NY Teen Behavioral Modification Bootcamp, Chasing Opiates, Surviving a Home Invasion and Falling Asleep UNDERWATER after a Crack Bender & Finally Finding Lasting Sobriety in San Diego with Bryan BNY Teen Behavioral Modification Bootcamp, Chasing Opiates, Surviving a Home Invasion and Falling Asleep UNDERWATER after a Crack Bender & Finally Finding Lasting Sobriety in San Diego with Bryan B
Chasing Heroine: Addiction Recovery Podcast
Bryan B shares his journey from New York teen “troublemaker” and years in behavioural programmes to heroin, crack, fentanyl, a suicide attempt and near-death experiences. He then explains how treatment, 12-step work and spiritual growth helped him build a stable, meaningful sober life in San Diego.
2:18:57•2 Apr 2026
From NY Teen “Problem Kid” to Falling Asleep Underwater and Finding Sobriety: Bryan B’s Story
Episode Overview
- Being sent to harsh behavioural programmes as a teen can deepen shame and the belief that “something is wrong with me” instead of solving the real problem.
- Opiates, crack and alcohol eventually stop working as a solution; relief turns into worse anxiety, depression and psychosis.
- Self-detoxing from substances like fentanyl or Suboxone can be long, dangerous and brutal, and outside help greatly increases safety.
- Working the 12 steps, especially honestly facing fears and patterns in steps four and five, can reveal how old beliefs keep recreating the same pain.
- Daily practices—service, simple prayer, meditation and small acts of kindness—help replace self-hatred with purpose and connection.
“I finally figured out…the drugs just don’t fucking work, man. They stop working.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This long-form conversation follows Bryan B, whose story stretches from New York skate parks and weed-fuelled rebellion to fentanyl, crack, near-death moments and finally a grounded life in recovery in San Diego.
Bryan talks about growing up on Long Island with an alcoholic dad, a mum struggling with mental health, and that early feeling of “there’s something wrong with me.” Labeled a “problem kid”, he was cycled through behavioural modification programmes and psych hospitals as a teenager, picking up deep shame instead of help.
He shares wild details: selling his mum’s debit-card cash for weed, being shipped off to a mansion-turned-boarding-school, and overdosing on over-the-counter pills in a facility as staff debated what to do with him. Things escalate into opiates and crack: OxyContin, China white heroin, research chemicals shipped from China, and a notorious trap-house phase.
In adulthood, Bryan ricochets between methadone, Suboxone, retail jobs, band life, heavy drinking with his dad, and a terrifying home invasion where a gun goes off inches from his head. Later in San Diego, he works cleaning yacht hulls, smokes fentanyl and crack, and even falls asleep underwater under a boat and again while driving it. Somehow, he survives.
The emotional pivot comes with a brutal suicide attempt, a desperate self-detox from fentanyl in his flat, and finally accepting help at a 12-step–oriented treatment programme. Bryan talks through the steps, his love of Ram Dass, and how he moved from hating the idea of a higher power to something more practical: “I finally figured out…the drugs just don’t fucking work, man.
They stop working.” Today he has an apartment, meaningful work in treatment, real friendships, and a different story about himself. He sums it up with a favourite line: “What is to give light must endure burning.” If you’re wondering whether all that pain can ever be turned into purpose, could Bryan’s journey be the spark you need?
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