(mild music) Before I start I would like everybody to get a visualization leaving this building getting in your car as you get in your car and you leave you're driving down Shaw and you notice a young man that's leaned over and the gutter and as you drive by this individual you notice that he has a needle and it's in the gutter and as you drive by you realize oh my god this young man is about to use heroin with this gutter water what are the next 10 years looked like for an individual in that state are they successful do they get sober do they go to prison do they go to jail do they have a family do they die now I want you to understand this it does not matter what that individual does from that point forward there will be a stigma that follows that individual for the rest of their lives at 18 years old I was on the cover of the BMX racing magazine the largest BMX racing publication in the United States and at 18 years old I told myself I'm gonna smoke weed just one time that's it but at 18 years old I didn't know that this thing called addiction that ran in my family could be passed down to me at 18 years old I didn't know that an addict didn't get to choose whether or not he or she would become an addict and at 18 years old I didn't know that when I smoked weed for the first time and told myself I don't want to smoke weed every single day like my friends do I just want to see what everybody else is doing and try it and see what it's like that it wouldn't just stop it we it would continue on because within three years what I told myself I'm only gonna smoke weed one time I was smoking weed every single day but then it turned into using cocaine then I got introduced to a painkiller called oxycontin and it within three years of smoking weed and telling myself I'm only gonna do it one time I was inside a house committing an armed robbery stealing a large quantity of oxycontin that was inside this house lucky for me I was given an opportunity to live clean and sober I left the courts and went to a drug treatment facility telling myself I'm never gonna use drugs again because I don't want to go to prison for ten years like the judge told me but I didn't understand that there was gonna be some things that I would have to do for me to actually get clean and sober and it wasn't just tell myself I'm never gonna use drugs again I was gonna have to change the way I thought I was gonna have to change the way I walked I was gonna have to change the places I go the friends I had the things I did I wasn't ready to do those things at 21 years old so when I got out of treatment within 30 days I relapsed and 30 days after my relapse I left my family again the first time I didn't see him for three years the second time the time I'm about to talk about it would be two years before I'd see my family again two years later after I relapsed I remember I called my best friend name I said Nate I need a place to stay he says come over bro Nate always gave me a place to stay and food to eat so I walked in Nate's house I get to his house as Dana to the door his dad answers the door says mijo you can't stay here anymore I said what do you mean Alex he said Mila somebody called me and told me you're stealing credit cards I said Alex I'm not stealing credit cards I really wasn't he said me only you need to get your life together I said can I talk to Nate he said yeah Nate's in his room so I walked in a Nate's room the most vivid memory of 35 years of me being alive is right now I walked into his room I said Nate I said I need to sleep him back he said why hoff I said bro I'm sleeping on the street tonight he said Huff calls somebody I said bro I've been calling people all night man I got a prepaid phone I'm gonna run out of minutes just give me a sleeping bag please it's like fine off I'll give you a sleeping bag so he gives me this sleeping bag I remember walking out of his house I hang a left I'm gonna sleep at Clovis high school the high school that I graduated from in 2002 because it's rainin and I need a place to stay drei I'm gonna sleep in the announcer's Tower the baseball stadium I hang it left towards this high school and I get below the streetlight outside in Nate's house and I hearing aids voice he says Huff and I turn and I looked and I said yeah he said look at yourself bro what are you doing I said don't worry about it Nate I got it don't worry about it Nate I got it that's what we all said we had it eighteen year old kids were just smoking weed it's not that big of a deal these are pills that come from a doctor it's not that big of a deal what we didn't understand was the stuff that came from the doctor was the same stuff that came from the cartel it was just packaged different and because it was packaged different we thought that it was safe we didn't realize we were becoming heroin addicts from the drug that came from a doctor I didn't know that that night that I heard Nate's voice say Huff and I turned to look at him I'd be the last time I got to hear my best friend's voice see in August he's been dead for ten years his dad walked into his room ten years ago the give me kiss on his forehead just like he did every single morning to tell him you love them and Alex found Nathan dead on the floor from a drug overdose eleven people that I grew up with have died from drug overdoses I know more people that have died from drug overdoses and gotten clean and sober that's a fact it's not that you can't get clean and said when you walk through the door and you find out that you're an addict because you don't get to choose whether you're gonna be an addict or not you find out when you walk through this door that you cannot see that you are an addict but you don't get to just turn around and walk back out because you think you're done Nathan didn't want to use drugs anymore that night that I went to sleep on the street I didn't want to use drugs anymore I couldn't figure out how to stop but that night would be the first night of six months that I slept on the street I slept in dirt field so people couldn't find me I slept behind dumpsters so people couldn't find me if I was lucky I got a motel 6 if I was luckier I got a couch or somebody's floor to sleep on the only reason I would get that though is because I had drugs to give somebody but on January 21st 2007 I had a spiritual experience that changed my life On January 22nd I was arrested in a home that I broke up broke into there was up for rent because I knew if I slept on the street on January 21st 2007 it was so cold it would kill me so I broke into this house at 2:00 p.m. on January 22nd I woke up to four cops what the guns drawn on me and I knew my run was over 30 days later I was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for the robbery I committed in 2005 when I got the prison I remember I read this quote on the ceiling that somebody had written with a pencil it said be careful what you think because your thoughts become your words be careful what you say because your words become your actions be careful what you do because your actions become your habits be careful what you make a habit because your habits become your character and your character becomes your destiny and it made so much sense to me I told myself I'm gonna reshape my thinking I'm gonna reshape my acting I'm gonna reshape my habits I'm gonna reshape my character and I'm gonna reshape my future so I set four goals I said when I get out of here I'm gonna become a professional BMX athlete I'm going back to my gift I told myself I said when I get out of here I'm gonna go to the Olympics when I get out of here I'm gonna start a nonprofit organization called the Free Will project that uses action sports to work with kids in Southeast Fresno I said when I get out of here I'm gonna become a professional speaker but I didn't know how I was gonna go from a prison cell to the Olympics but I learned this really valuable life lesson and that is if you could be trusted with little you'll be trusted with much and so I learned this really valuable thing that every addict needs to know if they want long-term recovery and that is all the small details in life are actually very important so I told myself I need to learn how to brush my teeth every single day and treat it like the Olympics so that's exactly what I did I learned how to brush my teeth every single day then I learn how to organize my stuff after I learned how to organize my stuff I learned how to make my bed after I learned how to make my bed I learned how to physically train for the Olympics in prison even though I wasn't gonna get to touch my bike for years and I was confronted by stigmas a cop called me into the office when she heard about what I was talking about with eight other cops in the office she says hey we hear you get out of here you're gonna race BMX professionally and go to the Olympics I said that's right she said no you're not don't fool yourself kid you're gonna come back in here just like everybody else but I walked back to my bunk and I said don't listen to that lady keep brushing your teeth keep making your bed keep organizing your stuff on December 13 2008 nine years almost to this day I met my parole officer that told my mother straight to her face your son is gonna go back to prison and it's gonna be your fault because you believe the story that your son is telling you the only reason he's telling you this story is because he needs a place to stay I want to put your son in a halfway house but I can't do that because you are gonna let him go home so I want you to know when he goes back to prison it's your fault five months later I raised my first professional BMX race ever hadn't touched a bike in seven years I took third place that first year I won five races at the lower Pro division moved up to the Olympic level one year after being back on my bicycle I was invited to the Olympic Training Center to train with the top athletes in the world and 2010 I picked up a microphone not to make it a career I just wanted to help people I didn't care who it was I wanted to tell my story I wanted to inspire people to understand that people can change and people go through things you're not alone you got to speak up but whatever it is that you're face and you can overcome it and 2011 I blew my knee out at in in my racing career at the elite level but I told myself there's a reason why you blew your knee out just keep brushing your teeth keep making your bed keep organizing your stuff and then it came to me this microphone was more important and then it came to me that I needed to start the free will project which I did in 2012 by the time 2016 came around I became one of the most sought-after substance abuse speakers in the country by 2016 my nonprofit would go from raising $2,500 to over 120 thousand dollars a year giving away $40,000 worth of bicycles $10,000 worth of skateboards through summer camps and after-school programs that we developed I don't have an education it was done on passion by 2012 my BMX coaching that I got into went from no one wanted me to coach him because I was the next convict that just came back to the sport so what does he know to have a No four years later two world champions three national champions and 25 athletes from Australia to Bolivia and I got a phone call in July 2016 from my top female athlete she said HOF pack your bags were going to the Olympics in 2016 ten years after the moment that I was homeless I was blessed to be a part of the Rio games I accomplished all four goals that I set when I was in a prison cell something that people told me can never be done and now let's go back to the young man that we visualized on Shaw using gutter water that was me at my bottom I had to pull cars over and lean over into gutters that had water in them and draw that water up to cook my heroin because my withdrawals were so bad I couldn't wait people said I couldn't change people gave up on me the stigma says drug addicts will never be good enough for employment and we tell them that because typically a drug addict has a record that when they go to get a job they have to check a box I've learned how to make a doctor's salary started for businesses but today if I went down to Best Buy and I tried to get a job guess what I ain't getting one cuz I got a check a box that says I'd been arrested the stigma says drug addicts lack willpower I don't know many people that have made it to the Olympics let alone started in a prison cell the stigma says drug addicts chose that lifestyle the only thing I chose to do was smoke weed one time and I swear to you if somebody would have came to me and said Tony if you smoke weed one time right now within five years you will be homeless I would have said are you sure and they would have said yes I'm very sure I would have said okay I'm not doing it I recently dated a female her dad sent her an email they had a weird form of communication he said I can't believe the decision that you have decided to make by dating this man he went to jail not prison excuse me he went they went to prison not Jail a place where the most unreliable atte t'v human beings go he said and I can't believe that you would allow this human being to be around your two sons because I raised you better than that I've been sober for 12 years almost I dedicated my entire life to holding this microphone and talking about addiction and trying to help reshape people's thinking when it comes to drug addicts I've helped kids go from 0.7 GPAs to have 4.0 s and talked about going to college I wake up every single day for the last 11 years in the only thing that's on my mind is how I could be a better person and I can help more people but every day for the rest of my life I will be confronted by stigmas and belief systems that people have about Who I am because of my past but every day I wake up and I grab this microphone I'm gonna confront those stigmas I'm gonna tell my story and I'm gonna help break those stigmas down thank you [Applause] [Music]