing this story, as I said, that anybody who is currently going through this or has a friend or a family member, that is that it might help them see that there is, you know, hope on the other side of these things. Because there was definitely times where I thought, there's no way I'm ever going to get through this. I'm just, you know, this is the rest of my life. And I witnessed my father spend 30, 40 years of his life in and out of institutions. And. And I also just want to say one other thing real quick is that I don't want to. Anybody to take what I'm saying as a credit towards the prison system. The prison system is a horrible institution with no redeeming value, and it is not about rehabilitation in any kind of way. I had to make a personal choice to change my life, and that's really what it comes down to. I mean, like I said, my father struggled for 30, 40 years of his life and was, I think, eventually institutionalized from going in and out. And he was never able to, you know, get to the root of why he was using drugs or what, you know, what was really at the bottom of it, because the drugs are just a symptom. But when I got locked up, I met people who were 17 years old and got caught with a pill in high school or something, and then they're locked up with career criminals. And some of them, you know, they figured it out, they got in, they did their little stint of time, and they never went back and turned their life around. Others, like me, kind of bounced in and out. And then some of those people I know are dead, and some of them are still going in and out of prison institutions. So ultimately, it comes down to making a personal choice that you want to change your life. So I don't want, you know, those. Those institutions, they really are lots of brilliant, talented, and amazing people wasting away in them because of different things like the drug war and stuff like that. And so the book kind of explores my own personal story, but also some of that bigger picture and. And how that all eventually led to me waking up. Because when I got out and I was a felon and I was now, you know, like I said this, this we always say, you got a bullseye on your back now. You can't get rented certain places, people judge you, stigma. You can't get a job certain places. And so I was at the library all the time applying for jobs. And I eventually read this book called Cannabis A History, which was about the drug war. And it wasn't a celebration of drugs, culture or anything like that. It was really like a sociological and scientific and cultural look at the way that the original drug laws in the United States were largely based around trying to drive out the hemp industry, as well as racism against black jazz musicians or Chinese or Mexican migrant workers and things like that. And that was just like a whole history that I'd never learned. And that was. That was literally the spark. I remember a light bulb went off and it was like, if that's something I'd never been taught, then what else is there about the world that I don't know? And shortly after that, you know, I just continued on that journey. But. So the book is really the. The prequel, you could say, to everything I'm doing today. And like I said, people can pick it up at A Man ofmyword.com. there's links to Barnes and Noble and all the other places. Of course it is on Amazon if anybody wants to pick it up. And yeah, I'm just excited now to put it out there. And I appreciate you giving me time to share about it because I know it's a different topic than what we usually discuss in independent media. But as I said, I do think it is something that is right underneath the surface, that there are probably more of us dealing with this than we even recognize.

Well, you know, that's extraordinary. Derek and I. You know, I think in our culture today, we like to put issues and topics and stories and people into nice, neat little left or right boxes. Right. If you want to talk about the drug war or the prison culture or the systematic, you know, you know, school to prison pipeline that is creating so many problems that we have today in the U.S. you know, it's always a little bit murkier than so many of us would like it to be. And I think this is why, you know, influencers. I don't even want to call you an influencer. You are a journalist. You are an investigative journalist, a reporter. You are an editor in chief. You have a very important publication, the Conscious Resistance Network, and you're really doing the work. But I think stories like yours are important because so many normies in today's culture and throughout history, you know, over the past 20, 30 years will get. Because they don't have a troubled past, because they didn't have trouble in their younger years, because they didn't have to overcome anything, or they didn't have doors closed to them because of mistakes that they made as children or lifestyles they led when they were younger, you know, tend to get plugged into the normie system. They tend to get plugged into the institutionalized system. And I'm not saying that they're bad people, but it's very hard for them to scrutinize the systems in general, whether it's financial system, healthcare system, education system, prison system, governmental systems, whatever they are. And they are so plugged into and so conditioned to the system always being right and taking care of them and fitting into their narratives that they can't see the things that you see. And I think it's the very impact of you being denied access to those systems which forced you to then deep, you know. You know, look deeper into what is going on in the country. Clearly, you're articulate, you are intelligent. You're able to observe and spot patterns and draw conclusions and extrapolate and all those things that are very important for a healthy mind and a mind that is going to then help to explain to other people, some of the normies, what is actually going on. Like, you wouldn't have that if it weren't for your story. And I won't go into my story. I can relate, though. I had problems, too, as a young adult. And we don't need to go into what my problems were. I've discussed them on my show before, but I, too, did not come from a nice, packed, kind of easy, younger experience. I had to fight and claw my way out of addiction. I struggled with an eating disorder at a very young age, you know, into my teens and into my early 20s, really struggled with it. It almost destroyed my life, and I was able to overcome that. But so I get it, and I don't want to go into that, but I get what you're saying. I attribute much of my ability now to kind of look outside of my experience to those struggles. So they're very important. They're very important. And it's even more important to be able to talk about them. Right?

Yeah.

Because we're in really troubled time here in this country, and the answers are not easy. And you talked about going in. Your first kind of uncovering of a truth that was buried under lies is in the drug wars. Isn't it interesting? Now, if you look at the work of Whitney Webb and Katherine Austin Fitz and people who are uncovering the Epstein files, but also the Epstein criminal network, the fact that is pretty much being accepted today that our own government, our own intelligence organizations, the CIA and perhaps the FBI are probably behind the majority of the trafficking of drugs into our country under the guise of, you know, illegal cartels. Right.

You.

You could never figure that out if you were plugged into the normie system. You'd have to be someone like Derek Rose in order to kind of, you know, be able to put those pieces together. But let's start there. That plays in. To the illegal immigration. That plays in.

Can I just say one more thing on that real quick, Shannon? I just wanted to add, as you mentioned, just one other thing on the book, because you're, for one, you're correct in that insight that I don't think the Derek Bros. I am today happens without everything I went through that I think for whatever reason, I just trust in God's plan, that that's what I had to go through. That was my journey. But I absolutely know that it is those experiences that led to me being skeptical and questioning of different systems. And then I just wanted to mention what you said there about an eating disorder. That is actually something I discuss in the book, too. It's very rare for men to have that. It's less rare than women. But it's definitely more ra for men to talk about it. But I absolutely did. I wouldn't say I was anorexic, but there were periods of time where I was starving myself and definitely struggling with body image issues and things like that. So that's also in the book. And as I said, I mean, I don't. I don't think that without me going through those things and getting locked up and starting to question those systems itself, I'm not sure that I end up being the person that decides one day to get off a bus and go attend a random protest and then decide, you know what, maybe I want to learn more about activism. Maybe I want to get more into this and eventually to be where we are today, questioning the systems that we see growing around us. And also, you make a great point there, that this is kind of one of the hypocrisies that I recognize years later is like people like myself struggling with trauma, struggling with, you know, deeper internal issues that use drugs to self medicate, get locked up, and often their lives are ruined and destroyed. Meanwhile, the people in power are part of trafficking drugs into the country. And I think that's one of the great, great tragedies of our time, that so many people's lives have been ruined by these same drugs, which I don't think have any redeeming value. And meanwhile, it's people in positions of power, namely, as you said, intelligence agencies, who are involved with trafficking them into the country.