Recovering From Addiction #SolutionsWatch (Derrick Broze on Corbett Report)

Remember those heady days of early January 2026 when we could still laugh about America trying to take over the world? Well, in case you missed it at the time, some funny Greenlanders made a humorous meme about American culture taking over Green. Well, it's a funny meme, no doubt, but I hope that you are sheltered enough to not actually know what it's referring to, namely the fentanyl fold. But once you do discover what that is a reference to and what is being mocked here, you'll see that this is really not so much of a laughing matter. In fact, it's a very sad and tragic reality for far too many people in the United States, sure, but around the world at this point. And there are many, many things that we could talk about and address when it comes to this issue of substance use and abuse and addiction. And there are many socio political factors to talk about. There are also even geopolitical factors to talk about. And if you don't know why the Opium wars leading to the century of humiliation have has forged the modern Chinese mindset and maybe part of the modern Opium War 2.0 that is now being folded back in on the United States itself, well, there's a lot of reading and catch up to do with that. But that is not our purpose here today. Today this is Solutions Watch and I want to talk about addressing this addiction crisis and what someone who is out there who is either dealing with addiction themselves personally or knows people in their lives who are dealing with addict do to start changing that person's life. And obviously these behaviors are destructive and they can get out of hand and sometimes it seems completely hopeless. But there are, there are strategies, ideas, there is help out there and I want to underline that in today's exploration. I am no expert on these matters myself, so instead I've reached out to some people in my colleague group who are experts on this subject through personal experience on both sides of the issue. For the purposes of today's Solutions Watch, I want to direct you to yet another book length resource that people can use if they want to hear how this process of transformation looks like from somebody who has lived through it. And in this case it is a man of my word. How I Overcame Addiction, Depression and Mental and Physical Prisons by Derek Brose, who again you will know not only from his many, many appearances on Solutions Watch, but from his activism and journalism generally at the Conscious Resistance network@the consciousresistance.com his work for Ryan Christian at the Last American Vagabond, his work with Whitney Webb and unlimited hangout, et cetera. Obviously, people know about Derek and his various activism and journalism, but something you may not know about is the subject of this book Derek Namely Derek Brose's origin story, his struggles in his teenage and youth years with drug addiction, and how he came through that incredibly humbling experience to come out the other side as such a motivated and motivating journalist. So just to give you a hint of this book, let me go through a little bit of Just read the prologue which starts on November 16, 2005 sir, please step out of your vehicle. The officer's words cut through the air and sent chills down my spine. Even though I knew why he wanted me to get out of my car, I still asked, can you tell me why, Officer? He proceeded to inform me that I had numerous warrants out for my arrest. Again, he politely requested that I exit the vehicle. I knew there was nothing left to do but open my door and step outside. While the officer was handcuffing me and placing me in the back of his squad car, I I began to sweat profusely as I recalled everything that had preceded this moment. The drugs, the sex, the rock and roll, the self harm, the addictions, the periods of homelessness, and my recent plans to begin a new life. Plans that were now crumbling to bits in front of me. How did I get into this mess? How had I let this happen? I wasn't much for praying to God, but at that moment I started pleading for someone up there, anyone, to help me. My only hope was that the officer would somehow forget to search my car before towing it away. I wasn't so lucky. The officer opened the front passenger door and immediately went for the glove compartment where I had stored a pill bottle with three point grams of crystal methamphetamine plus a scale and baggies. There was also a bong in the back seat. Only moments before, as the officer was approaching me, I'd thought of stuffing the most incriminating paraphernalia into my air conditioning vents in a feeble attempt at surviving this encounter. But I was too nervous to pull it off. The officer picked up the pill bottle, held it up to his eyes, shook his head, and shot me a look of disapproval. It was then, at that exact moment, that I knew my life was about to change big time. I knew I would never see that car again. I knew I was in the worst legal trouble I'd ever been in. But what I didn't know was that this was the start of both the worst and the best days of My life. This was the beginning of my transformation. Well, that's the dramatic opening to this memoir that recounts that period of drug addiction and abuse and a lot of crazy events that happened in that time frame for Derek, which ultimately ended up seeing him living for some period at a crack house and homeless at various times. And eventually his story of recovery, which we eventually know leads to Derek Brose as this activist, journalist, dynamo of energy and enthusiasm. And. And it was that process of transforming his addictive behaviors into productive behaviors that really was the reason why he is out there and doing such good work today. So it is a fascinating story from that perspective and with that knowledge in mind. And that's exactly why I wanted to talk to Derek about his own experience of transformation and how that came about. And I started by honing in on one phrase in the book where he. He has the realization that what he was doing was self harm, that he was the author of his own pain and self destruction. And I asked him about whether and how that realization helped in that process of transformation.

I think that's huge, you know, for me coming to realize that, as I say in the book, I'm the architect of my own pain. Like that I had a habit of self sabotaging and finally recognizing that and seeing that was a big move because then it led to taking personal responsibility in my life, which is obviously a big part of my current political philosophy, volunteerism. And the way, you know, the way I see the world today, when I was at that point of realizing, okay, I could be angry at my father for things he did or didn't do, or for the lies he told, the promises he broke, I could do that forever. I could blame society. I could do all these things that sometimes we find ourselves into. You know, especially when you're on drugs or you're just dealing with mental health issues, you can get into this self pity. And I definitely went through that. But when I started to recognize, like, I'm doing this to myself, I keep shooting myself in my own foot. I keep, you know, creating these same scenarios. And then afterwards I'm like, oh no, I feel horrible. Let me take a bunch of drugs and see if that'll, if that'll, you know, self medicate and, and numb the pain. But ultimately when I understood I'm doing this to myself, you know, I, I had to then take responsibility. And especially because I wasn't happy. I mean, some people might go through some of the things I went through and they believe they're happy or maybe genuinely are happy for a Time or fool themselves into that. But I guess the difference for me is besides a few, you know, funny, odd, you know, occasionally happy memories in there, I was not happy. And I knew I wasn't happy. I was already depressed well before I started taking drugs and drinking and all those sort of things. So it didn't take me very long to realize like this, this is not where I want to be. And then eventually to recognize I'm doing this to myself. I keep setting myself up to fail and then I just in the cycle of failure and then anger and frustration and then taking a bunch of substances and then confusion and emotions and just over and over and over. So I think for me that's an important piece of the puzzle. I also think with, you know, the other piece of what I'm trying to do, you asked, like, why I wrote the book. In the bigger picture, I would like to make conversations around drug addiction and you know, recovery, for lack of a better term, to be increasingly important part of my work, my activism, and even my journalism. Because I do think it's something that is an underly conversation that even in our truth freedom communities we sort of, you know, only speak about in hush tones. And I want to eventually, you know, have some sort of, I don't know about program or institution, maybe a private member association, something that will probably be named after my father who is also a drug addict who died of a drug overdose in 2018. Some sort of way to. To think about how to approach these things. Because as I say in the book, I don't think the addiction as a disease model is, is sufficient or is helpful. Obviously, I don't think throwing people in prisons for their drug addictions is the an. And part of whatever that program might look like in the future, I think is really going to be helping people come to a place of taking responsibility for their own actions.

You know, it's. It's interesting that you say that because it seems from the narrative in the book here, it seems that you're. There was a certain rock bottom that you reached when living in a crack house for some period of time and deciding that you didn't want any part of that anymore and getting out of there. But the. It seems the real rock bar, or at least the beginning of the true change took place in Harris County Jail. And it seems like journaling and reading were part of the transformative experience as you started to learn about meditation and things like that. Tell us about that transformation, how it really got kickstarted and whether it would have been possible if you hadn't been put in jail?

Yeah. You know, I've asked myself that plenty of times over the years, like, if for whatever reason, my. My path in this life, I had to go through that in order to get to here. I don't know. And obviously, you know, you can't change the past. So I. Whatever happened, happened, and it's led me to this moment, and I'm grateful for that. I wish that I could have received the messages that. Which I believe were being, you know, shown to me, both by family and friends who were like, what are you doing? You're clearly headed down a bad path. They could see that I was losing a lot of weight, that I just wasn't very healthy. And then I also tell a story in there of sort of feeling like I was receiving a message from a psychedelic experience I had where that was kind of where I had a vision of seeing myself homeless and very, very skinny and just, you know, this potential future for me. And that did cause me to at least throw away a bunch of drugs and for a few months, kind of step away from that. Ultimately, though, I. Obviously, I got arrested, and I got arrested with possession of crystal meth because I decided to go try to do another drug deal, which is what I had become accustomed to doing at the time. And that, I think, was the rock bottom. Getting locked up, at least the first time, definitely the second time, when I felt even more alone and I had even less resources. Family and support, family and friends support. And I talk about it in the book and. And just, you know, I remember it clear as day when I got locked up. And as you said, I was in Harris County Jail in Texas, in Houston. But then at the same time, I got my sentence, which was sending me to basically a Texas state prison, where they give you a counselor and they call it a rehab, and the state gets a bunch of money to say that they're treating people for drug addiction. But for all intents and purposes, it's a prison. You know, you can't leave armed guards, razor wire, they treat you like crap, all that sort of stuff. And whenever I realized that there was nothing I could do anymore, that my mom, who had been trying to help, was getting in touch with a lawyer and seeing what she could do, my girlfriend at the time, who was trying to help that. When I recognize that there's nobody that's going to help me, I'm in this four walls with these crazy people and these insane guards, and I'm not leaving until they call my name and say Bros, you're out of here. And from that moment when I realized that it was going to be at least 10 to 11 months before that was even going to be possible and potential longer, and that is a very disempowering feeling to go through, you know, of just sort of realizing like, wow, my freedom, at least in the physical sense, has been stripped from me. And there's, you know, I could go try to fight a guard if I want. I could go yell and scream and cry. I can do all these things and it won't make a damn of a difference. I'm not leaving until these people say I am. And that, yeah, I remember just the weight of that. That feeling and that realization. But as I say in the book, that that was also the beginning of me really trying to starting to find my own personal power. And because, as I said, they took away my physical freedom. But as anybody who has ever been in prisons and people much longer than myself have written over the years, and whether that's the prison of the state or concentration camp or other sort of harrowing events, they recognize that they can control your body, but they can't control your mind. They can't control your spirit. And that's the realization that I started to have is like, okay, well, I can't physically leave here until these people say I can. But I'm still free in my mind and that there's a lot of power there. And so I'm. I did have a very big spiritual influence. My grandmother at the time, and she started sending me books on, like, Christian prayer and then Zen Buddhism. She was a very kind of eccentric Christian, you could say esoteric Christian, and was just sending me things that were, at the time, things I wasn't initially open to because I had been so very much against anything that I perceive religious or even spiritual or related to God. But in that space of really kind of questioning, well, how the heck did I get here? What, you know, what. What have I been doing the last couple years here I am mad at my father my whole life for his drug addiction and his time in prison. And I'm following that same path, you know, and I realized I needed to do something about it. So, yeah, that was, I think, the beginning of the rock bottom. And as I said, even after a year, I did end up going back, and that was probably even a lower low. But it was that first initial experience of getting arrested and recognizing that while my physical body was caged and not going anywhere until these people said I could, they still couldn't Control my mind or, you know, anything beyond that.

Well, the book is called A Man of My Word. What does that phrase mean to you? Why is it important?

It's important to me because as I share in the book, there were definitely periods of my life, and particularly when I was going through all this, this chaos here where I was not a man of my word and I was treating different people. You know, I was, I was a liar, I was a cheater. I was, I was never a thief, but I was definitely a liar. I was definitely cheating on all the relationships I was in. I was definitely not being honest with myself or my family and friends. And I could see firsthand the destruction that was coming from that, the hurt, the pain, etc. And then as I was kind of sharing earlier about like, that, that cycle of like, okay, well, now I hurt somebody and now I'm all sad or depressed about it, well, let me just go take a bunch of drugs and that leads to something else. And it just became this cycle. And so the second time I got locked up, they and I was sent to another safe P type facility. And I felt even more determined that I needed to get whatever I missed the first time, because the first time I did 11 months and I was only out for five months before I got sent back. And then the second time, going back, I didn't have the support I had. My girlfriend who had waited the first time was like, I'm not doing this again. My mom's like, you're turning into your father. Don't come back home. And so when I had to go turn myself in, it was just like, that felt like, wow, I don't think I've ever felt lower than that. And so I went into there thinking, like, I need to get whatever I missed last time. So, you know, they had this workbook that they expected you to work through over the three to six months period. You, you're going to be there. And I think I did it in two weeks. And I remember somebody telling me, you don't get out any sooner, just for finishing it faster, you know? But I was seriously like, I just need to. What did I miss? You know, what is the missing piece of this puzzle that I just can't seem to grasp? And that second time, this exercise is probably the one thing I would say that I took away. And it was just a simple thing, a little kind of visualization exercise of like, okay, so. Because, you know, they're working through all the fact of, like, you've been treating people wrong, you've Been having destructive behaviors, whether it's drugs, whether it's other criminal behavior, you probably haven't been living right. And so you need to reflect on those decisions and how you got to where you're at now. And so the final exercise was something like, you know, you go to the doctor and you find out you have terminal cancer and you have six months to live. Or, you know, I think they started out, like, five years. You have five years to live. What would you do with that? And then, you know, you have one year live, six months, et cetera, and just kind of getting you to really reflect. And I was trying to take this as genuinely as possible. Like, okay, like, let me think about this. Like, what does matter to me in life? And what would I do if I found that I was going to die next year or six months from now? And so you work through that, and then eventually you get through the exercise and you turn the page, and it's like a tombstone. It's like, you know, to this morning, at whatever time you. You were found dead, you. You died from cancer. What five words do you want on your tombstone? And I. It didn't take me long to realize that I wanted A Man of My Word, which is obviously the book title now. And it was because of that. Because especially at that point, this is 2007, I was still not. You know, I was not on drugs anymore, and I was getting sober, but I still wasn't living the way that I believed I needed to in a way that also produced happiness in my life. And. And I was still hurting people. So it was important to me, and it still is important to me to strive to be a man of my word, to be accountable to myself and to other people, because I know what it feels like to not do that. And it didn't feel good, and it didn't, you know, it wasn't really about trying to impress anybody. It was like, look, I've lived that life, and I know that that didn't lead me to anywhere that felt happy or joyful or anything I want to be. So maybe I should try doing the other thing. And so, yeah, for me, striving to be a man of my word, both in my individual life and then now as a journalist and everything else I do, it's extremely important.

You know, I. I find this entire book really uplifting in a way, really empowering, because I know the sequel, like, if I only knew this book, it would be one thing, and I'd. Okay, here's a story of a man going through this and, and finding his way out of addiction, etc. But because I know what you have done since then and the journalism and activism that you've engaged in now I, I see and forgive me for, I mean, I'm on the outside, I don't know you, but it looks to me like what you've done is taken that hustle, hustling mindset that was part of the allure of the drug world and transformed that into your activism and channeled it into journalism so that now you're hustling in creating these documentaries and the Great Reset and doing all of this activism and running for Hous Mayer and all of these things that you're involved in 100%. It's just kind of, you know, taking that energy and transforming it into something positive. Can you talk about that experience?

Absolutely, James. That's 100% correct. And in fact, you know, because of that, the book, the original title, I was going to go with the book, which I'm glad we chose what we did because I think it's more suiting, was something along the lines of transmutation and you know, overcoming depression. It's similar title subtitle but Transmutation was going to be the main title because I feel like that's what I was able to do and is to transmute that young, chaotic, confused energy that I had, which was passion in a form. And it was, as I talk about in the book, the excitement of like being involved in business and entrepreneurship, which is interesting to me because a lot of that later on I would discover gorism and black and gray markets and all that. I'm like, okay, well I kind of already stood understood that already. I just wasn't doing it in a healthy way and I wasn't living, you know, a way that is conducive to happiness and, and to joy and all that sort of thing. But absolutely like that same passion and energy that I had as a young man 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago. That was at that time kind of buried under sadness and depression and chaos and just not really knowing how to channel it. I've since learned how to, you know, work within my own mind. You know, because I'm not sitting here today saying that I don't ever have, you know, self worth issues, struggles still as I discuss in the book, or that I don't ever have my own doubts and things like that, like we all do as human beings, but I've learned how to deal with those things rather than, you know, drinking a bunch of alcohol or taking a bunch of drugs. I've found other ways to navigate my own mind and navigate my own personal struggles that are empowering rather than disempowering. And a lot of that is, yeah, putting that, that passion and that energy I have into the works that I do, whether it's documentaries, whether it's books and things like that, activism of various sorts. So 100%, like that's a big part of it too, is like transmuting that pain and that heaviness and turn it into something positive.

Once again, that is Derek Bros. And you can get a copy of his book through a man of my word.com that will be linked up in the show notes for today's edition of Solutions Watch. Obviously, for those out there who are dealing with this issue, either themselves personally or people in their lives that they want to help, I think it is an important story to know, to hear, to understand that change is possible, that it does happen, that these destructive behaviors can be transformed into something productive. And although that transformation will not be easy and it will take a lot of work and there will be failures and setbacks along the way, but with enough time and enough patience and enough love, it can happen and healing can occur. It is important for people who are going through this to know and understand that at the very least. So there are some resources that we have put on the table here. I hope people will explore them. And if you are dealing with these types of issues, I hope you can find the support in your area. And on that note, once again, Solutions Watch is not a spectator sport, but a community participation exercise. So I hope that members of the Corporate Report member community who have experience with this issue will be able to chime in with their own experiences and their own recommendations or things that they would suggest people avoid, etc. I think the more that we hear about people's actual experience dealing with these issues, obviously everyone is walking their own path and will have to come to their own decisions and determinations. But it is good to have that feedback and that knowledge of what other people have gone through. I think that's an important part of the healing process itself. So there's a lot on the table. I hope Corporate Report members will log in and leave their [email protected] so that we can learn and grow our way forward together and hopefully get more people off of these substances or activities or behaviors that they have found themselves addicted to and towards using their energies and passions in a productive capacity. That is the goal. Let's see if we can make it happen. And on that note, I'm going to leave today's exploration there for today. I'm James Corbett of CorporateReport.com Looking forward to talking to you again in the near future.