Jess
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
We are supported by Ollie. Gosh, I love Ollie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, he's facing the wrong way. Okay. Absolutely nothing. That is actually a painting I did in college over a very ugly palm tree from one of those mall furniture decorating stores that you go to in grad school. And you're like, sure, this is four feet by two. It's going to pick up the whole room and it's going to cost thirty nine dollars. So I've just dragged that thing around for years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, that's me. Okay. So my backstory is a long, long time ago, I was married to a woman and we had two daughters using an anonymous sperm donor. I carried the first and she carried our youngest and we used a sperm bank randomly. Our gynecologist was like, I'm registered at this bank. So we picked a donor. We had sperm shipped overnight. It comes in like a giant helium tank on dry ice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You put on gloves and you lift out this little smoking half a chapstick cap of sperm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay. We went through that entire process and had our first daughter, Alice. You have your first baby. You're over the moon. You're like, she's obviously perfect. Let's replicate her. So we used the same donor again and had our youngest daughter. And by the time Alice was 11, I was divorced and I was dating a man who coincidentally is also named Aaron David, like Aaron here. Oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And Alice at the time was really, really sick of hearing her grandma talk about like, oh, we're from Kent. We're from Romania. We're from all these places. She knew I never knew my father. She obviously knew she grew up with two moms and an anonymous donor. And she was like, you know what? 75% of me is a mystery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I just never did. It was the 70s. I had a single mom. It was not discussed in the Midwest. And you didn't go looking because you're Midwestern, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
But Alice is Gen Z and has no such qualms. She just wanted a map of her country. Being 11, she wasn't at the place that Bryce and Maddie as college students were. She wasn't like, who am I? Where do I come from? She was like, I know who I am. I'm 11. I'm cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
At the time, I'd never heard a DNA story of people finding adoptive parents. So she asks grandma for this present for Christmas. Grandma is more than happy to provide. And six weeks later, we get the results. And I click the DNA relatives tab, and it's just father 50% shared DNA. my reaction was the same as Aaron's. You're like, what am I going to do about this now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
He's probably getting a notification right now. The clock is ticking. I Googled. I did what anyone would do. I had no idea sperm banks had branches. So we had ordered from the DC area. So luckily he went to Johns Hopkins because I found a guy on LinkedIn who right age, the right degrees in the D.C. area. So I went to Facebook and he had all of his school pictures K to 12.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And I got chills at that moment. It was no doubt in my mind. Here's my daughter with a 1960s boy bowl haircut. I wrote him that confusing note and just said, hey, I'm the mom. I'm open to talking. Write me back if you want pics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
He wrote back. He'd already written a bio for Bryce and Maddie. So I read it to Alice and she wrote her own life story back to him, which was very short. But because she was 11, me and Aaron started texting. We just both found it fascinating. We formed this friendship. Six months later that summer, because Bryce and Maddie are college age, we all decide that we're going to meet in Seattle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
threw a huge party on the roof of his place and we all came and I was cool with that, especially with such a young daughter that there were two other siblings there. It was not going to be a big deal, but we all decided we were going to spend basically two weeks together. And Aaron does this huge hippie fest in Eugene every summer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
So we all pile in my car and we drive back down there and we go to this hippie fair. Instantly, Aaron and I were the parents in this scenario. We're throwing sandwiches to the back seat. Do you have everything? Got to make sure everybody's happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Eugene was where I was living at the time. He had been in a band in that area. He had commuted every weekend. We could have passed him and the girls in grocery stores. We had some one-step removed people in common. So weird how close our paths had always been to crossing. So during that trip, we took a walk one night just to be alone and talk and sort of have our first date.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And it was like the wildest first date I've ever been on because we went to a cemetery by my house because all the kids are back in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Right. And what happens on this first date is most of it telling him what our, in quotes, daughters are like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Ex-wife was not in the picture at that point, but I can tell you for sure she would not have been supportive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I'm a little bit more open about that kind of thing. We went on this whole trip together. We kind of played family. So we came back to Seattle with him and we started dating and the rest is history. It kind of progressed from there. You know, I met and got together with my daughter's bio dad 12 years after she was born.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Since 2016. So like, yeah, nine at this point. Alice is in college.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I think Alice would double down on that and be like, that is why we cannot let her off the hook because gay family is family. She was just like, my mom's already out of the picture and that really hurts. I'm not ready to pull someone else into that and risk that again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
It's definitely on brand for her. And it felt a lot safer for me. I tried to Google this and no one else on the internet had been in this situation before. There was no answer to how do I date my kid's dad? I tried to be a good mom about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And it felt better because I knew that she wasn't just going to like run into his arms and then it was going to end and I was going to be the worst mom on the planet. planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
My youngest daughter would actually happen to estrange my wife and me as she withheld that daughter and abandoned Alice. So Alice hasn't seen her sibling in that amount of time either. Alice is completely adamant that this child is not her sibling just because it's Aaron's. It's not like Maddie is now substitute sister or is as much sister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
We've kind of come full circle, like love definitely makes a family, but biology also can make some sort of family too. And both are not the whole enchilada and both are not nothing either. Yeah, that's so true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I actually found him because one of the vials they sent me had a date on it, you know, January 1994. And I was like, 94? I graduated high school in 94. It's 2004 when I'm trying to get pregnant. And I was like, he already had a master's by 94. Okay, here's his age. Let's start Googling. I did not expect that that was 10-year-old sperm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Problem is, there's not an obstacle in our story at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
No idea. But his New York Times, I mean, that's kind of how it got out. He wanted to write a modern love. with his creative writing degree on it. So there's a modern love that's like, am I in a chromosomally arrayed relationship?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yes, but I, at 18, flew out of here like a bat out of hell into Colorado. Oh. Okay. So I was in a relationship. It was serious. We lived together. He made content in the Rocky Mountains for a ski resort. He ended up taking a job in Salt Lake City for an even bigger ski resort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
He comes to me and says, I have to hike this mountain facing the big mountain ski town that he works for to get content of stargazing. So he has to get a shot at midnight of the ski resort. So we have to hike up this really intense mountain starting at dusk. It's going to be four hours to go up. I'm complaining about this. I'm like, I don't want to do it. I understand why I have to do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, apparently he has to go with somebody because it's dangerous. I'm just hemming and hawing. Like, I don't want to do this. And he's like, no, please. This guy can't come with me. I need you to go. I'm being pretty whiny here. No, you just have a boundary. I'm mega learned boundaries from this whole situation over many years time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Then we even do a test run the Sunday before he's like, we need to practice this because this is a huge hike. And so we're hiking up this mountain. I'm just upset the whole time. The next week comes along when it's time to do this important night shoot where they're going to have the whole resort lit up. Turns out there's a storm coming as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
So we get to the trailhead at dusk and I'm complaining about it still. And he stops and he goes, please, if you ever just do anything for me the rest of your life, please just do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It's only when he said that. But my mind went to there's no way that he's going to do this when I have made it clear I don't want to go on this hike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
No. And if you knew me, you know, I'm not wanting to live in the mountains. He's like, I have to do this. It's dangerous. Someone has to come. And so I'm finally just given. We get to the top and all I do is collapse on the ground. I'm in fetal position, feeling sorry for myself. And he's setting up this camera on a tripod. And all of a sudden he's like, please, please just come over here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I just need one thing from you. And so I forced myself to get up. I walked past the camera and I could see actually, it was really beautiful. The stars, there's lightning in the distance, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're at the top of a mountain of a really difficult height. I go walk over in front of the camera and he drops down on one knee and he opens a little box and And it's lit up. And I see this glimmering, sparkling flowering. And the first thing out of my mouth was, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not now. Please, not now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I must have blacked out the rest. I just have a flash of, I know now I have to go down this mountain with this storm impending, the moment that is supposed to be so special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I mean, you did say no. Oh, that's the funny thing. I look back now and I never said yes, but it wasn't assumed yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just crying. And we get down the mountain and we have this hotel room, had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. I just remember crying in the hotel. And I think he said something like, I just thought that once it would happen, you'd be happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Definitely, that's true. But I think more than anything, you wanted the photo. Uh-huh. I think he had a vision in his mind of, I want this photo. And even if the intention was good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I had to learn a lot. We both did, obviously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
We go to bed because we're so codependent. We're obviously getting married. We're not going to break up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
The next day he posts the picture. This is it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah. And we were together for like two years and I couldn't plan the damn wedding. And then it imploded, you know, the big lesson of if you don't listen in life, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until life forces you to change.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I'm so grateful for all of it, genuinely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, I fell in love immediately. You know, when you meet someone and it's like, whoa, all of your childhood stuff is brought up immediately because it's so intense. Yeah. Immediately I knew my life would change forever. And now I know that's usually a red flag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It was just a mask. I think for me to remain really comfortable, to not put myself out there and I could kind of hide, it was very codependent. That ending shot me into deep emotional intelligence over time because to have the kind of life and love that I want has forced me to grow immensely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Absolutely. I mean, I just didn't have internal backbone. of like, I'm whole within myself. And I've had to learn that incrementally over time. I was learning that through that relationship, even getting to that relationship, I had to grow tremendously to even be in it. So everything was perfect. There was no time wasted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
That's a gorgeous photo. I haven't seen it in many years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Struck by lightning. Yeah, well, it's so funny to me that there are all these impending dangers, like falling off a cliff or being struck by lightning. And the real danger was the proposal. Yeah, exactly.
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
Yeah, I was just thinking about that, the Philando Castile situation, because I felt like a lot of the reaction, at least from my perspective and how I felt, was that with that situation, a lot of people were very upset and there wasn't a lot of consequence that came out of that. There wasn't a lot of real resolution that came out of that.
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
And then, so when the George Floyd thing happened, you know, you have people, this is, During the day, there's tons of people there. People are trying to do their part and they're filming and they're speaking up. And, you know, with the Philando Castile situation, that was a situation where people were not there.
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
There might not have been anyone who could intervene, obviously, other than the police, other police officers, you know, who maybe should have did their part in that aspect. But the community for George Floyd, it was like they were there. They were present. You know, want to try and make sure you're doing things or feel like you're doing something.
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
So we don't have a situation like Philando Castile where we feel helpless. And then with George Floyd, it was like, the outcome was the same. You know, we're doing different things. We're there, we're active, but it's the same outcome. And I felt like that was the biggest difference in what changed where it's like, you know, we are told to,
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
be proactive, do certain things, speak up for people, advocate. And then you're doing that and we're still resulting in the same kind of outcomes. And I think that frustrated the community as a whole. And that's really where a lot of the, you know, like the anger and everything came from. I think it really came from where it's like, okay, we're kind of damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Health Chatter
Grief and Health
So we might as well, just kind of go about it in a way that is really going to get people's attention?
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
very intense, completely natural treatment modality that involves loading the body up with all the nutrients it needs to heal and detoxifying it of everything that is getting in the way of healing. And so I went over to Mexico with my mum and I spent three weeks at the Gerson Clinic learning how to implement this therapy in my life.
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
It was 13 glasses of fresh organic veggie juice every day, one on the hour from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. It's completely overhauling your diet to eat three massive all organic vegan meals that have no salt, no sugar, no fat, no spices, no herbs, no caffeine, no drugs, no alcohol.
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
Everything that was a staple of my diet for the first 22 years was gone and replaced by plants and juice. And then there was the castor oil, which we had to drink orally every second day to clean out that small intestines, to give us the runs and make us feel like we have a hangover every second day. And then there was my favorite part of the whole therapy, which was the coffee enemas.
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
And putting five buckets of coffee up my bottom every single day. It seriously is the best part. You get 30 minutes alone to yourself in the bathroom five times a day. It's great. And I did all of this religiously for two whole years, dedicated every waking hour to saving my own life.
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
And I did this because very early on in my journey, I called up one of the counselors at the Gawler Foundation, and I was really probing her about Ian's story and how he did it. And the one thing that she said to me that really stuck with me through all of it was that everything that you do needs to be to heal your body.
Serialously with Annie Elise
247: Exposing The Truth About Belle Gibson & Netflix’s ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’
Every single thing, every act that you take, it needs to be in the act of healing your body. Be radically kind to yourselves. Be brave enough to follow your intuition, even when it's really, really scary. And always, always, always be really well. Thank you so much for hearing me speak. And thank you so much to Ian. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Oh, I love this, I love this. Oh, okay.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I honestly have no idea. I think I was... I'm not very big on physical affection, I guess. I know that sounds weird. My family is, like, my dad's part is Japanese. So I wasn't raised with a whole lot of physical affection. And I think it caught me off guard. And I wasn't quite sure if I wanted it or not because I knew he had a wife. And, like, I knew he had five kids.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I was like, I don't know if I want five kids. And I didn't know what I wanted at that point.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
A little more than Ben. It's like five and a half years. My clean date is June 1st, 2019.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I wasn't aware of all of it, but I had my own past, so I wasn't totally worried about that. I think what really attracted me to him was I love nature and I love music. And I love smart people because I've always wanted to be, like, really smart, and I don't really see myself like that. But he was. And, like, as you've heard in his story, he's extremely intelligent.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And it's very hard to find somebody that is that intelligent and nerd-like who also listens to metal and, you know, likes nature and hiking. And I found all of that in Ben. And he was funny. He made me laugh. Like, if you can make me laugh, that's a big plus.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Wow, that's a good question. There was a little, I was comfortable in knowing that I wouldn't be judged for who I was and I think there was comfortability there because I was raised by an addict, like my mom's a crack addict was. But at the same time, I know how bad it can get, how much of a train wreck all of that can turn into.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So it was comforting knowing that I had somebody that could understand me, but it was also terrifying at the same time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And it was the same thing with Ben. I was able to be completely transparent. I'm a very open book anyway, but there's certain things that I won't. But with him, it was like we were just connected instantly. I just knew that's who I was supposed to be with for the rest of my life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He was actually blackout drunk at that point. And this was like right into the first of our relationships. So I didn't know what to do. I'm newly clean at this time. The first time since I was 13. And I didn't want to mess that up. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing with him blackout drunk. And I didn't know he had been drinking at this point.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I had found like a vodka bottle in the truck. Like I was going to the store and found this, came back home, confronted him about it. And if you know Ben, like if he's drunk, he will never admit it. He'll be slurring and still not admitting that he drank. So I called Erin once it got so bad that he was blackout drunk and he wouldn't wake up. And I was freaking out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So I called Erin because she had moved into her own place at this point. I was like, please come to the house. I don't know what to do with him because she's been married. You know, she's been with him for so long. She knew how to deal with this. So she came over and We're smoking a cigarette outside. And she's like, just so you know. Or she said, are you sleeping with Ben?
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
She's like, I know you're sleeping together in the same bed. I mean, are you sleeping with Ben? And I just felt this weight because I didn't want to say yes. But I knew it was better to tell the truth. I was like, yes, we are sleeping together. She's like, oh, because he's sleeping with me too. And dude, I like every, just everything in me got ripped out. Like I felt like I was going to die.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And the thing about me, I'll never let anybody know if I'm hurt. Like, I got this protection wall, and I was like, ah, guys suck. And that's all I said. Like, I just totally nonchalant. I did not let her know it bugged me in the least, but inside, I was fucking dying. And... You know, we go back into Ben, and she checks on him, and I'm living in her house and their house at this point.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And, you know, she's got the kids in her own little apartment, and she leaves. She's like, he's going to be fine. Let him sleep it off. And that was it, and she left. And it was just—so I'm like sitting there, and I stay up all night because I'm afraid it's going to die on me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I'm afraid something bad's going to happen because my mom had overdosed, and we thought she was asleep, and she was actually dead. So to this day, I still have a horrible fear of people— Your mom overdosed?
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I was two houses down, and my sister came and got me and was like, Mom's dead. So I ran over the two houses away and saw her, and they had her on the floor at that point. But ever since then, I was terrified when I see people sleeping for too long. So I was afraid he was going to die on me. So I literally stayed up all night.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
mad as fuck at him like i wanted to kill him but at the same time i loved him so much that i just i just sat up and watched him all night like i'm sure i was sobbing half of the night because i couldn't believe that he had been cheating on me with his wife i mean like how bad does that sound it was uh it was a bad time how did you confront him
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So the next day when he finally came to, and he drinks so much that even when he comes to, he's still kind of drunk. And I was like, so I had a conversation with Erin, and he wasn't expecting what I said. I was like, she said y'all are still asleep together. And I think he denied it, I think, for a good little bit until I was like, dude, I mean, come on, she's your wife. I understand.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I really didn't understand because I've never— I've never understood infidelity. I don't, I don't at all. Um, so it really hurt and it hurt that he was denying it. And I think I finally just came out, just fucking say it, just fucking tell me what happened. And he admitted it. And, um, you know, like Aaron was texting him just nonstop.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Oh, I'm sure there was. I mean, you know, he's been her person since they were 12. And now this junkie bitch comes in the picture and just takes him away. You know, so there's a lot of hatred. There's a lot of animosity. And now I'm living in her house even, which that was the wrong thing to do. That was...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
very bad judgment on our part and uh yeah so she's i mean they're still married at this point they don't get actually legally divorced till like a year later so maybe even two years later so it was there was a lot of anger i'm sorry my mouth is so dry right now so how did you i mean where did it go from there how did you how did you get over that
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I did take a, well, and this will go into Ben's story a little bit. There's another woman in the mix. And this one was way fucking worse than Aaron. So now, so then all my anger went from Aaron to this other girl. So, and Aaron, you know, I understood. He was with Aaron for years. They were married. You know, they'd been friends since they were 12. I was just some chick he met in N.A.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So even though I was very angry that he lied about it and that he wasn't forthcoming in our relationship, I did understand it. I got it. This other chick, though, that was... Who was the next one? Funny enough, it was another girl that he met in N.A., Ben was just jumping for a little while there. Just us three, but there was a point in time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Hey, man. There was a point where it was all three of us at one time. Like, he was seeing her, he was seeing me, he was seeing this other chick, and... I actually found out about the other chick after he goes to jail. I hear a knock at the door. I had found out that I'm pregnant with Ben's kid like six weeks before this. And Ben goes to jail. He had had another relapse.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I hear a knock at the door, and I open it. There's nobody there, but there's like this manila envelope about this big, and I open it. I was like, what the fuck is this? I thought someone was trying to sell some shit. So I open it, and it's just pages and pages of e-mails. of him and this other chick. And on the front of the envelope, it says, hi, my name is Jeremy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I believe that you would like to know that your boyfriend is fucking my wife. And that's what it says on the front. So now I'm going through these emails. I'm pregnant with his kid, and he's in jail for a relapse. I'm reading all these emails. Like, some of them are raunchy as fuck. Like, this was a nasty bitch. And I just...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And then all my aggression kind of leaves from the Aaron thing, and now I just want to kill this bitch and kill him. So it was a bad whirlwind for a minute there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Well, one, I was pregnant. So I remember he called from jail and this is before he even knew that I knew anything. And I had threatened to have an abortion. So I was like, well, you're fucking Aaron, you're fucking this chick. Why would I keep this child? Like, why would we start a family together? I thought you loved me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And, you know, clearly I'm just like sobbing on the phone and he's denying it at first. And I read him some of the emails. He can't deny it anymore. And I just, I loved him. I really had just such a deep amount of love for him that I just, I was like, maybe we can work through it. And I had seen my mom and my dad work through insurmountable type of the things that they have gone through.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Like my dad was not an addict, alcoholic, nothing. My mom was. And the things that I had seen them work through and make it through, I guess that was That was my model that I lived by, that I went by. And I was just like, you know, people can work things out. Of course, right then, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to slit his throat right then.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But, you know, later on, I started thinking about it, and I was like, we're going to have a kid together. And I wanted to—I knew I loved him. I knew he was the one that God made for me. I knew I was supposed to be with him. And I was like, I'm just going to make it work. We're going to make something work.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Yeah, so she was 10. His oldest was 10, and my oldest is 10. And the kids got along great, too. But I was terrified about—I wasn't too worried about Matty. He was so good with kids, so he was really good with— Matty is my oldest, and he was so good to her. I had never seen a— Maddie's father is an addict as well. And he was not a good father. He was not a good man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He was a good man, but the addiction took over and there's a lot of bad stuff that Maddie had to endure. So when Ben came into the picture, there was a happiness there. Like he was actually a father to her and she loved him and I wasn't so much worried about Maddie. I was worried about getting hurt again. I was worried about the trust issue because I knew I would never be able to trust him again.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And that was actually the problem for years. I didn't trust him. And actually, because that girl... was someone that he met in N.A., and we knew everybody. Like, everybody knew us as the N.A. power couple, you know? So when everybody found out that he cheated on me with another bitch from N.A., like, I was mortified.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Yes. Or I had just graduated for, or graduated, I had just gotten a year clean, I believe. Like, probably a month before this happened. So I was one year clean, first year I'd had clean since I was 13 years old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Absolutely, yeah. And... Did it? Um... So I didn't go back to heroin. But I remember the night that I found out, I downed a bottle of NyQuil. Knowing I was pregnant and knowing that it might hurt my child, I just wanted to not be alive at that point. And addicts are selfish. And even though I had a year clean, I was still very much a selfish addict. And I got a bottle of NyQuil.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And half of me didn't want to keep this baby. Like half of me, I was like, maybe it's just better if I'm just going to drink this bottle of NyQuil and let nature take its course. And he was in jail anyway. Nobody could stop me. And like when I found out, I called Thomas. Thomas denied it. I called Brian Owens. Brian Owens says he didn't know anything about it. I later find out that like,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
All the guys knew. You know, the guy code, you don't say anything. And I don't have girlfriends. I don't like women. They don't like me. All my friends were guys. So not only was I betrayed by him, I was betrayed by all of our friends. And that's how I felt. So, like, I just felt like the whole world had shit on me. And I just downed that bottle of NyQuil and fell asleep.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But I didn't do anything after that. Like, I woke up and I was like, what the fuck did I just do? And that was it. I was good after that. I didn't do any drugs or anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
sometimes um of course i had a great lesson in manipulation because my mom was on crack and that's what crackheads do so i had a very early on you know she taught me how to steal you know stuff like that so i would that's that's natural for me it was normal um which actually helped because i could see through his bullshit a lot um because i could just see things that i saw in my mom and um
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I tried so hard to not be like my mom that I tried not to manipulate people. I tried to do the opposite. Even though I was an addict, I would try not to do stuff like that. Even though, you know, in the end, I was full-blown crackhead and it did happen. Especially with Ben, too. He's so intelligent. It's so easy for him to manipulate people.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I'm sure there were times when we were manipulating that we didn't even think of it like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I mean, yeah, there was definitely concern in that. And I knew he was, you know, because he was like, you know, you're going to have the baby. And, you know, he would bring all these things up that I didn't have a very happy childhood, you know, obviously from what I just told you. But he did. He did have a perfect childhood.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And he kept throwing out there, you know, we can do this, and we can have this baby, and we can get married, and you see I make money, we can have a big house, and I see you work your ass off. We can do this. We can do this together. And I think that was his way of, I guess, manipulating me into staying and working it out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And at the time, I wanted to slit his throat, but I'm very happy that I did stay, and I'm glad that little manipulation did stick a little bit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
100% trust. Probably when we moved to Georgia. I think I went to Georgia June 1st, 2019, my first day clean. And I think that's when I just let everything go. Up until that point, like I would still think of the emails and like the thought of some things I'd want to kill him in his sleep and I would actually think about it sometimes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But once we moved away from Memphis and like literally had to leave everything behind with just the clothes on our backs and a $700 truck with stolen plates, I was like, okay, I really am starting my life over with this man and I can't have to forgive. And I've learned this my whole life. You know, God teaches forgiveness. And I knew that if I was going to
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
continue my life with him i would have to forgive him before before god would allow anything good to happen i was going to have to forgive him and so i just i just decided it's it's time it's time to forgive him and and that was it why did you guys move to atlanta We moved, well, it's like an hour north of Atlanta. It's a little city called Cumming. And, well, we moved to stay alive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
That was at the very, the worst part of our addiction right then. We knew if we didn't leave Memphis, if we didn't leave right at that minute, we were going to die. He actually left a week before I did. I didn't know if I was ready yet. And if you leave or you say you're going to stop doing drugs before you're ready, it's not going to stick.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. That I meant until he got back, until we relapsed for the first time, you know, together. Oh, and also, like, I was pregnant when all of this happened. Once I had my child, I always have to have C-sections. So they put me on pain pills. I never got off of them. I just kept taking them. I had so much resentment and hatred for him that I just stayed on pain pills.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And like, Three weeks after I had James, our first, I get a call from Shelby County that he's in jail and he got caught with crack right in front of the trap house like three weeks after my C-section. Like... I could barely move, you know. I was breastfeeding, had this huge-ass scar. I was an asthmatic, so I was dealing with an asthma attack at the same time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So all of that just... I never stopped taking my pills. I was like, fuck it, he's gonna go get high, I'm gonna stay high. And so I just kept taking pain pills.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We did later, and it was bad. And we tried to keep each other sane and good. There would be periods. I tell everybody, it's just like a roller coaster. I would be high, he would be clean, or he would be drunk, and then I would finally be okay. He started getting, and this is like, you know, years in the making. We get thrown out of him and Aaron's house. They foreclose on it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We end up getting a much bigger house. And I'm a workaholic, just like him. I'm like a machine. I don't talk. I just work. So we were making money, just swimming in money. And the whole time he's buying my pills because obviously the doctors cut me off. You know, I don't need C-section pills anymore. And so I'm like, you know, I'm getting sick if I don't have these pills.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I'm getting them from my sister. I'm getting them from anybody I can. And every once in a while in Memphis, there will be a drought and you can't find pills. And I was so sick and he can't stand to see me sick. So he was like, we both know because I was on heroin before I even met him. We know if you can't find pills, you go get heroin. And it's a lot cheaper to begin with anyway.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So he went and got me heroin. I think that lasted about a week or two that I was just doing... No, probably about a week. A week at most. And he was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to get on heroin too. So then we were both on heroin. And it's just straight downhill from there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So they would be back and forth. They were with Erin most of the time. But you know, they would come visit. Like we had this big house, like she had a little apartment. And I think because we're workaholics, we made so much money, we were able to afford this big house. And so there's room for all of the kids, you know, all together with my kid and his kid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
There were six kids, seven kids, shit, because I had James, seven kids. And there was room for all of them. And so they would come over there a lot. It was a big, nice house. They loved being over there. And I think at first nobody really, nobody really understood the totality of how deep in it we were in because we made it look good. You know, we kept the businesses going and for me,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
You know, lots of people, they think heroin junkies. They think of people, you know, just passing out in their chairs with a needle in their arm. That wasn't me at all. I guess from watching my mom all those years, I have to be in control. I cannot be so out of it that I don't know what's going on. So I would snort heroin, and it would give me superpowers. Like, I was like Supermom.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We would clean. I would bake brownies. We would go feed the ducks. I was organizing everything. I was getting all my work done. I was doing all the emails. I was dealing with customers. Like, nobody would have even thought that I was on drugs. I just looked like Superwoman 24-7 until I got dope sick, until I ran out of dope. And then, like, my hair hurt. My skin hurt. Everything. I couldn't move.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And that's when people started noticing maybe they're back on drugs. And then, you know, money, money wasn't even an issue. Like, you know, most people, you know, something's going on because they're running out of money. And we just didn't do that. Um, yet we would eventually, and we would eventually get kicked out of that house because, um, crack became more important. And this is,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I mean, we're talking about probably a five-year span that I'm kind of going over right now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Ben actually probably knows more, but I think they just bring in, you know, so much, and they sell so much, and maybe some get seized. You know, you'll see the big seizures they have, and sometimes those seizures were drugs that were meant for Memphis. And then they just, I guess the supply kind of runs out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So Ben was on crack before I even knew him. And, you know, when we first met, I'm very transparent about everything. And, you know, I told him my mom was a crackhead. And I told him I never wanted to do crack. I never wanted to end up like my mom. My mom was also a raging alcoholic, a very violent one. So I stayed away from alcohol. To this day, I hate alcohol. I don't want anything to do with it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And... So those two things I always stayed away from. And then one day, we couldn't find heroin. And I was just so, so sick. I was dog sick. I just couldn't move. But we could find crack. And I think Ben had already had some. There was one day that he was sick and I was not sick.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So I go down to South Memphis to go try to find more heroin so I can make him better when he wakes up because he was just rolling around in his sleep and he was sweating and it was just, it was bad. So I was like, let me go down and I can wake him up with some heroin and make him better. Well, I waited there for three hours. There was no heroin. All they had was crack.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I'm like, well, I remember he used to do crack back in the day. maybe crack will make him feel better so um so I got like a 30 rock of crack brought it home to him and he he was upset that there was no heroin because he knew he would still be sick but he was happy that I brought him crack so he was doing crack after that and I think probably about
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Two, three weeks after that, you know, the crack had already been established. He had been doing that. So when I couldn't find heroin, about two, three weeks later, he was like, well, I got this crack, but it's a bad idea. And I think I remember I was holding the pipe in my hand. I was like, how bad of an idea is this? He was like, that's the worst decision you will ever make.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I was like, fuck it. And I lit it. And that was the end of everything. That was all I wanted for the next year and a half.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Mm-hmm. I feel like it was about a year and a half.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So it's cocaine and baking soda and water. Those are essentially the three ingredients, and they're cooked together, which you would think, you know, like cocaine, big deal, it's cocaine, and you just add some baking soda and some water. You don't think it would be a big difference, but I guess...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
There's, you know, snorting it, shooting it, smoking it, all three different routes, but all three very different feelings that you get from it. And smoking crack, as I found out, was the one thing that, like, after that first hit, that was it. That destroyed me. Like, that is all I wanted. I didn't want my kids. I didn't want my husband. We had gotten married in between that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
There's a lot we skipped. But I just wanted crack. That was it. That was everything. It took everything we had.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I guess the feeling, and for somebody that's never smoked crack, you can't even really describe it. There's something called the bell ringer. And when you first hit crack for the very first time, or at least the very first few times, there's something they call the bell ringer. And it's almost like you hear a bell in your head. And it's, I can't, in words, I cannot describe it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But that is what you chase every other time you're doing it. You are chasing for that bell ringer. You want that first feeling again. Kind of like how Ben described the heroin. But this is so much worse. Like, it's just, it consumes every bit of you. It just, it just takes you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I think for the most part, they were at Aaron's house. They would come every once in a while. We would never let them see anything. Of course, James lived with us because he was ours. He wasn't Aaron's. So he lived with us during it. He was one and a half, two years old. He had no idea what that was, what we were doing. We did not do it in front of him at first.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
When we were living in that house, we wouldn't do it in front of him until the very end. And I do, I think I've blocked out some parts and things will come back to me sometimes. And I remember the movie Boss Baby when I hear the theme music for that. And, like, our four-year-old plays it now, and it still brings me back to that big house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And we'd be in our room, and he was obsessed with Boss Baby. And I just remember sitting on the bed with him. He was watching TV, and I was just sitting next to him smoking crack. I made sure to blow the smoke in the other direction, though, like that did anything. But I do remember that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I did smoke in front of James, I think only because he was one and a half, two years old, and he had no idea what it was. But, you know, I look at it now, and I just think, like, what? fucking damage I could have done. Like, could he have gotten high? Could that smoke have messed him up, you know? And it just, it hurts to know some of the shit that we put him through.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I haven't even got into, like, the really deep shit that we put him through. And I'll probably let Ben talk about that, but that's, that boy went through it. He didn't know it because he was only two.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Um, so when we got kicked out of the house, um, And it was, there's a rapper called Young Dolph. He's a Memphis rapper, very famous. He just got murdered a couple, like a year ago, two years ago. His mother was the one that rented the house to us. We didn't know this at the time. So when we get kicked out, they didn't do anything legal. It's like three huge linebackers just boom, boom, boom.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Y'all haven't paid your rent. So they come in and throw all their shit out. Like literally everything we own, everything we have acquired through years and years of nothing but work is thrown on the front porch or on the front lawn. And this is a gated community. So like rich people live here. Like it was a nice fucking house. And so we have all these people like, you know, what's going on?
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And so they know we have kids. So that looks bad to begin with. But so we move out of this nice ass house. And I think that same day, our good Tahoe shits the bed. And we have to find a new...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
vehicle and um so we had no vehicle we got kicked out of the house all we could do is rent a u-haul which we didn't even have money to do my dad had to buy that u-haul and uh we just shoved what we can into the u-haul there's only two seats one for me and one for ben james is sitting in a car seat like right in the middle he's not strapped in there's nowhere to put him
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And we just drop them off at my dad's house because what are two addicts going to do when they get kicked out of their house with nothing? You go back and you go get high. And that's what we did. So I knew my dad's house was a safe place for him. So we took him to my dad's house. My dad, I think, is in denial a lot about what was going on. And we're—I'm not terribly close to my dad, you know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We don't just talk and gab on the phone every day. And, you know, he had a deal with my mom for so many years. He knew something was going on. He knew I'd been in addiction for most of my life. And I think he just didn't want to ask questions. He was just like, just leave James here. Y'all go do whatever. And we did. And we went and started.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We just lived in the trap house for like weeks at a time. And when I started, and Madison too, like Madison's 10 years old. Wait, 10, 11, good Lord. Madison's like 14 at this point. I got to think, 13, 13, I think. And she goes to my dad's house too, because I don't want them to see any of this because of, you know, the shit I saw when I was little. I don't want them to see any of this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So Maddie does stay with my dad for the most part. You know, James is too. So I can't leave them with my dad all the time. So we'll have like little shifts. Well, first five days we got kicked out, we went straight to the dope house and we stayed there for five days straight. We did not leave. We just smoked crack for five days.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And they knew us there because we had always had so much money that they're like, yeah, we'll front you that. We'll front you that. We'll front you that. We didn't even have money. I think Ben ends up selling the Tahoe that shit the bed like for parts or something or just as a chunk of junk. and got a little bit of money that got us some more crack.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And before we knew it, we're just going back and forth, going to see James and Maddie and coming back to the trap house. And, you know, my dad's, he's got a life, he's got a job, so we'll have James with us. And we would never take him into the trap house, because I was, they had a lot of drive-bys. Like, if you look at this house, there was just riddled with bullet holes, bullet holes everywhere.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So I was always afraid if I brought him into the trap that we would have a drive-by and he would get shot. So we would go get our dope and we'd go drive. We would just drive around the Tahoe. James would be in the back seat in his car seat. And we would just smoke crack. I would be in the front seat. Ben would be driving. And we'd just drive around Memphis smoking crack.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And our friends were all prostitutes. And if we didn't have enough money... They had money because they were turning tricks so they could get more crack. So, you know, they'd hop on in the truck and we'd all smoke crack together. And we'd go to different traps together. So it would be me, Ben, James, and like three or four prostitutes hanging out in the Soho or whatever it was.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I think we, in the U-Haul at first, and then we ended up finding the $700 truck that we managed to buy. And, uh, sorry, I'm jumping around all over the place, I think.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Just kind of word of mouth. Um, Ben showed me the first one in South Memphis, which is the one he used to frequent before we were even together. And then, you know, we were... We made money. Doughboys like money. So even though we were the only white people out there, they loved us. They brought us in like family. And also, you don't want to be outside a trap house if you're white.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
One, it's an eyesore. Like, the cops know. If that's a house on that street and there's two white folks outside the window, you know, everybody knows what's going on. So me and Ben had this thing and we would walk up and we'd knock on the window and go back door. And that meant we're here. Go open the back door to let the white folks in. And the back door was barricaded.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
It had a pole or like a two by four on three different levels. Maybe it's two different levels to keep the cops or buy them a little bit of time for when the cops kicked in the door. So we'd say back door and we'd walk in and, um, And that was it. And we'd stay in there for a little while because they don't want white folks going in and out of the place. So we would sit in there for hours.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And in those hours, we would see the prostitutes come in, the other dope boys come in. So you would meet, we would network. It was like, it was like drug networking. So we'd meet the other dope boys. We'd meet the other prostitutes who would, you know, introduce us to other dope boys or, you know, other, it was just like a, it's a big drug networking system.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
So Ben was, we did see a lot of bad stuff together. I did not see a murder happen. Luckily, he did. But, you know, we were held at gunpoint together on multiple occasions. We were kidnapped together on one occasion with James. All of those started in the trap house. You know, we would,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
A couple of grand. I can't remember exactly how much it was. I know it was a couple of grand, though. And everybody knew that we sold firearms parts. We didn't sell the firearm, but we sold parts for the firearms. And, you know, around the gangstas, that's real cool. Everybody loves that. So everybody wanted to be friends with us. Everybody was, you know, happy to have Ben and Jess over.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
You know, oh, they can give you shit for your AR and they can get your Tannerite. So everybody was very free with their fronts, with their letting us borrow drugs to pay them back later. And this one guy just did it a little too much and we didn't have the money to pay him back. So we kind of actually ran from this guy for a little while because...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And some of those guys are, like, really nuts about their money. They want their money. And I didn't know what they were going to do to us, what they were going to do to my two-year-old. So we kind of ran for a little while, and there's a lady named Vicki. And we knew Vicki from the streets, and she had just gotten—or she had, like, a little apartment on another side of town.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I knew we wouldn't be around anybody there. And they let us move in for a little bit. That didn't last very long. And we called the same dope boy because when you want crack, you want crack. Like you don't care if you're going to get shot. You want to hit that crack. So we called him again. We were like, will you please just front us just like one more time? And he comes there and he picks us up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And he gives us some crack. And it's me, our little two-year-old James, and Ben, and we're in the back seat. He gives us a crack, and we smoke it, and we just drive around for a little bit, and he doesn't take us back to Vicki's house. It was a very nice kidnapping, I will say that, because he had kids of his own. So I know that he didn't want to hurt James or anything like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He just wanted his fucking money. So he's like, we're not going back to that house. Y'all are coming with us. And so me and Ben are like,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
like we're in the back we're in the back seat just like mouthing to each other what the fuck is going on um so and he does in fact take us to his mom's house i'm guessing maybe that's where he was staying at the at that point and he takes us to his mom's house in uh raleigh or freight raleigh um And we go, and we have to stay the night.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And it's just like this little tiny room with mattresses on the floor. And they're like smoking so much weed. Like there's so much smoke in this room, I can barely see my hand. I don't want anything to do with weed at this point. Like all I want is crack. But I'm not trying to ask for anything. I'm just trying to get my kid out of there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But I know that I can't say anything, and I'm afraid that if I do say, will you please not smoke so much around my kid, I'm afraid that, you know, you don't know what these guys are going to do. So I just had to sit there with my mouth fucking shut and just act like everything was okay. And I was just like, James, are you having fun?
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
You know, and I just had to keep that smile on, and I had to make it seem like we were just having a sleepover. And me and Ben were fucking scared shitless about what the fuck was about to happen next. And we stay the night there. You know, they smoke. He makes a couple of serves and his girlfriend stays in the room to make sure we don't leave. And we do fall asleep there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We wake up the next morning, and they take us out of his mom's house, and we're just driving around again. And the whole time, me and Ben are, like, just fiending for crack. We just want crack so bad. But I don't want to say anything because I don't want to risk anything happening to my son. So we just keep our mouths shut. And he's so— He's driving, and he turns around.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He's like, so what about that money? And so Ben gets on his phone, and I don't know how he does it. Ben does this all the time. He'll fall in a pile of shit and come out with a $100 bill. That's the shit Ben does. And he just gets on the phone and starts texting customers or answering emails or something. It ends up selling...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
um bump stocks because we were like the number one distributor or the number two distributor of bump stock slide fires um that year because this was right after the casino thing happened um so everybody wanted them before they were going to get banned and ben ends up selling like however many i don't even remember how many he's told but we were able to get this guy his money And he let us go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We were all okay. Nobody got shot or murdered. But for a minute there, I didn't know what the fuck was about to happen to us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Yeah. It was horrible. And it went quick. It just, it was just boom, boom, boom, like worse, worse, worse, worse. And it just kept going.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
No. I guess for James, for James, that's as bad as it got. I think that kind of opened my eyes a little bit. And I somewhat got kidnapped away from Ben and away from James. We had another guy that, you know, had fronted us and I had promised him my wedding ring. And so he ended up taking me and he wouldn't let me out of his sight until we were like going to get it appraised.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And, you know, so after that happened, I was like, okay, I've been technically kidnapped like twice now. Maybe it's time to slow it down. And, um,
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
don't really have that choice when you're on crack you don't you don't get to make that like it consumes every bit of you it just takes you and um i think it the only way to get out of it is to like sufficiently suffer enough to go through so much that you're like you know what i would just seriously rather die than to live like this anymore and At one point, I had lost Ben.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Like, we were living in a $700 truck with stolen plates at this point, and... Brandon Kelly, his best friend that would later overdose, was kind of living in the truck with us. And I don't remember where Ben went. I think we dropped him off at a hotel to go score some dope for us. He stole my phone, and I couldn't find him. Like, he wasn't at the hotel anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I couldn't call him because I realized he had stolen my phone. And we seriously had just lost each other for like three or four days. I had no idea where he was. I just rolled around in the Tahoe looking for him. And I think that was one of the things. We had gone through this much shit together.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And now we're in the same area, running around with the same people, doing the same drugs, and we couldn't find each other. And as much as I was angry at him for stealing my phone and doing all the shit that we had done to each other in active addiction, I knew that I still loved this man and I needed to find him and I didn't want to lose him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And I think the thought of losing him or knowing that he could be dead in an alley somewhere and I had no idea, I think that was part of what got me to my end of being ready to quit. And then you hear Ben's version and he wakes up just covered in blood, has no idea where it came from. So I think that part and then Ben's part and we just... We're like, you know what?
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
We're going to die if we don't leave. We're going to die. Our kids are going to die. We're going to leave. It's time to go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Not on my end. I've never been unfaithful, ever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Just with those three that we talked about earlier.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Mm-mm. Well, because all we hung around were prostitutes. And even though he was cheating, Ben treasures his penis, so he wasn't going around prostitutes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I mean, there's a whole lot. I didn't know how long I was going to be sitting here, so I was just kind of jumping around. There's, like, Ben went in a very nice order, and I was just kind of all over the place. There's, I mean, a whole hell of a lot missing. She stabbed me. I did. I stabbed him. I mean, there's a lot that's missing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
Mm-hmm. It was more of a slash. It was a slash. But one of the times that he tried to get sober, he got really, really bad drinking. This is when we were in our big, nice house, and we were just swimming in money. And he just started drinking again and got so bad that he would take the upper hand of his gun. Didn't even have the rest of the gun with it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He would just take the... He'd be like, I'm going to kill some cops. And he would, like, literally run out the front door thinking he was going to go kill cops. Like, that's how out of his mind he was. And it got so bad like that that I was like, dude, we got to do something. Like, it's going to get really fucking bad. And remember, like, I...
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I grew up with an extremely violent alcoholic for a mother. So that's what I, you know, I'm used to getting beat shitless. So like I'm, he's never been violent with me, but I'm just seeing this progression. And I just know that at some point he's going to start beating the shit out of me like my mom used to. So I'm getting really fucking scared.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
I'm like, dude, you've got to do something because I can't. Once you start hitting me, I've got to go. And I don't want to leave him. And I know that. So she's like, cool, it's fine. I will take a shot. There's a shot called Vivitrol. And it makes it to where like you don't want alcohol. Or if you do drink alcohol, it's supposed to make you sick or something like that. So he starts doing that shot.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And at first he does okay. First maybe a week or two. Well, then he starts drinking. He starts drinking with it. Turns out that when you drink with Vivitrol, it makes you extremely violent. And he got really, really angry. I don't even remember what it was about. And I remember we were arguing over something and he gets in my face and I
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
It's almost like PTSD from when me and my mom used to be, and I just reacted, and I think I just pushed him or something. I was just trying to get him out of my face and away from me because I didn't want to get beat. And he took that as an act of aggression, and he took my head and, like, with his—he's got big hands, dude. So he took my whole head and bashed it into the wall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And, like, I saw black, like, for a split second. I think any harder, and I would have— Like, he would have made me black out. Luckily, I didn't. Luckily, it was like a half second of blackness. And I, you know, I was like, oh, fuck. He could have just really fucked me up. And I'm always carrying a blade, always. Since I was like 14, I've carried knives on me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And so I just pull out my knife, and I just slash the shit out of his arm, like right here. And that was it. Like, gloves were off at this point. He was like, oh, fuck no, bitch. And he just starts, you know— It was such a blur that I can't tell you exactly everything that happened, but I do know that we were at each other's throats. He was trying to hit me. I was trying to hit him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
There was a knife involved. There was blood everywhere. And we make it into the bedroom, and I think at this point, like, he's, you know, I'm a girl. He's a guy. He's a lot stronger than me. And I know this. And so I'm trying to get the fuck away from him because he's literally like blackout drunk out of his mind. He's not Ben anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And so I'm trying to run from him because I just realized I just slashed this motherfucker. He's going to kill me. So I run into the bedroom and I try to close the door. Of course, he kicks it open and gets on top of me and starts choking me. So much so that I'm starting to black out. Like I'm starting to lose consciousness.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
And Thomas and his girlfriend Jackie were like in a truck in the garage or in the driveway this whole time. Like he was supposed to be coming in to get his belongings or something. Like Thomas, he decided to move back to Thomas's house for a second or for a while because we had gotten into it because he was drunk. So they were sitting outside waiting on him to come back out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
He was supposed to just be coming in to get his items. So I kind of come to because I was barely even conscious at this point. And Thomas is ripping him away from me and pulling him off me because he's, I mean, just hands around my neck. I'm going to fucking kill you, bitch. And just like. It was very bad. It was a very traumatic experience.
Shawn Ryan Show
#178 Ben Owen - Inside the Life of an Addict
But I do believe had Thomas not peeled him off of me, I would not be here right now. I wouldn't be. I almost lost consciousness. There's... Not a lot of stories like that. That was the most violent one between us. There were a couple of knife fights over heroin just because I always have a knife and I always pull out a knife. So that's on me, but there's a lot of bad that happened.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
They get so excited for these games. They're like, what's the craziest uniform I can make? And they come up with that, an Advent uniform.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Before we go, because this is our last show before Christmas and probably also until New Year's because our show's going dark for two weeks. Not Gen CFB, all of Levitar's show. Surprise! What's your favorite bowl game matchup that you're looking forward to?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Yeah. I think like obviously with the opt outs, the games are harder to predict. Yeah. They... Can't really be like an indictment on your team season because half your players are probably gone or whatever. But like so narratively, they maybe mean slightly less. But there's opportunities for so many weird and fun and stupid things to happen. And that's what I'm excited for.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
We got the Alamo Bulls, a BYU Colorado game. Sure. Why not? Sure. They're in the same. Might as well do a secondary. It's like the Big 12 championship for third place. We have that. We've got Iowa and Missouri, your alma mater. You're wearing an Iowa shirt, Lucy. I'm wearing an Iowa women's basketball shirt. South Carolina and Illinois. I don't know. I'm just excited for all of these bowl games.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I'm just going to be in my jam jams watching bowl games on my ass, laying down on the floor for like three weeks, and I can't wait. Look, if you're...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
There's some sort of tax bowl. And it's accountants giving you the trophy. They drop an abacus on you. Perfect. I love it. Yes. Everyone lean into the silly and the fun. We've got like 50 college football games left and I can't wait, Lucy. Thanks for listening to Gen CFB this season, this year, 2024. What a year. I don't know what our next episode will be, but happy holidays. Merry Christmas.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Happy New Year to everyone. Enjoy the football.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Just wear what you're supposed to wear. Wear the classics. You know what? You sound like a Notre Dame fan because Notre Dame fans, they love tradition. They love to stick to the classic blues. They don't like the alternate uniforms. If Notre Dame wears an alternate uniform and they lose to Indiana on Friday night, every single fan will blame the uniforms.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
And if that's the case, if Notre Dame does in fact lose to Indiana, I'm just going to throw this out there. I don't think it's the uniform's fault. I think that this game... I know it's a cliche. It's going to be one on the line of scrimmage. And I think Notre Dame's defense is going to have to put Curtis Rourke on his back like Ohio State did if they want to beat Indiana.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
And that's the matchup that I'm going to be watching on Friday night. And I think it probably is going to be a pretty close game.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Not me. I mean, this is Indiana and Notre Dame as like fan bases. Everyone from Notre Dame has Indiana family members. Everyone from Indiana knows Notre Dame family members or has Notre Dame. Some of them, there's an Indiana campus in South Bend. Like some of them went to both schools. Like these are both schools where everyone's kind of, in my opinion...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
like everyone's kind of happy like we get to have this matchup because only in the college football playoff would you get this Notre Dame never plays Indiana hasn't played them since 1991 I think like they played a lot in the 30s and then they stopped so this is a big matchup for a lot of families a lot of a lot of uh house divided right now Lucy with Notre Dame playing Indiana but Notre Dame's defense is ranked sixth in S&P plus Al Golden loves to blitz and Notre Dame has a
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
corners and safeties that are great in coverage so that is sort of the defensive game plan and that's what they're going to try to do to slow down Curtis Rourke to stop the offense from moving I think defensively both teams are really good I think Notre Dame's offense is going to have to be productive they have some of the best rushing attack in the entire in all of college football elite with Jeremiah Love who is ready to play he got banged up the last weekend of the season against USC Riley Leonard has scored
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
A couple dozen on his feet this year. Also thrown a couple dozen. He's a dual threat, Lucy. He's a big boy. He likes to run. He likes to throw. And this is going to be a good game on Friday night. Notre Dame's favorite, 7.5. I think, like I said, close game. Notre Dame, I also saw, they're going to have yellow rally towels.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Now, I don't know who told them to do that because Kurt Cignetti, he's from Pittsburgh. He's going to think those are terrible towels and they're for him. I don't like that. Don't make them yellow. Notre Dame, it's not too late. Go get green towels.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Yeah, right. This is a different animal. Yeah, I've been to Notre Dame playoff games before. I've been to big games at Notre Dame Stadium before. Night games are always fun there. I'm super excited. Look, I think it's totally realistic that Notre Dame loses this game, and I have bad, dark thoughts. But then Christmas is four days later. So either way, I'm just, like, I'm...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I'm happy to be included. I've been watching Mike Ryan cry about Miami not making the playoff for the last three weeks, and I'm like, holy shit, that could have been me. That could have been me if Notre Dame didn't go on this 10-game win streak to finish the season.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I would have had so much FOMO if everyone else made the playoff and Notre Dame was left outside looking in because of that stupid game against Northern Illinois earlier this season. But either way, I'm happy to be included. I think Indiana is really good. I respect Indiana. A lot of people don't respect Indiana football. I think Kurt Cignetti's done a great job there this year.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Their defense has been playing so well. Their offense has been so efficient. Just like you said, those two games against Michigan and Ohio State. were really tough for them and Ohio State like totally kicked their asses.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
So they're going to want revenge and to be able to prove that they can compete against these like, you know, higher weight class college football teams that have been doing it for a long time, like the Notre Dames of the world and then Georgia if they win. So this is a huge chance for Kurt Cignetti in Indiana to change the narrative and prove that they actually belong in this playoff.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Welcome back to Gen CFB. It's playoff week, Lucy. It is playoff week. We're going to a couple of playoff games this weekend. Fingers crossed for you in Texas, getting your credential. I'm heading to South Bend tomorrow. We've got a lot to talk about in a very short amount of time. So I want to start with this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
And Marcus Freeman just signed a massive extension. He's sticking around Notre Dame for six more years. So huge game for him to win the first ever college football playoff home game. It's just going to be really cool. It feels like a part of college football history, and I can't wait to go. I'm going to freeze my little ass off, and I can't wait.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I also think Penn State will win. I think that it's win-win for people that think James Franklin can't beat the top teams in college football because if they do win, it'll be easy to dismiss it as like, well, SMU wasn't a top five team. They haven't beaten a top 25 team this whole season. Did they even deserve to be in the playoff? They got lucky. Alabama should have been in this game.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
But I do think Penn State has an underrated defense.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
underratedly really tough defense and I don't think the offense will need to be explosive to beat SMU on the other side of that Kevin Jennings for SMU has been really good he has he has a couple picks on him but he loves to throw it downfield and I think if you can get a couple of those passes completed like you can disrupt the game plan a little bit so that's going to be an interesting thing to look at I do think Penn State will win and I think they will move on and play Boise State
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Notre Dame, there are rumors they may be wearing alternate uniforms for their home playoff game on Friday night. And so I've seen two fan mock-ups of potential uniforms that Notre Dame could wear. Oh my God. On purpose? I think this one's a joke. It's like a Christmas sweater uniform, but it's really funny. But wait, the second one's even better. This is a...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Yeah, don't blow it. Don't blow it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah, I'm with you. Also, Penn State's backup quarterback, who did play a lot this year. Yeah, they worked him in the offense quite a bit. So that's weird.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Man, you would have had to go to Iowa.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Question for you. We both think Texas will beat Clemson.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I think the reason... Texas' offense has been so injured this whole season. Their defense is great. I think that's where it's coming from for me. Clemson's going to have to try really hard to score points in this game. But I think, to your point about... I think these four games in particular, we've seen all eight of these teams' flaws all season long. None of these teams went undefeated.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
All of these teams have tough losses. All of these teams have faltered in some way and have a weakness. And so I think this is where coaching is going to come in and which coaches are going to be able to game plan around it and which coaches are going to be able to exploit it on the other side. And I just think... Sark is good. I think Sark is a really good coach.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Dabo obviously is as well, but I think their offense is going to struggle against Texas' defense. Texas' offense is also going to struggle against Clemson's defense, but I think to a lesser extent.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Which... That's sad. I get it. The last couple games, Texas' offense limped into this matchup. That is fair, I think. On defense, one of the best pass defenses in college football, best cornerback in college football, the Thorpe Award winner. Although, awards season was very contentious this year, and we don't have time to talk about it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
I don't think there was a single award that everyone was, except the Doak Walker Award. The Herbies? Everyone was mad about, everyone was mad about Tyler Warren winning the, oh, fuck, the Mackey Award. Yeah, anyways, whatever. I digress. This is a long digression. But yeah, I think that, I think Texas will win. They'll play Arizona State. I think Texas will probably also win that game.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
But it's got a bow. Maybe we'll have a career day that day. We'll see.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Fair enough. But yeah, Clemson, I think, limps into the playoff, but will ultimately lose. That game has the biggest spread. Another seven and a half point spread. Tennessee at Ohio State, the second night game, the Saturday night game. Humongous, ginormous game. The winner plays Oregon. This one I feel like I keep going back and forth on because, again, both really elite defenses.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
An Advent-themed Notre Dame uniform from Twitter. We'll credit whoever made that in post. But what are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on the Advent uniform for Notre Dame this Friday? Are we sure we want to credit who made these? Are we sure we want to do that? I love college football, and this is just one of the reasons why. Fans make the darndest things.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
But I think I like Ohio State winning at home. I don't think Tennessee is going to have a great day offensively.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
It's a hostile environment.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
But it's not Michigan. Their name's not Michigan.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
You're wearing those jerseys. That is a great idea. Solved it. You're welcome. If that happens, I'm changing my pick to Tennessee. Tennessee's defense, according to Bill Connolly, fourth nationally in havoc rate, which includes tackles for loss, pass breakups, interceptions, forced fumbles, etc., etc. Havoc rate's bullish.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Having an offensive line that is not its strongest with a lot of injuries, like you said, that can be kind of scary for Ohio State. But I don't know. Someone has to win the game. So I guess I'm picking Ohio State. I don't feel great about it. I don't feel great about any of these, except, I guess, Texas.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Yeah, they were really upset. So if Tennessee does win in this hypothetical situation, what time is Ryan Day fired the next day? Before 9 a.m., noon, which we said like an over-under. He's gone, right? Everyone's going to be so mad.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
Yeah. I mean, the vibes are really... rancid there. But I also think they could easily win. And then if they win that game, I think they could beat Oregon. It was a one-point game last time. I think their run game against Oregon puts them in a good spot, actually. So I think you could say the same for Tennessee and Samson there, too. But anyways, I... think it's going to be a fun weekend.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
This is the first time we've ever had a 12-team college football playoff. It's crazy. It's going to be super fun. And if it's not fun, my take on that is like, well, the semifinals are never fun. So, hey, you got more not fun games. At least they're college football games, right? But I think they will be fun.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Gen CFB: College Football Playoff Preview
And if they're not, I mean, they're on college sites, so there's cool, at least it's not like a neutral site or an NFL stadium, because that stinks. It's good for the economy. You're welcome. I mean, hey, La Quinta's getting all my money. Congrats to La Quinta in South Bend. I'll be staying at you this weekend.