Hey there, it's Vic. I'm sitting in my apartment right now, actually in a closet, working from home

during this pandemic. I feel really confident that it's probably affected your life in a big way, too.

My hope is that this show is able to give you hope, especially right now. We could all use it.

So I'm happy to bring you this latest episode with a quick disclaimer.

It does get pretty heavy heavy drug use, overdosing, and some strong language.

In three, two, one.

In the summer of 2002, I was unemployed.

I was recently fired from a job as a morning show anchor for a TV network in Colorado,

mainly because I was doing a lot of drugs.

My drug dealer was a no-nonsense, tough, tattooed guy.

He had been my dealer for a long time,

and we developed a relationship where he would front me large quantities of cocaine, and the idea was that I would sell the drugs while also paying

for my own habit, and I would use that money to pay him back. The problem is all my profits went up my

nose. When you're a cocaine addict and you have several hundred dollars worth of cocaine at your

disposal, you're going to do it.

It's not even a question.

So this time I owed him a lot of money, hundreds of dollars, but I was out of work and had no money to pay him back.

So he's leaving me threatening phone calls, and it was getting scary. He was threatening to kill me unless I gave him back his money.

So I call my dealer to let him know my had his money finally. apologize for ignoring his calls sorry man I'm on my way

though I promise and when I got there he was calm which which put me at ease that was until he shut the door

behind me and the next thing I felt was his fist against the back of my head.

I fell to the ground and I looked up at the barrel of a gun.

...