189. Khalil Rafati: How Raw Foods and Juicing Saved My Life After Years of Drug Abuse

27:27Gary Brecka:That's so crazy that raw dairy and raw butter is shady. Well, and by the way, and me and my buddy Elijah would go there and we would take raw liver from Amish farms and raw butter and berries and raw honey and raw cream and we would put it into a blender and we would blend it up and we would drink it. I swear to God, it felt like drugs. when that shit got inside my body it felt like drugs and i just became obsessed i became obsessed with it the crazy thing i'm a libra i'm insecure and i'm very vain people started complimenting me wow man you look great what are you doing because my face began to fill out right the collagen began to return to my body and the life force began to flow through me so as any good addict would, I just fucking kept going and kept going.

28:22Thank God for that. I became obsessed so much so if anybody out there knows what Expo West is, it's the, you know, Expo West, right? I've heard of Anaheim. It's the biggest whole foods, health food, whatever. I would literally like pretend I was like somebody else and I would sneak into Expo West. Get the gift bags on Sunday because Because nobody wanted to pack up the shit. They just wanted to give it away.

28:48Gary Brecka:Yeah. So every Sunday at the end of Expo West, I would literally fill my, you know, 17-year-old Volvo car with 250 ,000 miles on it. I would fill it to the ceiling with all of the samples that they were giving out. All of the chlorella, all of the spirulina, all of the nuts, all of the granola, all of the - Wow. Basically life force, the things that my body was depleted of. and it made me feel high. It made me feel good. And so I'm going to chase that. And when I started doing the turmeric and the ginger. Yeah, we're going to fire these up. Yeah. Sun Life, by the way, is your brand. Sun Life is my brand.

29:27Gary Brecka:Which one of these should I try first? The Fast Eddie? I like the Fast Eddie, yeah. Is it? All right, it's green apple, lemon, ginger, and cayenne. Yeah, it's got a little kick to it. All right. Yeah. Let's try this. So that was similar to some of the stuff that Sean was making me do. He would also encourage me to do these cleanses. They smell so fresh. Isn't that great?

29:53Ooh, that is spicy. It's got a bite. It's got a little bite to it. It's got a bite. He would encourage me to do these cleanses where I would fast and only drink these types of juices for like five days, seven days. Really? Yeah. And you were able to do it? Yeah, and take psyllium husk and then we would go get colonics And like, I got fucking weird.

30:13Gary Brecka:Dude, that's not weird, by the way. That's healing. I mean, those things have been around for thousands of years. And, you know, sometimes in modern medicine, we want to poo-poo things that haven't done a randomized clinical trial, but things don't make it 1 ,000, 2 ,000, 3 ,000 years in the practice of medicine, Chinese medicine or any other form of medicine, Ayurveda, without working. Right. I mean, something that they were doing 3 ,000 years ago that didn't work, it probably didn't make it to today. And so - That's true. That's true. I think there's, I mean, we're like, you know, coming around to the benefits of dry sauna.

30:51Gary Brecka:Well, you know, welcome to the 21st century. The Finnish have been doing that for hundreds of years. So - Russians, Indians. My buddy Ryan had gone to whatever that, I don't want to disparage any religion, but whatever that religion is in Hollywood that the celebrities do. Scientology. Scientology. So my buddy Ryan went to a Scientology rehab and he came back and he looked great. And I said, I said, what are you doing? Cause now I'm addicted. Now I want a lot of sauna there. So he told me they would do 20 minutes of sauna, three to five minutes of cold shower, 20 minutes of sauna, and they would do rounds of it.

31:25And he said, and we would take niacin. And I'm like, niacin. I remember when I was a little kid trying to lift weights and he goes, yeah, we would take niacin and get flushed. and we would scrub ourselves in the sauna with a boar's hair bristle brush. So I began scrubbing my lymphatic, you know, my lymph nodes, my crotch, my groins. And I'm not giving anybody medical advice. I don't know if any of this shit works or not works. I'm going to tell you what I did to go from a 109-pound junkie who couldn't walk from here to the door without getting winded to being a 173-pound athlete that is insanely strong and vibrant and full of life.

32:09Yeah. These were the things I did. I did the colonics. I did the saunas. I scrubbed my body with a boar's hair bristle brush. Okay. I drank water first thing in the morning. Yeah. Good for you. Put salt in the water, a little bit of lemon juice. Did yoga. Sean, he's not just a yogi. He's also a masseuse. That's how he makes his money. That's how he supports himself. So he would come and he would massage me and we would laugh. And another thing, it was very healing to have a man touching me in a way that was healing me and not harming me. Because as a child, I was touched for the wrong reasons.

32:54Right. And it made me feel dirty and gross. on the streets, I would let people do stuff to me so I could get money for drugs, which made me feel dirty and gross. But now all of a sudden, I'm putting this life force into my body and my friend's coming over and he's massaging me, right? I'm doing the saunas, I'm scrubbing my lymph nodes, I'm doing colonics, I'm, you know, taking, I mean, we were pounding.

33:18Gary Brecka:Thank God for this guy, man. Thank God, thank God, yeah. Because what seemed like, you know, out of left field, you know, psycho, actually knew what he was doing. I mean, you know? Yep. Whole foods, nutrient-dense foods, you know, get your waste elimination pathways going. Yeah. Chronics, sauna, movement. He's 63 years old now and has the body of a 28-year-old. I believe everyone in that. He's fucking shredded. Yeah. He's shredded and strong and vibrant and has never done traditional medicine. So, you know, this isn't like, I don't want to say, oh, traditional medicine is bad or whatever it is.

33:58But I will say that the solutions that the people that were credentialed for people like me, going back to my childhood, through my young adult life, into my adult life. Oh, SSRIs, narcotics, antipsychotics. Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Seroquel, Trazodone. I mean, that was the solution. Xanax, yep. Yeah, that was, yeah, 19. I was 19 years old when I first got prescribed Xanax. So the solution was put this into your body and you're going to feel better. And for a moment, it works. I mean, Xanax is a bit of a panacea if you're fucking anxious or you're on a transatlantic flight or, you know, there is a time and a place for things like Xanax and there is a time and a place for things like opioids, especially if you're getting something amputated or doing surgery or dental work or whatever.

34:49But to think that we should just throw a pharmacological or whatever the word is. Pharmacology. At someone versus addressing why that person is feeling that way in the first place. Yeah. I mean, 22 years later, after years of yoga, years of breath work, years of all kinds of different modalities of healing, I don't want to feel anything other than how I feel. In fact, I want to feel more. You want to be present, which is the polar opposite of where you were. Yes. Yeah. I went from feeling like a worthless piece of shit that had no value and was totally unlovable

35:38to feeling powerful. We won't go into what we were talking about before the camera started, but do you remember when I was talking about the negotiations and my business thing? Yeah, yeah.

35:48Gary Brecka:That was interesting. The man that sat in that chair that felt bold and powerful enough to do those negotiations came about as a result of putting clean, healthy food into my body, lifting heavy shit, sweating every day, getting exposure to sunlight in my eyes. All the basic shit. Yeah. All the basic shit. Isn't it astounding how, you know, we're returning back to the basics to actually find that life force within us? You know, I was on your Instagram and I saw one of my industry peers that I hold in very high regard, Andrew Huberman. Yes. At your place here in New York. Yeah. Erba Mate. Yeah.

36:32Gary Brecka:Taking pictures and having Erba Mate with folks. And, and, um, I think he's absolutely one of the most brilliant pioneers in our space and one of the more authentic, you know, behind a microphone. Um, he and I text each other, uh, a lot, but I saw, I saw him at your, your space. He's a good human. Yeah. Um, I saw him at your place and how, and, and then I started looking into your story, um, you know, in advance of the podcast. And I was like, wow, far this guy's come to have, you know, someone like Andrew Huberman endorsing and participating and, and, you know, putting his products in your, in your stores.

37:11Gary Brecka:Um, and, and now I'm starting to understand that, you know, again, what makes you so passionate and purpose-driven is that you used a lot of this, you know, juices, whole foods, you know, nutrient dense foods to actually heal you. Yes. And I've actually had, um, PhD MDs from Harvard University on my podcast that are treating patients with drug-resistant mental illness with things like keto diets and whole food diets. I've heard and read the studies about Dr. Amen looking at the brains of ADHD children, ADD and ADHD kids, and putting them on whole food diets, taking things like processed foods and grains and things out of their diets and having these dramatic shifts in 14 to 21 days, just getting those.

38:06Gary Brecka:So in your case, a lot of it was getting real toxins, real poisons out of your body, but replacing it with nutrient-dense foods that are actually, I call it feeding the temple. And so was that the genesis of Sun Life? Is this how Sun Life was born? Okay. So I eventually threw a lot of hard work and being, as I said, I think, I do think genetics, I do think ethnicity has a lot to do with it. Like Arabs and Polish people are just some of the most resilient people on the planet. When you put that together, I'm like a fucking fire hydrant. It's very difficult to harm me. And I am very, very resilient.

38:48So I rose up in the field of recovery. I became an interventionist and a sober companion and working at high-end treatment centers in Malibu. Eventually opened up my own place, Riviera Recovery. Wow. Yeah, was making money by being hand over fist. I mean, it was insane how much money was coming in. It was overwhelming how much money was coming in. The challenge was most of the people didn't want to get better. Most of the people didn't want to change. Most people don't want to change. I agree.

39:20Gary Brecka:And that's what I found. They want the outcome of what change would give them, but they don't want to go through the change. They want their toys back. Yeah. They want someone to listen to their sad story. Yeah. But do they really want to change? Yeah. I desperately wanted to fucking change. I desperately wanted to fucking change. And I had just enough humility, which I struggle with, but I found just enough humility to ask for help. and addiction then became a superpower. It became a superpower. Well, beating it becomes a superpower, right? Because it's like, did you have this attitude? Like, I'm better than that.

39:56Gary Brecka:I'm not going to go back. Did I beat it or did I switch ingredients? Ah, that's a good point. I don't think I beat it. Yeah. I don't think anyone ever really beats addiction. I think it does have a tendency to shift. If you're an addict, you're an addict. That's how you're wired. That's how I'm wired. I've made peace with it. I wake up three to five times in the middle of the night and I'm obsessing about the fact that my holy cow smoothie was a little bit runny yesterday when I was at Sun Life and it's eating me alive. Three to five times in the middle of the night. Right. I'm fucking obsessed.

40:29Yeah, that fixation. Yes, because I want everybody to have the same experience that I had once I started putting good shit in my body and stopped putting bad shit in my body, put the cigarettes away eventually put the process sugar away via rick rubin who was a tremendous mentor in my early recovery um stop putting the gluten into my body which i don't think uh it was necessarily the gluten i think it was the the the nature of the wheat right the glycos fade and all the bullshit i'm probably so true no you're so true my audience is well aware

41:05Gary Brecka:of that i mean a lot of people are not actually allergic to gluten they're allergic to the glyphosate and the folic acid and the things that are in GMO modified crops that are mainly the gluten-based crops. And because it has gluten, we've started this massive, and I think it's good to be gluten-free because you're avoiding the things that are generally bad for you anyway, because in most of those gluten-containing foods, you have the highest amount of, you know, genetically modified foods. You have the highest amount of, you know, sprayed with folic acid. you know they're they're crops that are generally saturated with glyphosate so there are a lot of other toxins that are on their way in just like we talked about before you're the the old adage if i go to europe and i lose weight eating the same foods yeah it's like a tick on over here every summer every summer for the last i don't know how many i have rich friends and they invite me to europe and i hop on their jet and i go over there and eat the fuck out of pasta and pizza and yeah olive oil and wine and i come back and i don't drink wine but i come back and i'm like Like, this is crazy.

42:04I haven't put on any weight. And I was eating like a pregnant woman. And the difference is, is because it's real food over there. We don't have real food. What happened, and I don't know how it happened, but I know why it happened. It's greed. But what happened is all of a sudden, God gave a woman the ability to procreate in her womb. A woman. Good point. I know. Well, because, I mean, Tim Cook might argue with me because I know there's a pregnant emoji on my phone of a man. Is there a pregnant emoji of a man? If you put it in pregnant, it'll show a man. Yeah. Which I didn't ask for.

42:46Gary Brecka:I mean, as a human biologist, that follows me. Yeah. So God gave a woman that right. I swore I wasn't going to get political, and I'm actually not. Yeah. Do it. Okay. So God gave women the right to procreate in their womb, and these beautiful, perfect beings come out. And immediately they are just subjected to all of these fucking horrific aborted fetal tissues and mercury and all this poison, and they're just fucking... Yeah. Right? Attenuated viruses, mRNA, aluminum. All of that. And then the water that they are bathed in, that they drink, is loaded with fluoride and chloramine and all this shit.

43:38The air that they're breathing is filled with all this whatever weird shit that they're spraying. Luminum. The food is loaded with pesticides, insecticides, all this. Everything is designed to turn you into a domesticated animal bred for taxation. That's what happened. Wow.

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44:39Gary Brecka:I never travel without this, and it is my favorite biohack. Visit drinkh2tab.com. That's drinkh2tab.com and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. That is a stark wake up call. Yeah, well, it's fucking terrifying. I don't wanna be a domesticated animal bred for taxation. I am a particle of God. I'm a human being. I'm here to bring light to the planet. I wanna shine. I wanna dance. I want to do my dance. This is my dance, and you're enjoying my dance. Yeah, I am. It's not for everybody, but this is my dance, and this is what I'm here to do. And somehow, thank God, I was strong enough to survive all of that bullshit, all of that man-made bullshit, and I have returned to the source, which is when you take a sip of that, you're eating the sun.

45:42That's sun life. That's the life force. Oh, I like that. That's the life force that Sean brought to me up at the top of Topanga when he made me hold that avocado seed in my hand, when he handed me those sprouts, when he handed me those raw macadamia nuts, when he handed me the pure synergy greens powder and the macadamia nuts and the goji berries. And I began to put that stuff in my body and feel that like, oh my God, I feel this life force. And like, I am so fucking strong now. I'm insanely strong. I'm insanely driven. I'm insanely energetic. And if you think about the fact that how many years, how many decades did I smoke cigarettes?

46:25How much poison did I shoot into my veins? How much processed fucking food? I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, for God's sakes. We didn't know that that was junk food. It was just food.

46:36Gary Brecka:The body is so resilient. And, you know, it's fascinating to me. I've actually seen images of a human liver, which is, you know, roughly the size of an odd-shaped basketball. It's a big, big organ. Shrink the size of your fist and completely regenerate. And I've seen fibrotic lung tissue images become non-fibrotic, which we used to think was not reversible. I have seen and met people and known their stories that have healed from autoimmune, cancer, multiple chronic disease, type 2 diabetes. I am fascinated and deeply believe in the human body's capacity to heal itself. And I was reading a nature journal that, you know, the estimate of the total number of cells in the body, let's say 32 trillion, 52 trillion, whatever it is.

47:30Gary Brecka:There's a lot of them. Every day, 300 billion cells in our body turn over. So 300 billion cells that were with you yesterday are not going to be with you tomorrow. Wow. And what this journal was talking about was the reason why most healing does not occur and does not become permanent, and we talk about five-year survival rates and not cures, or we talk about the percentage of remission and not permanent remission, is because we don't change the frequency that we send those cells. We don't change the nutrition that we send those cells. we don't help those cells eliminate waste repair detoxify regenerate and we expect this different result it's like the definition of insanity yeah right doing the same thing and expecting a different result and we think that for a period of time we're going to put a pharmaceutical or a chemical or a synthetic in the body fix whatever the specific issue is that we need to address at that moment and then go back to bathing our cellular biology in a toxic soup and get a different result and you can't and i think you epitomize that because i don't think there is a greater level of poison and abuse that a body could take to have shriveled to the state where you were and to i mean god only knows what your organs and your inside look like if you had had blood worked on that it would have been amazing like a chemical experiment yeah and then to be sitting in front of me right now you look healthy you're you know full of color your eyes are clear You're obviously very vibrant.

48:57Gary Brecka:You're successful. You made millions of dollars. That is the power of not just the human spirit, in my opinion, the Holy Spirit, but it is also the resiliency of the human body. It is astounding what happens to human beings when you give the body the raw material that needs to do its job. A hundred percent. And it's for anyone, anybody out there that's suffering, anybody out there that's hurting can change. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. Anybody can change, but I would strongly encourage anybody, everybody rather, to tap in to the one true source of power.

49:38And that's God. It's as simple as that.

49:41Gary Brecka:Wow. I'm not sitting here because I'm strong. I'm not sitting here because I'm smart. Quite the opposite. it. I'm sitting here because in 2003, on day three or four of my horrific withdrawal that lasted about a month, I physically dropped to my knees and I said, God, please, meaning like if you're there, if you exist, God, please take this hell away from me. Those are my exact words. God, please take this hell away from me. And in that moment, in a very real way, I felt the power and the presence of God. Now, the withdrawal did not go away. The cravings did not go away. I'm not going to bullshit people.

50:32You still really wanted to get high. Of course. Yeah. Oh, I was sweating through my fucking jeans. I wanted to get high so bad. But I knew in that moment, I felt the power and grace of our living, loving father. I felt it in that moment. Wow. I knew it was real. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to grab onto this. I'm going to grab onto this. Kind of like, imagine like you're in the fucking wilderness and you're fucked and it's freezing and you're going to die. But you somehow managed to get a spark and you've got that weird shit bundled up and you're fucking, oh my God. You know, and you're trying to like, I did everything I could to keep that spark going.

51:10Everything I could. and by everything I could, because I was simple and not educated. It was just, God, can you please be with me now? God, can you please be with me now? God, can you please hold my hand? God, can you please hold my hand? God, can you please? I'm scared. God, I'm scared. Can you please be with me now? Fervently, just over and over and over again, all day, every day from the moment I woke to the moment I went to bed. And to go back into Malibu, Malibu is not a place you want to be broke. No, definitely not. To go back into Malibu, living in my sponsor's house, which I was stoked to be by the beach for sure.

51:50And I was stoked for the free rent in exchange for detailing his cars, washing the dogs, whatever. But having to go down to Sherman's place and wash people's dogs as a grown man, 34, 35 year old man, I'm washing dogs, I'm washing cars and people are walking in to drop their dogs off at this dog grooming place. And they're fucking laughing. they're pointing and I'm in the back and I'm covered in fucking dog hair. Like it was, it was, it was horrible to go through, but whatever. It was that, you know, the spark and like, keep it going. And God, please be with me now. God, can you please be with me now?

52:25I built this relationship with a living, loving God. Not, not my dad's, well, my dad didn't have a God. Not with my mom's God. Cause my mom got really into Catholicism as, as a Jew, she got very into Catholicism because that's how she was raised. So she wanted me to be into Catholicism. Right. Catholicism was fucking weird to me. And I had some bad experiences with some priests at St. Patrick's of Heather Downs, you know, keep an open mind, son. Like, right. Yeah. Not, not, not my jam. And I don't want to disparage any religion because all religions are great at their core, but men fuck everything up.

52:58We sure do. Men fuck everything.

53:00Gary Brecka:My wife would agree with you. Yeah, so I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about God. I'm talking about there's one God. Like right now, she can go look out that window and he can go look out that window. We can go look out that door. If we're all looking at the sun or the remnants of the sun or the rays of the sun, right? We might call it different names. We might describe it differently. If we go up to a certain level of stories, we might even see it as totally different. It's still the one and only son. To me, that's God. And I'm going to do something you're not supposed to do, you know, talk about religion.

53:46But like, I don't have a religion. I was exposed to a lot of different religions. And I've read about, I don't want to say study because I don't want to falsely represent myself like I'm some fucking scholar because I'm not. I make smoothies for living. I make smoothies for living. But I've been jammed up in my life real fucking bad. So many times in my life, I've been jammed up. Terrifying situations. At the scariest of scariest moments, I always went to Jesus. Now, why did I go to Jesus? I think because that's what I was exposed to as a kid. Going to St. Patrick's of Heather Downs. spent a year at St.

54:27John's. I had a lot of exposure to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I love the idea of Christ and Christ consciousness. And I'm happy to report that every time I was in those foxhole type of situations and I went to Jesus and asked Jesus for help and Jesus hold my hand, actually one time in a fucking journey that went awry, I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm with Jesus. Jesus is my Lord and Savior, whatever. Every time I've done that, help came and everything worked out. Wow. I've never been let down. Now, am I praying to air? Am I delusional? Like, I don't think so. Oh, you're definitely not. I feel in those moments a real, almost like a yellow light of protection and help.

55:23Here's the problem. When the challenge goes away and the ego kicks back in, then I want to go back.

55:30Gary Brecka:He doesn't become as important anymore. I want to go back to the cool necklaces and I want to talk about my journey to India and Indonesia and my chanting and my TM and my this and my that. I'm seeking for the truth, but I will just be transparent with you and whoever cares to listen. Well, I'll tell you, I deeply identify and believe everywhere that you're saying. Oh, yeah. I got saved years ago at a Promise Keepers convention in Chicago. And it was like a Christian men's movement. 70 ,000 men joined hands and said the Lord's Prayer in Soldier Stadium, Soldier Field. And the power of that impacting me.

56:09Gary Brecka:You know, I just said to myself, 70 ,000 people can't be getting this wrong. And I was in grad school at the time. And I'd gotten way away from the church because I was also raised Roman Catholic. like, yeah. But it's hard when you're a kid to really identify with the church because we had a little church in, in Lothian, Maryland called Our Lady of Sorrows. It's a great church. I remember sometimes the mass was in Latin, but it was very ritualistic to me. You stand up, sit down, sit up, sit down, kneel, sit down. Stations of the cross. Do you remember that shit? Communion. My fucking knees and then the smoke.

56:42And I'm like, what the fuck's going on here? And like eat the body and blood of Christ. I'm like, whoa, that's very Dionysus. Like what? Yeah. I set all that shit aside and just go to Jesus. Because I don't understand all that stuff. That stuff's probably all right. It's probably the truth and all that. But like, I don't depend on a book. I don't depend on a man in a hat. I don't depend on anything. You don't need an institution. I just, I go to God and that God made me perfect. That God made me perfect. I mean, I'm misshapen. I got really short legs. I got a long torso. I got a massive head. Got a nice tracksuit on though, bro.

57:22I appreciate that. Thank you, Rick Sullivan. The Celine tracksuit is fire. You see the Basquiat socks?

57:29Gary Brecka:The fact that you know the brand of your socks, what do I got on? No, Basquiat is the artist. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's the artist. Jean-Michel Basquiat is a famous artist. Well, so is Adidas. Adidas. Adidas. Yeah, Adidas. He's also very famous. So I'm misshapen. I have a massive skull and kids tease me mercilessly when, when I was a child and called me pumpkin head and Charlie Brown and, and, and whatever. I'm not saying like, I'm, I'm perfect. Like aesthetically, like it's a lot of fucking hard work to, to keep this together. Got to keep the hair super short and got to build the shoulders and, you know, build up the leg.

58:05Yeah, exactly. So I'm, I'm, I'm doing the best with the vessel that I'm in to be the man that God intended me to be. And I'm nowhere fucking near there. And I don't know the truth. And I am not a Christian and I don't claim to be a Christian and I'm not a spiritual man. I don't claim to be a spiritual man. I like to appear like I'm spiritual. I like the fucking necklaces and the bracelets. And I like taking photographs with hugging saints and all that shit. But that's all ego. That's all ego. That's the little five foot seven Khalil who's still deep down inside, wants people to like him and whatever.

58:44But on a daily basis, to the best of my ability, I try to get 1 % better each day, which I first learned about through Tim Ferriss, Kaizen. Oh, yeah. The first book that he wrote about Kaizen and the Japanese car manufacturers and how they overcame us. Yeah, I've read a lot of his stuff. League of Titans, Four Hour Body. Yeah. And then I read The Power of Habit, which blew my fucking mind. I only could get through about a third of it. and then I read Atomic Habits. Atomic Habits. Yeah, and I realized that like I'm just a conglomeration. I'm just like a fucking, you know, composite of these little habits that I do every day.

59:22So like if I get up in the morning and I drink some really healthy, clean spring water and then I put some good stuff into my body, I can't wait for you to try that coffee stuff.

59:32Gary Brecka:Yeah, I'm ready to fire that up, man. I like all your products so far. I appreciate that. The mushroom thing gave me a little, I was like, ooh, palm started. of sweating there. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or the podcast. I was like, all right. Yeah. Well, that's just a little ancient wisdom coming in to help us. Hopefully here, here's my goal. I don't know what your goal is for this, but there's somebody out there that's hurting and there's somebody out there that does want to change. There's somebody out there that does want to change. I'm your fucking poster child. I I'm the guy that can show you that against all odds, if a fucking moron like me with the shit that I went through and the shit that I put myself through can become, you're a millionaire.

1:00:12You can say it. I'm successful. I became successful. I, I, I, I brought something of, of value to the world. I'm leaving the world every day a little bit better than I found it when I woke up in the morning. And when I pass, I don't know how many more years I have left on this planet, but I'm going to leave it better than how I found it. And I want to inspire anyone out there that's hurting, anyone out there that can't stop looking at porn or taking pills or drinking too much wine or eating too many fucking donuts and pizza, whatever your thing is, I get it. I understand it. But underneath all of that, if you can get into the cause of it rather than taking a pill for it.

1:01:03To mask it. Yeah. If you can stop masking the symptoms and start addressing the core issues, you can find freedom. And the best way to find freedom is to simply say, God, can you please hold my hand and walk me towards that freedom? Whatever that freedom is going to look like. God, can you please be with me now? It's never failed me.

1:01:27Gary Brecka:Yeah, that's so awesome. I want to get back to the genesis of Sun Life because we didn't really start about. What was the aha moment and the action that you took where you said, all right, I'm going to go cold press some juice. I'm going to sign a lease. I'm going to open a storefront. I'm going to build a brand. When did that pivot come? So I started Riviera Recovery in 2007, and it was massively successful right out the gate. Okay, so you had some foundation to launch this with. Massively successful. Money was coming in. This is going to sound stupid to people that actually make money, but like$40 ,000 a month profit was coming in.

1:02:13And my father, for the first time in his life, was impressed. Well, that ended badly. but um uh i started to have some success financially but i was i was miserable because it felt a little bit like blood money because i'm taking checks from these people's parents or spouses or whoever's and i know for sure that their significant other or their or their child has zero fucking interest in getting better so should i just keep housing them and taking this money not everybody's like my buddy rick who was like i've been trying to fucking quit smoking crack for 22 years. I heard you help people. I need help.

1:02:52I'm like, yeah, fucking move in with me one year. No gambling, no this, no that, no whatever. We're going hiking every morning. We're jumping in the fucking ocean. You know, anytime you have a craving, we're going to do our mikvahs or whatever. Um, not everyone's like that. By the way, he never went back to the shit. That's great. Yeah. He's 17 years clean and sober. Um, our other buddy, Sarah, who I, who I met back then. She's, she's also 17 years clean and sober. Um, and I don't know, you know, whatever freedom from active addiction is the goal. Um, I don't, I'm, I'm not like, I don't represent any 12 step shit or whatever.

1:03:31I represent freedom from active addiction. Right. So, um, so, uh, I was miserable. I was making a bunch of money. I did the right thing. I went back to Ohio and I bought my mom a house and I sent her to Poland because she hadn't been back to Poland in 39 years. So I sent her back there to go see her family. And I, and I say that in quotation marks, cause it wasn't really her family. Her mom like dumped her off on a doorstep, but it was the family that she knew.

1:03:59Gary Brecka:Right. So I corrected the sins of my father who left her high and dry. And I sent her, sent her back to Poland, bought her a house. But then this like soul sickness of set in because I was like making money kind of like housing spoiled rich and famous people that didn't want to change. Yeah. But Sean kept coming over and teaching them yoga and giving them massages and making them the juices and I'm making them the juices and I'm making them the smoothies. And I started to see miracles happen. And I really, I mean, I mean that literally I saw some, and this is not medical advice, but I started to see people go off their psychiatric medications.

1:04:35I started to see people stop smoking spontaneously. The more good stuff they started to put in because they were curious, they're addicts. They want to feel good. They're watching me and Sean glistening in the sun, doing upward dog and downward dog and fucking sauna and then jumping into an ice tub. And we were doing that way back then.

1:04:52Gary Brecka:Yeah. Dopamine hits. I mean, dopamine hits. Real physiology. And the more I started making the juices and smoothies for people, the more they asked for it. And it started turning into like around the clock type of deal. Like from the moment I got there in the morning until the moment I went to bed at night, people were asking for smoothies, asking for juices. My sponsees were asking for juices and smoothies. I started to just think to myself, if I could just open up a little juice bar and serve a hundred people a day, then, then how great would that be? Like, like if I could just like eventually get, if I could eventually get like a little townhouse and I could do yoga and I could paddleboard and I could just feed people and help people that actually wanted help.

1:05:41Gary Brecka:Yeah. How great would that be? And eventually maybe I'll even write a book. So that was the dream. Wow. Yeah. The problem is the economy collapsed. 2008, the fucking sky. Oh dude, that was the time? Yeah. everybody now my rehab recovery center uh revere recovery was going up because everyone's falling the fuck apart and they want to you know get off the dope because they don't want to die right um and and and so that was thriving the recovery is sort of an evergreen business because there's always going to be people suffering from addiction um and all these businesses started going out and there was a shopping center called the Point Dune Plaza.

1:06:23And there was like, out of, I think out of 11 businesses there, there were six vacancies. Wow. Yeah. Just sitting there empty. And I, in a very naive Pollyannic, similar to how I started Riviera Recovery on a shoestring and a prayer, I was just like, fuck it. I'm just going to open up my own juice bar and see what happens. and right when it got going, my best friend that was running my business for me, my best friend in the world, I'm running the juice bar now. I'm going back and forth. My best friend's running the business. I said to my girlfriend, you know what? I don't want to fucking do that shit anymore.

1:07:06He's cut out for it. I'm not cut out for it. I'm too fucking codependent. If people succeeded, I pounded my chest. If people relapsed, I went into a fucking depression. So we're a year in and I said to my girlfriend at the time, I'm just going to give him the business. I'll keep 20%. He can keep 80%. He can run it. I don't want anything to fucking do with it anymore. I want to make all my money back and have a stream of income, but I don't want to do that business anymore. I don't want to be around sick people all the time. I want to be around these cool people. Some really cool people were coming in.

1:07:38People that I really looked up to. Conscious, awake. Well, I'm a little more shallow and pretentious than you. famous and Cindy Crawford's coming in. Owen Wilson's right on the red hot chili peppers are coming. I was fucking elated. I, I, I felt like, you know, I felt cool. And, um, and the guy working next door, uh, comes over and he's like, Hey man, I need to talk to you. And I'm like, okay, I don't know this guy that well. I mean, I kind of knew him and I'm like, okay. So I go over there, bring a smoothie and he goes, Hey, you know, one of the guys working for you is, you know, trying to steal your business and he's trying to start a competing business or whatever.

1:08:15And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he goes, one of the guys working for you. I'm like, no, no, no, that that's not happening. Trust me. And he's like, Khalil, one of your guys is trying to take your business from you. I'm like, okay, you're, you're fucking tripping, bro. I'm going to go back. We got to line out the door. And he goes, Khalil, I represent him. I'm renting him a house in the Palisades. He's going to take all your clients. I'm like, who's your client? He told me it was my best friend.

1:08:49Wow. And I drove over there and I confronted him and with no regret and no remorse, he looked me dead in the eye and he said, well, you're fucking rich. You've got money. You've got a girlfriend. You've got a fucking line out the door. Like I want to have good shit too. So I'm going to do my own fucking thing. He didn't know that I was going to give it to him. Wow. So I called our mutual friend, Jose, and I said, how much money you got? And he's like, yes, a lisp to this day. I don't know. I think I have like$20 ,000. And I said, if you meet me tomorrow at noon, I will sell you Riviera Recovery for$20 ,000.

1:09:31I want a cashier's check for$20 ,000. I will give you the IP. I will give you the furniture. I'll give you the crystals. I'll give you everything. I'll give you the, you know, everything, the website. And fucking Jose showed up and he gave me the money and I sold it to him. And -

1:09:48Gary Brecka:This is good for you. I think he's got five locations now. He's a multimillionaire. Wow. He's an amazing human being. He's helped a ton of people. And he is wired for the business. Yeah, yeah. He's not for it. You got it. Like me. And unfortunately, our other friend relapsed and died. and I don't say that with any pride and I wish I could undo that but that is part of the story and that's what happened. Over the last 20 years in human biology, one compound I've trusted again and again is NAD+. It's critical for energy, focus, and cellular repair but your levels drop around age 30. I used to administer NAD via IVs in my clinics but now I take Roe Nutrition's liposomal NAD, the first oral formula that actually works.

1:10:34Gary Brecka:Their advanced delivery tech gets NAD straight into your bloodstream. I take one teaspoon daily and the results are real. Clean energy, sharper focus, and better recovery. You can try it risk-free with the Ultimate15 code at checkout for 15 % off. Just put in Ultimate15 at checkout, you'll receive 15 % off and your sells will thank you. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. You know, I had a foray into the restaurant business for a little while. I own a restaurant in Naples, Florida called Beach Box. And it was actually right next to the Ritz-Carlton. It was a little beach bar across the street from the beach.

1:11:12And when I started it, I was like so full of life.

1:11:16Gary Brecka:I was like, this is going to be awesome. It's going to be the greatest place. And it's fun. It was super fun. yeah and i had this first meeting with all my staff and uh i was like guys you know the rules are basically simple show up on time work hard while you're here don't steal from it um if you guys can do those three things yeah we're gonna run a great business we're gonna have a lot of fun we're gonna build a family here and um you know and literally six months in i was like if you guys could just show up on time once in a while not steal a lot from me like don't take all the money out of the register totally um and not get banged up at work yep that would be awesome and um it just eroded my belief in the human spirit so much because um we would just blatantly catch people stealing and i'd have a video of it and i'd have the aloha register keys because we keep all the keystrokes and create these reports and I'd have video camera of it and we would confront the employee and their reaction was similar to your friend.

1:12:22Gary Brecka:And they would say, dude, what's$500 to you? Right. You're doing well, dude. Like, right. You know, what's$500 to you? I'm like, it's the same as$500 to you. Yeah. You know, my dollar buys the same thing that your dollar does. I just took a lot of risks to get this open. I'm almost went, went broke in that business open and and um it was just a it's strange and now that i'm a lot more i would say spiritually aware and i've sort of pontificated about and i've let a lot of people that have taught me about the human emotion i realize that there there are victors and victims and there are people that just have this sense of entitlement and what's strange is if if you started for me as a bartender and then worked your way up to a system manager and then a manager and you know eventually i probably would have given you a piece of the business of course and really wanted to keep you around of course but they just wanted the fast track and yeah quick money and and i became the enemy for being the one that took all the risk yeah and it was just it was really a hard thing for me to get my arms around like the realization you consciously stole from me i felt fine with it the realization that there are two types of people on the planet there are people that talk shit and there's people that do shit.

1:13:33Most people talk shit. You're a doer. You've always been a doer. And my belief, you may appreciate this, God is not going to take the perfect seven tall, seven heads tall, high, perfect, symmetrical, whatever, quiet, humble, whatever. God is going to take the fuck ups and the losers and bless them beyond measure. Yeah. And give them a voice and give them power and give them strength. And the dissolution of that business was my proof that I wanted to never go near it again. And even eventually about 15 years into my living essentially in 12-step programs, even that became a little bit toxic for me.

1:14:20And I wanted to get away from that. So Sun Life became its own entity. I had a great idea. I had a great idea. It was brilliant. And it was 14 years ago, all organic, amazing. colostrum things that like everyone's talking about fucking claustrum we would get we would get yelled at by all the vegans 14 years ago because we were putting colostrum in our smoothies they're like that's disgusting that's disgusting we we were putting mushrooms in our smoothies we were bringing i mean we were bringing in matcha like it's interesting and i'm glad i'm glad it's now becoming a craze i'm glad now that when you watch certain channels news channels you see advertisements for certain yeah powders or you see certain advertisements for certain colostrums or whatever, even though there's a part of me, it's like, fuck you.

1:15:03I was there first.

1:15:05Gary Brecka:Colostrum was my idea. There's enough. Yeah. I think it was God's. Yeah. But there's, there's enough for everybody. And I would rather have that than have another fucking Pfizer commercial. Right. I'd rather have that than another fucking medication. That's going to cause five different types of things wrong with me. So, or with people. So we're moving in the right direction and there is a great awakening that's taking place. And God, I believe with a sense of humor, chose some of the rejects. Some of the people are polished and perfect and amazing, but you have a calling. I have a calling. We're here to wake people up and we're here to get people to retake their power that they were born with.

1:15:48We were born as a particle of God and society and the world and the evil fucking people that control the world have done everything in their power to extinguish that spark, that particle of God. And I'm doing everything I can to awaken my own and to watch other people awaken and, and seeing kids come in whose parents like make them get a job. So they come to Sun Life cause it's cool. Yeah. And watching them for the first time, touching vegetables, drinking juices, because it's part of the training, drinking smoothies and watching them slowly come alive and slowly feel the life force of these ingredients and slowly find humility.

1:16:27And then all of a sudden they're bragging to their parents, like, you need to drink this smoothie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the best. And then their siblings, the siblings come in because the siblings want to be like the older brother and sister. So then they start coming in and then they want a job.

1:16:40Gary Brecka:Apostle becomes the prophet. They're like, prophet, that's amazing. In a very tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny way, I am changing the world. Yeah, you're building a community, man. I mean, that's, how many locations do you have now? 19. 19 from that one? Yeah. Are they all in New York? No, there is seven in California. There's two in Miami, three more opening in Florida soon. There's two in Nashville, one in Vegas, another one opening in Vegas. We just signed a licensee, or about to sign a licensee deal. I've said that. Anyway, we're about to set a licensing deal. It's all good. It's fine. Nobody knows where it is.

1:17:20But we're doing a deal in South Africa for 10 stores down there. Yeah. And I've met with several people from the Middle East about bringing this over to that region.

1:17:34Gary Brecka:I did a lot in the Middle East too. Yeah. Yeah. They need it. Where in the Middle East? Dubai? Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar. Amazing. Yeah. So we're, we're, we're growing exponentially. They're on this bandwagon over there. Yeah. We're growing exponentially. The, the book has helped a lot of people. It wasn't junkies that read it, which much to my surprise, it's moms, it's women. Yeah. It's, it's people that want to change that look at me and go, fuck. Well, I think the circumstance is less relevant than, than the method, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of business philosophy and business knowledge, which I think some of the best knowledge comes from the Bible, but it's the best business book ever written.

1:18:18Gary Brecka:A lot of business knowledge is transferable. You know, it's not just doesn't apply to tech or to textile or, you know, to the automotive industry. It applies to the philosophy of how you approach, you know, operating a business. And I think your story is, while it may not be heroin to millionaire or, you know, streets to mansions, it's very applicable about, you know, taking self-responsibility, becoming aware, wanting to change, raising your hand to get help, doing all the things that embarrass people and are, you know, what keep people where they are. I think the way that society is structured, especially corporate America, it's kind of trying to keep you in a box.

1:19:05Gary Brecka:Yeah. You know? And they do a great job. They do a really great job. Yeah. I mean, I was just talking on the last podcast about how my mom had worked for Delta Airlines for 30 years. Yeah. When she retired, got a Seiko watch and a sweatshirt. Yeah. That's it. Thank you. And it was 30 years. And it had a little Mickey Mouse or something on it, but it had a little emblazoned character on it. Yeah. there was the the large sweatshirt and literally a seiko watch and um i mean that was a third more than a third of her lifetime yeah the best years of her life yeah and the best years of her life now it also afforded me because she worked for the airlines i don't want to i don't want to put her career down she she did she enjoyed it and and gave me a very good life and we we were we were able to travel because at that time you know i was born in 1970 travel was very expensive of the 70s and 80s.

1:19:58Gary Brecka:And we were nowhere near capable of affording it, but we traveled because of the benefits. So we were in Rome and Korea and Egypt. And so growing up, I traveled a lot and experienced a lot of the world because my father was in the military. So we would get, you know, free flights on Pan Am over to Seoul, Korea, and we'd stay at Yongsan Air Force Base for$12 or$16 a day. We'd stay for a week and a half in Seoul, Korea. Amazing. So that experience was invaluable. And I also grew up on a farm, and my whole life I wanted to get as far away from the farm as I could. And now I want to get back as fast as I can.

1:20:35Gary Brecka:Totally. It's really interesting how those experiences really shape you. Khalil, this has been amazing, man. Thank you. I hope that we can continue to follow your journey. Will you tell my audience where they can find you, where they can find more about Sun Life? Sun Life Organics is all over the country. SunLifeOrganics.com. the book is I Forgot to Die available on Amazon the second book is Remembering to Live the challenge with the first book although it was a bestseller and did an incredible criticism was like oh yeah so you stopped smoking crack and shooting heroin and now you're a millionaire what the fuck yeah like how second book is how the how okay yeah Remembering to Live was what I did in those early days the washing of the dogs and the running errands for Cindy Landon and you know being a manny for for Billy Bob and Pietra Thornton and taking care of their boys and teaching them how to boogie board.

1:21:26And, um, the second book is an A to Z, um, on how to go from being pissed poor to being financially independent. Um, I don't do Twitter. I think I have a Twitter, but I don't do Twitter. I don't do Tik TOK, although I have one. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm mostly Instagram. I stopped going on Facebook because it's just a cesspool of discontent and it's echo chamber and political divide is, is, is beyond insane. Um, as if one side is better than the other. I mean, they're all fucking bad. And the revolution that's taking place right now that, um, in a small way, I'm a part of, and you're a part of, and I'm so grateful.

1:22:05I am too. Fuck the system. The system needs to be broken. It's a spiritual awakening. Yes. It's a spiritual awakening. We need to return to God. If there's anything that I can say to anyone, the, the, the number one thing that we have to do is go back to God. Our generation, Generation X, is the first generation to be raised without God. The generation before you went to church or temple or mosque. Oh, no doubt. Every week. My parents, yeah. We were raised without God. Generation X, first generation to be raised without God. Nowadays, nobody goes to fucking church. Nobody goes to temple. Nobody goes to mosque.

1:22:39People are on fucking TikTok. People are on Instagram. People are on - Too busy for that. Yeah, they're so self-engrossed and engaging in voyeurism and worrying about what people think. The greatest thing that I'm enjoying right now is being older. Yeah, me too, man. I fucking love it. These are the best years of my life too, man. The best. I totally agree with you. But it's the best because I'm in shape and because I got some dough.

1:23:03Gary Brecka:Yeah. When I go back to Ohio for funerals and I look at my people that I went to school with and their faces are that big and their distended bellies are this big and it's crushing their fucking organs and they're miserable and they hate the fucking Democrats or they hate the fucking Republicans and they're caught in that. I'm just like, guys, you're going to fucking blink and you're going to be dead. Yeah. Go for a walk. Stop putting shit in your body. Yeah. You know? So insane. Yeah. So yeah, that's where I'm at. Please follow along if it pleases you. I will make sure they do. I'll link all those things in the show notes.

1:23:37Gary Brecka:I wind down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. Sure. No right or wrong answer to this question. And is, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? to be an ultimate human is to live fully from the center of myself, for myself,

1:24:03and try my best to be the man that God intended me to be. That's it. Great answer.

1:24:11Gary Brecka:That's a great answer. Well, we're going to head over into my VIP room now. I have a group of VIPs, my stickiest community that I've built. And every time we end a podcast, I shut the cameras off and turn them right back on. And they, I let them know what guests are coming on the podcast and they have some, they have some questions for you. Cool. Um, if you're interested in becoming a VIP, just head over to the ultimate human.com forward slash VIP. And for 97 bucks a month, you can become one of my VIPs. It's where I really pour myself into. I'm building the most incredible community of like-minded people dedicated to long longevity, anti-aging bio-optimization.

1:24:46Gary Brecka:But for the rest of you guys, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. And until next time, that's just science.