Ep. 8: From Addict to Motivator: How I Became B McFly
Host Brandon Chastang shares his life story on this special episode of Self Inventory. Brandon talks about growing up in an aggressive environment in West Philadelphia, the introduction of his own drug addiction, and how he became B McFly (Being Motivated Comes From Loving Yourself).
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Self Inventory is a podcast produced by Brandon Chastang and Studio D Podcast Production. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’d like to support the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell everyone you know about Self Inventory.
Transcript:
Brandon: [00:00:00] A Self Inventory report is the type of psychological tests in which a person fills out a survey about personal interests, values, symptoms, behaviors, and traits. Self Inventories are different from tests and that there is no objective, correct answer. Self-inventory is the podcast where we investigate the issues of society that don't seem to have any correct answer.
Brandon Chastang blends together history lessons, current events, and talks with people of all backgrounds to provide us as a society with a Self Inventory in order to move forward. We need to look at where we've been and where we are now. It's time for Self Inventory.
You're now listening to Self Inventory. I am your host Brandon Chastang AKA B McFly, and yes, B McFly stands for being motivated comes from loving yourself. You must love yourself. If you love yourself and you get in tune with yourself, you're going to be motivated to do better. Top of the year. 2021. Wow. We made it.
For those who didn't make it, again, I'm sending my condolences to those who didn't make it. Um, my sincere condolences to everybody that didn't make it. But, um, yes, B McFly, a lot of people wanted to know, how did B McFly start? Where did B McFly come from? Who is B McFly, right. And, you know, it's a long story.
And I always tell people, right. You know, so many [00:02:00] people say, well, everybody got a story. I advise you to tell your story, right? Like I advise you to let the world know who you are, how did this diamond come about? Right. And not only that your story can, you know, help others because a lot of people, especially me as a child, right.
I always thought that, you know, nobody else is going through what I went through. Nobody has a story like me and as I got older, I matured. And as I'm maturing come to find out as people would have story worst than mines. So Brandon Chastang comes from Philadelphia, West Philadelphia. My mother and my father, they had me at a young age. My mother was 14. My father was 16.
Now we talking [00:03:00] about two young parents and the odds are drug addiction, jail, death, pretty much that's the odds coming from an aggressive environment. Right. And, um, well, some of those things came true. Um, my mother was addicted to drugs. My father was addicted to drugs. They were addicted to drugs for a very long time.
I was raised by my grandmother. My grandmother raised me. She took me, you know, five days after, you know, being born, she took me in, you know, she started raising me growing up. Like I said, I really didn't, I really didn't see my mother that much. I didn't see my father that much.
I seen them. I was with them. I spend the night with them, but the overall growth [00:04:00] of my young years was with my grandmother. Yeah. Yeah. My mother, they were addicted to drugs for very long time. Uh, my, I think my mother got herself together in 93, 1993. I think my father stop using drugs and got himself together in 2000.
I never understood my parents, you know, I never, I never w-, I never really had a chance to grow with my parents. And as we go down, you know, listening to this segment, as we get further into this story, you're going to see why I didn't understand my parents. My grandmother raised me with my two aunts, which is my mother's sisters.
We were [00:05:00] raised like brothers and sisters. We weren't raised like nephew and an aunt. And my grandmother did what she had to do. My grandmother, she worked. Now, my grandfather was in the building as well. My grandfather and my grandmother are still together. And, you know, he was the only man that I seen in my life. Growing up, it was more of survival than love, you know, I'm, I'm not used to seeing what love is.
I'm not used to seeing with love, feel, I'm not used to feeling love. And what I mean by that is not to say that my grandparents weren't in love or, you know, my grandmother and my grandfather did people didn't love me. But what I mean is, you know, patience, understanding, you know, um, aggression, [00:06:00] survival tactics, that was love for me.
And you know, it was a lot of arguing, a lot of fighting. A lot of, I gotta do what I gotta do to make this work. Those were the things that I've seen and when I seen that, I'm like, okay, this appears to be normal. When my mother finally got herself together, I was in junior high school. My mother asked me that I want to move with her.
And I said, yeah, because for 13 years of my life, you know, my grandmother raised me, but I also lived in different places as well. But for those 13 years of my life, primarily it was my grandmother and she did the best that she could do and [00:07:00] she was stern. She was straight to the point, a survival mode. When I moved with my mother in 93, my mother was selling drugs and I didn't know that my mother sold drugs and I'm just like, okay.
I thought, now 13 years, I thought that you're up here to stop using drugs, come to find out she did stop. She really did not get back on crack cocaine, but see she essentially transferred that energy of using and started selling the drugs. Now this is my mother and I'm just thinking to myself like, well, you know what? I just want to be with you and I eventually started selling drugs for my mother.
Things happened, she got locked up and things happened or whatever the case may be. And then she met my stepfather [00:08:00] at the time. And we, we moved back to Philadelphia cause this was the place when we were selling drugs and when I was selling drugs for my mother, we were out Williamsport.
And um, when we came back now, mind you, I have a sister as well. So, um, I have a biological sister, so me, my biological sister and my mother, we, we came back to Philadelphia. She eventually, you know, got off on a lot of charges, but had like 10 years of probation. And, um, now we back to this life in Philadelphia.
So from 93 to 2000 was the most time that I've ever spent with my mother consistently. So that's about seven years. My mother have, didn't have a chance to grow mentally. [00:09:00] I didn't have a chance to grow mentally so it was a lot of problems. My mother has me by 14 years. It's a lot going on now that we're finally together.
Yes, my mother did what she had to do, meaning that phrase do what you have to do, is a serious phrase when you live in an aggressive environment. She worked. This was her first time ever having a job. This was our first time ever taking on full responsibilities and the number one responsibility is raising two children.
It was rough. A lot of arguing, a lot of going back and forth. A lot of miscommunication. It was rough. My father, now 2000 is when I [00:10:00] graduated from high school. In those seven years, my mother and my stepfather eventually got married and he became the man in my life. Now, bringing it back, my grandfather, which is not my biological father grandfather, but he's been the man that's in my life, had a lot of ups and downs with him as well, a lot of pain. And I'm a get into that, but I'm just breaking down my parents.
My stepfather and my mother were together and he was the man that was teaching me how to be a man. He was the grown man teaching me how to be a man and eventually becoming a grown man because a man is only, uh, what [00:11:00] separates a man and a grown man, a man is based off your age and your body structure and the things that you do physically, but a grown man is mental right. A grown man does things the right way. The grown man takes care of his responsibilities. A grown man, you know, step up to the plate and, and deal with, you know, anything that he does wrong.
He knows how to deal with that. That's a grown man. He knows how to talk. He know how to rationalize. He know how to deal with pressure to a certain degree. At least that's what my stepfather was showing me now. 2000, I graduated from Overbrook high school. I eventually go to Lincoln University, which is a historical Black college. And Lincoln University is the first Black college to give out degrees. Cheyney university was the first college, Black college, but Lincoln university was the first Black college to give out degrees. [00:12:00] And they were both, I think, created the same year. I graduated from Lincoln university, 2004.
Now, again, my father was around, but he wasn't around, but I know who my father is. I know who he is. I love him. I care for him. I respect him regardless of what, the only thing that I'm thinking now is I'm really becoming a man, a grown man now, like I'm doing things that never been done. I am the only person to graduate from college out of, and I'm not saying that to say I'm better than anybody, but this is the truth.
This is the story. I am the only person to graduate from college on both sides of my parent's children, both sides of my grandparent's children. And I want to say, [00:13:00] and anybody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I want to say out of my great grandparent's children as well, on my mother's side. So after I graduated from college with the degree of criminal justice, 2004, I have to go back into an aggressive environment, which is Philadelphia.
And what's that may, June, July, two months after I graduated from college, that's when my life began to be crazy. I actually got shot July 4th, 2004. Now, before me getting shot, I told you my parents were addicted to drugs. At the time, I didn't know I had an addictive personality and so I got myself together, but I did drink, I smoked a little [00:14:00] bit every now and then, but I did more drinking.
I took, uh, E pills my last year of college, but it wasn't so that it wasn't, it wasn't to that magnitude. You know, it wasn't or something that when I was taking E pills, it was just for sexual purposes or just to have fun. But when I got shot, I was prescribed, I was in the hospital for a week and I was taking morphine in a hospital.
But then the doctors, when it was time for me to discharge, the doctors prescribed me a medicine called Percosets. And when I took the Percosets for the first time in 2004, after I was released from the doctors, that drug was the drug of my choice. And what I mean by that is that was the drug that [00:15:00] I said fits me in my description of getting high, having fun. Now, not in the beginning because I was taking it as prescribed.
So, I didn't know that I was going to get addicted to it. The doctors never said, you know what, be careful with this drug because it's highly addictive. And when I, the first time that I ever took a Percocet, I said, well, why don't they sell this, why don't they sell this behind, behind the counter at Rite aid or wa or Walgreens or something? How do you not like this, this particular drug takes away everything, any type of pain that you're going through, it takes away everything and not knowing I never even knew what a Percocet was.
So from 2004 to about [00:16:00] 2008, after taking Percocets as prescribed, I started to take Percosets for every other pain now. A tooth ache, I'm taking a Percocet. You know, I jammed my foot, I'm taking a Percocet. My back hurt, I'm taking a Percocet. Right. But I eventually found out where to get Percosets from and where I got my Percosets from was from my father and again, at this time, I'm only taking Percosets for pain, but subconsciously I'm taking Percosets to get high.
Consciousnessly, I'm thinking and well, you know, not a Tylenol ain't gonna do it. No, give me a Percocet because I know Percosets was the drug that say, yo, it took away everything and eventually not only was it taken away the, the physical pain, Percosets was taken away the mental pain. [00:17:00] And I didn't understand it. I couldn't grasp what I was doing, but all I know is that my father had the Percosets and even between 2004, 2008, I was still taking E pills, but that was only during the weekends.
Not knowing that these E pills were gonna, these e pills and any other drug that I took was eventually the gateway to my drug of choice. Now, some may say, Whoa, if you wouldn't have never got shot, you probably wouldn't be addicted to Percosets. Well, the gateway drug would eventually let me to Percosets or let me to dope or something strong of that, of that kind.
So around 2008 is when I started to be around my father. My mother is still [00:18:00] around, but guess what happened? My mother eventually got addicted to Percosets and Xannies. Now, I didn't know these things. I did not know. You know, she, she vowed that she would never get on back on crack cocaine and she, she didn't, but my F my stepfather was a recovering addict as well.
And my stepfather used to always say that, listen, you cannot handle drinking. You cannot handle smoking. You cannot handle taking pill because you're going to eventually go back to your drug of choice or you're going to get addicted to this new drug of choice. I didn't know that my mother was addicted to, to pills until like 2008 as well.
That's when, 2008 was the year that I, that I started to take drugs [00:19:00] just to take them now. No more oh, you're taking it for the pain. You no, I'm taking these Percosets now for recreational purposes. I'm not even taking E pills anymore. Those are done. I would rather take Percosets. That's my drug of choice and I'm sticking to it. And when I started taking these pills for recreational purposes, my life slowly went down. I am a true product of, I started out late. Normally some people start off first doing things bad and then it's, and then it's like, okay, then they get themselves together.
I started off late. It was like a flip flop. Now, when it comes to my father, my father was married to my stepmother and my father had other children and my stepmother had children. And it was a lot of jealousy with me because I used to look at my father and say, [00:20:00] well, you don't look at, you don't look at me and my sister, you know, the way you, you, you don't treat me and my sister, the way that you do my siblings and my step siblings.
But at that time, now I don't even care because the drug, Percosets, was taken over me. I used to spend money to buy Percosets off my father. I, when I had it, I would spend a hundred dollars a day. And, and you know, when I'm looking at my parents, I say, well, you guys were both on drugs. You guys both are from the streets. You guys both been, you know, locked up and shot. When do we break the generational curse. But I had to realize, now I realized that they never had a chance. They never had a chance to get help [00:21:00] for their mental health. Just because they stopped using drugs, that doesn't mean that they didn't fix their mental health.
So on one side, my mother had me selling drugs for her and on the other side, my father, I was buying Percosets off my father to get high with. So from 2008 to 2018, I did everything under the sun, or try to do everything to get my drug of choice. I come from a background, my parents were drug addicts. I was a drug addict. The same way my parents neglected me, I neglected my children. The same way [00:22:00] my father had multiple children by multiple women, I had multiple children by multiple women. The same pain that they went through, I went through. Being mentally abused, being physically abused, and now taking the drugs. Like I said earlier, I was taking the drugs, the Percosets, not only for the physical pain, but for the mental pain.
I didn't want to face the harsh reality, that you don't take care of your kids, you are a womanizer, you don't care about nothing to nobody but you, you lost it all and if I didn't take a pill, those things would have been running in my head over and over and over again. And I would have eventually said, you know what, [00:23:00] kill myself or go crazy.
So I, I could send you to use drugs for 10 years. I tried to stop, but guess what happened? I didn't understand what stopping meant. Sometimes people think, well, because you stopped taking your drug of choice or you stopped taking drugs, you made it. No, you didn't make it. You have to understand why is this drug taking over you? Why do drugs take over a person? Why do drugs make you do things that you never in a million years thought that you would do? Why did you do that in order to get you drug of choice?
In the process, from 2000 to 2018, I had four children. Boy, girl, boy, girl. Three co-parents. And when I meet by co-parents in layman's [00:24:00] terms, three baby mothers, my son, my daughter, and my last two. I completely, I'm not going to say I destroyed them, but I, but they, when I say by destroy, I'm not going to say I destroyed them and now they went left. But in my eyesight, I destroyed them. And when I rebuilt and got myself back together, that's when things started to get back together with my children. Out of all of my children, my oldest daughter felt it the worse, because it was times that I didn't even talk to her for years.
And my girlfriend, Aoshen Clark, which the woman that birthed my last two children, she was, she was there. [00:25:00] She is the reason that I am clean today. She never gave up on me. This woman kept fighting and fighting and fighting. No matter if I stole something, no matter if I, no matter what I did, she never gave up.
I hurt a lot of women along the way. I hurt a lot of people. I did damage to my community. I did damage to myself and I suffered for it. I suffered for the pain that I've caused. My last go around was 2018. And when I tell you this was my last go round, this was my last go around. 2018, January the [00:26:00] 21st is my clean date. That was the day that I entered rehab, inpatient. Big shout out to Arms Acres, New York upstate New York man, shout out the Arms Acres because they gave me the tools not to ever get high again.
I wanted to kill myself. I didn't have the courage to get a gun. I didn't have a coverage to get a gun and put it into my head. I didn't have a courage to use a knife or razor and slice my wrists. I didn't have enough coverage to just find a roof and jump off of it. So what I said was, God, don't wake me up. Let me get as high as possible.So I don't have to wake up and let me have a peaceful death.
Because I'm no good. I am no good to my community. I am no good to my children. I am no good to me. So [00:27:00] let me just take these drugs and die. God don't wake me up in the morning cause I got to start all over again. But I kept getting chances after chances after chances and I eventually just went to rehab. And when I was in rehab, I served 30 days in rehab. And I don't mean to say it like it was jail or something like that.
But, and once I did my, my, my time, I learned. I learned that it was people were there, this disease of drug addiction, that disease of drug addiction don't care about how much money you got, don't care about the color, who they don't care about your race, your money, your culture, the disease of addiction does not care about you.
It doesn't care. The only thing it cares about is just controlling you. And when I was in there, I realized it was just the equal amount of people were addicted to drugs. Black people, white [00:28:00] people, Asian people, Spanish people. It doesn't matter. I had to face humiliation and that was the hardest part. That was the hardest part facing humiliation.
And it took me about two weeks. I heard them coyotes. Yo, yo, listen, when I first went to rehab, right. I heard the coyotes and I'm like, yo, where these dogs coming from, they was like, yo, the counselors like dogs? Those are coyotes. What? So you go ahead and leave if you want to, your grown ass man. Leave. But this ain't no, oh, we call it a cab for you. They said, no, we're going to have us. We're going to have a flashlight in and we're going to walk you to the bus stop. So you could catch a busing and take your ass back to Queens. No, you want to go out there with the coyotes when they screaming and they found food? And if you want to be food, go out there.
[00:29:00] So I said, okay. Well, let me keep my eyes. I think he's a little bit more sick. Oh, you told me what kind of cats out there? Them little skinny, tall cats? I don't want no parts of that. No parts of that. So shout out to the animals. They was a big reason why I stayed my ass at Arms Aches as well, right? And my second week in Arms Acres, I decided that when I come home, I am going to be the top motivator in the world and the sober messenger. I am going to be as transparent as possible and with my transparency and who I am, I am going to save the world. Because the person may say, how're you the top motivated in the world? And I said, well, [00:30:00] there's more people that's addicted to drugs than it is people that are sober.
You could be a functional addict. You can be a crazy addict. You just want it every day, but I can assure you some it's more people taking something to, to not face the harsh reality than it is people that are sober. And I'm talking about, yes, you have people that say, well, you know what, only do a drink you know, every, every other. No, I'm not talking about people like that. I'm talking about people that have to use some type of drug to get up in the morning. People to have to use some type of drug, to get through their workday. People that have to use some type of drug to take the stress off after your day.
Those are the people that I'm talking to. A person that's functional and saying, well, you know what? I got the money to pay for it. Okay. You're still addicted. What's [00:31:00] drugs to me? Well, if you have to smoke a cigarette every day, that's a drug. Alcohol I had to tell someone Alcohol is the worst drug of all drugs.
Well, why B McFly? Well, it's the easy, you can, you can get alcohol every day legally. And if you ever been in those rooms, a person coming down from being addicted to alcohol, you can die from alcohol addiction. You can die from any addiction, but alcohol is the top killer. So when I came home, I did my first skit. I said, I am going to reenact skits. I'm going to re-enact real life scenarios and I'm going to put them on Instagram. And that's what I did. And my first skit, my kids laughed at me. Everybody laughed at me. I said, okay, watch this. [00:32:00] And my first skit went viral. Shout out the Bugsy. Bugsy from Southwest.
He reposted that skit and and it just, and then from his, his repost, it just started to take off. So you got to give flowers to people that helped you. And it's a lot of flowers I got to give too, but that skin, when I did that gel skin, yo what's up gangster. I was in, I was in the bathroom and I made it. I took some old, uh, old bar off the window had, is sitting up and yo what's up gangster? You want to be a gangster? Well, this is what gangsters live at?
And everybody thought I was in jail. I say, yo, I got them. Um, I started doing skits based off of my life, talking about me as a father, as a person, being kicked out of houses with one bag and, and, and, uh, you know, my son looking for me out on a corner and, you know, I just started doing skits so people could see because the eye can't [00:33:00] see itself.
So if you see the skit, it's like, yo, it's touch many emotions. Like yo, he talking about me. And with the skits are motivating. You got to get up. You gotta take care. Yeah. So I was speaking on elements, right? Drug addiction, right. I was speaking on gun violence, speaking on education, speaking on mental health and more importantly, speaking on rehabilitating a absent father.
Through it all, you still gotta do what you gotta do for your children. Regardless of what, once you get your mental, you got to get you together first and foremost, and then once you get yourself together, now you have to rehabilitate yourself with your children. You got to tell them you were wrong. You have to, you have to be patient, have to be understanding. You have to go through the things that you got to go through in order to get your children back.
And I had to do that as well. [00:34:00] And the hardest part was with my daughter. And now three years clean, January the 21st, 2021. Made it three years clean. With over 130,000 followers on social media, 80,000 or more on Instagram, 50 something thousand or more on Tik Tok. With over 20, 30 million views of content, celebrities following me like Damian Lillard, man, when they told me yo, when they told me Dame reposted my video, I said, no, no way.
Then when somebody, somebody wrote something, somebody wrote something under my post and was like, yo, you know, you made it when Steph Curry follow you. [00:35:00] I'm like, what the hell is he talking? Follow back? Whoa. A bunch of celebrities found, you got people all over the world saying, yo, you are motivated. Yo, I need help with drug addiction. Can you help me? Can you talk to me? Can you be there for me? Yo, where did all this come from? Where did you get all this motivation from? How did you do it? Yo, I love what you're doing, your content. Everything all over the world, man. You couldn't have told me three years ago, I would be in this position. You could not have told me three years ago that this will work.
I was just begging for $20. I was just lying, manipulating, using. I was just doing everything, hoping that I would die so I don't have to make it to see 2021. Can't tell me that this was going to happen and this is why Self Inventory is created. When you figure you, when you, when you come to understanding [00:36:00] of self, self-inventory, had to do a self-inventory and this is why we here today, because this is why this podcast is called self-inventory.
Coming from my perspective and what I've been through and being open to everyone else perspectives. The Mamba mentality, rest well King. Rest well to my mother. She died in 2015. Rest well to my father, he died 2020. Rest well to my step father, he died 2014. Rest well to my stepmother, she died 2020. I have a best friend that's fighting cancer. He's fighting and I have a best friend that's doing life in prison. [00:37:00] I got to take, I got to take the role. Pain is either going to make you stronger or it's gonna make you weaker. I've been weakened long enough. Figure out who you are as a person and do a self-inventory. My name is B McFly, the top motivator in the world and your sober messenger. Let's go.
Self Inventory is a podcast produced by Brandon Chastang and Studio D Podcast Production. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support the show, please subscribe, leave a review and tell everyone you know about Self Inventory.