Addicted at 12, Hunted, Homeless — Austin Rampt’s Recovery Story

Austin Rampt00:00:01

The addiction podcast. Point of no return,.

Joanie Sigal00:00:07

Austin, ramp podcaster par excellence. It's nice to have another podcaster on the line here, but thank you for being willing to share your story.And I know you do similar things in that you share other people's stories with addiction or substance abuse and recovery. And you know that sharing a story can change someone's life. So thank you for doing that.

Austin Rampt00:00:35

Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that it indeed did change mine.

Joanie Sigal00:00:38

So there you go. So tell us, Austin, like, how did, how did your journey with substance abuse start? And how young were you or how old were you?

Austin Rampt00:00:49

Oh, yeah, I'll get into that. So, you know, when I was a kid, I had really bad neurological tics. My body would twitch. I would actually make noises uncontrollable.Like, I did not want to make these noises. I think, I think I was a little ball of anxiety as a child. And so I picked up my. Well, I caught my first buzz, we'll put it that way, at age 13.And you know, is, I know that alcohol works, you know, in similar ways to a lot of different people, but the way that it felt to me was it was almost like I was just a giant problem in search of a solution. But I didn't realize I had a problem until the solution showed up. And I remember thinking, this is so good. Why would I ever want to be sober?

Joanie Sigal00:01:36

Warm blanket, right?

Austin Rampt00:01:38

Totally. I heard a guy say this once and I really loved it.It was like driving in a rainstorm and going under an overpass and it's like, oh, yeah, I know what that feels like, you know, and that is what it felt like.

Joanie Sigal00:01:51

I get it. I get it.

Austin Rampt00:01:52

Yeah.

Joanie Sigal00:01:53

What was it? Just what? And it was alcohol, right?

Austin Rampt00:01:56

It was alcohol. It was three tall boys. I didn't like the taste, but I liked the camaraderie.And then when I got that third one about halfway down, that thing happened inside of me that I can't really explain. And honestly, from that point forward, there were two things that I just called. Couldn't really communicate properly to people.One was how great alcohol and drugs were for me. They allowed me to operate in the world. But on the flip side of that, how horrific sobriety felt. Like it just, it just became intolerable.And, you know, so I, I became addicted very quickly. Like, I, I was. My first six months of, of using substances. It was alcohol, pot, Xanax, acid, painkillers.Like, I just went into it and I have a 15 year old daughter, like, who's never drank, and I cannot Imagine like a child of that age doing what I was doing. And you know, by the time I was 17, I was heavily addicted to crack cocaine. It was quick.

Joanie Sigal00:02:58

And you know, you said that people don't understand it. And I said, I've said this so many times on the podcast, people probably get tired of hearing me say it.But what a lot of people who have not experienced addiction, what they don't understand is that you're not just dealing with some sort of emotional or mental choice that you can make if you are truly addicted. It is physical, mental and spiritual.And so you can't just stop in a lot of cases, and we know that there are some that if you just cold turkey it, you could die.

Austin Rampt00:03:34

Sure.

Joanie Sigal00:03:34

Alcohol being one.

Austin Rampt00:03:35

Benzos. Yeah, absolutely. And I, I had a great love affair with benzodiazepines as we go along. They seem to pair well with cocaine.But, but I had this, I didn't have a word to name anxiety as a child.It was just like, this is just how I feel and everyone's better than I am and I'm not good enough and, and these incredible feelings that were going on inside of me that I just didn't know how to name, you know, and so I had some, some events happen along the way. Like when I was 17, I was, I was growing pot in my closet and my mom hung up some, some clothes in there over one of my grow lights.And about an hour and a half later, I had burnt our entire house to the ground accidentally. But that happened in high school. And you know, honestly from that point forward, it was just, it was just, you know, going at it full throttle.I did, I did actually, you know, I went to my first rehab when I was 22 and that was my first entryway into 12 step recovery. And from, from 22 to 31, I was, I was sober.

Joanie Sigal00:04:39

I read that, I read you went 10 years, which was amazing.

Austin Rampt00:04:43

So. Well, I was, for the, for clarity, I had a, it was two years and then it was seven years. I had a, you know, painkiller relapse in the middle of that.But just for that rigorous honesty piece, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to take any credit I don't have coming to me. But, but when I relapsed again at age 31, and this is, you know, this is, you know, when I was 22, I didn't have much money at a good night out.Might be a hundred bucks, you know, but then I had had a successful company and two children and was married and all this stuff at 31. And when I relapsed, then it was a whole other ball game.And the interesting piece is, and I say this to everyone, if information about what I had could keep me sober, I would have stayed sober the rest of my life because I had the information. It wasn't about the information, but I had stopped having the necessary spiritual experience that underlies it.And so as a result of that, maybe I hung on longer than I potentially. I think I hung on because I had an identity as a sober person for a while. And once that identity broke, it was, here we go. You know, here we go.

Joanie Sigal00:05:53

I understand, without putting you on the spot, you said you lost the spiritual. I don't remember exactly how you said it. Can you expand on what you meant by that?

Austin Rampt00:06:06

Absolutely. So, you know, I'm a member of 12 Step Recovery. That's how I've gotten sober. And that's really the only sobriety I've ever known.And so, you know, when we walk through the doors and life is in shambles, we're taught some very basic things about what sobriety looks like. Right. We have our morning readings and prayer meditation we do in the morning.And we are, you know, once that time comes, we are to be of service to other people. Like our very lives as ex problem drinkers depend on that. And I had gotten really good at hiding in the front of the room.And what I mean by that is my meeting attendance did not go down, but I knew all the right things to say and I had stopped. You know, I've learned that 90% of sobriety happens when no one else is looking. It's the things I'm actually doing, not the things I say I'm doing.Big difference there.

Joanie Sigal00:07:03

Yep.

Austin Rampt00:07:03

And so that 90% had dwindled quite a bit.And also, you know, I had hired a lot of people, and so a lot of my sober network worked for me, which, you know, it, it causes a bit of a rift, to put it. To put it mildly. And so, and so when I relapsed, it was, it was horrendous. It was. I landed in Huntington beach detox in stage four renal failure.My body was, was shutting down.

Joanie Sigal00:07:32

Wow.

Austin Rampt00:07:32

And, and, and obviously there's a lot of details that I'm kind of glossing over here just for the, for the sake of the story. But, but I went to a rehab out in, out in Santa Monica.And while I was there, I ended up getting divorced from my first wife and marrying a woman who worked at the rehab, which was a crazy bad idea. Who happened to have drug induced schizophrenia. But I didn't know that because she had been sober a long time.So when we relapsed, oh, things got bad. It was just a new level of horror. It really was. Yeah. Tremendous.

Joanie Sigal00:08:09

And when was that? How long ago was that?

Austin Rampt00:08:12

So that relapse was in 2014.

Joanie Sigal00:08:16

Okay.

Austin Rampt00:08:16

And. And there were multiple attempts to get sober in that. And then when, after I married my second wife, I got Marchman acted. So you're.Are you in Florida, Joanie?

Joanie Sigal00:08:30

I think you are, right? Yes. Is that Baker act? Is that the same as Baker Act? So, no.

Austin Rampt00:08:34

A Baker act is like you take.

Joanie Sigal00:08:37

A mental hospital, right.

Austin Rampt00:08:38

They take your shoelaces, that sort of thing.A Marchman act is if you are using to the point to where you can reasonably prove somebody's gonna die, they can get the courts involved and mandate you to go to either treatment or jail if you don't choose treatment. And so I'm in a hotel room in Fort Lauderdale about to shoot heroin and the cops bust the door in.

Joanie Sigal00:08:59

You were in Florida?

Austin Rampt00:09:01

Well, yeah, I'm in Orlando. I live in Orlando.

Joanie Sigal00:09:02

Oh, I thought you. I was all way back in California. You lost me there for a second. Anyway.

Austin Rampt00:09:07

Yeah, no, no. Yeah.

Joanie Sigal00:09:08

Sorry.

Austin Rampt00:09:08

So we.

Joanie Sigal00:09:09

That's okay.

Austin Rampt00:09:09

Yeah, I didn't tell the story. We moved back to Florida. She came with me.

Joanie Sigal00:09:13

Okay.

Austin Rampt00:09:13

Yeah. And. And her. And I go on.

Joanie Sigal00:09:15

And you get Marchman.

Austin Rampt00:09:17

Marchman acted. Yeah. And I go in front of this magistrate and she probates me to go to this. This rehab in Boca. And after six days of being there, you know, I just.I wasn't done. I had a bunch of money in the bank and a raging drug addiction. And so me and wife number two hopped on a plane and moved to Mexico.

Joanie Sigal00:09:39

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Austin Rampt00:11:06

And it gets good there, you know? Yeah, for sure.

Joanie Sigal00:11:12

Okay, keep going.

Austin Rampt00:11:16

I'm listening. Yeah, I will. I will. We landed in. We landed in Cancun. It was not my intention to go to Mexico. I had.And in fact, I really didn't even know that I was going to Mexico until I basically was 30 minutes from the airport, and I decided I was gonna buy a. Buy a plane ticket because JetBlue flew direct to Cancun.And when I got there, I didn't really know what I was in store for, but when have you ever been to Cancun, Joanie?

Joanie Sigal00:11:41

I think so, but I don't have a lot of memory of it. It was just a visit.

Austin Rampt00:11:45

Well, you know, a lot of people don't have a memory of Cancun that's kind of their claim to fame is a good blackout in a different country.So Cancun is very interesting in that it's the number one tourist destination that Mexico has, and it's completely from the top to the bottom run by the Sinaloa cartel. Oh, you can't. You can't be a police officer, a taxi driver.You can't do anything without the approval of the cartel in Cancun, which actually keeps it kind of peaceful because they have almost absolute power there.And so when I landed and I started wanting to buy ounces of substances instead of grams, they took notice quickly, and essentially, they fed my drug habit for the next 18 months as much as I wanted. No cops, no one telling me not to do it. My second wife ended up getting deported back to the United States because she was so nuts. And.And, you know, I had. I had all the resources available to me. I got to drink and use in the way that I always wanted to or the. The way that. Let me rephrase it.The way I always fantasized about. Right.

Joanie Sigal00:12:53

Ah.

Austin Rampt00:12:54

Because. Because I know. I know if I'm. I'm not going to have any control. So my solution to not having any control Was just never run out, like.But, you know, really good addicted mind there. And where this culminates is me in homeless in Mexico City at the end of all of this, right, Many a lot of near death experiences.I almost got kidnapped one time and you know, multiple girlfriends in the midst of it. But I'm. You know, the sad part is I had two kids back here in the United States. My daughter, who's currently 15, she was three.And my son, who's currently 12, he was one. And I remember my first wife saying to me, this is before the California rehab.She said, if you keep drinking and using the way that you are, you're going to lose us.And the way that it feels inside of my body when my mind is activated, when the allergy's active is the way that it feels is like my head's being held underwater. And so I love those kids.

Joanie Sigal00:13:57

A.

Austin Rampt00:13:57

Lot today, but I loved them a lot then, but they got in the way. They were in the way. And so, you know, I had to go get the next fix, which was terrible.

Joanie Sigal00:14:06

Okay. How long were you in Mexico?

Austin Rampt00:14:10

Start to finish? 22 Months.

Joanie Sigal00:14:12

Okay.

Austin Rampt00:14:13

And came back, I had lost the business, all of my employees walked out, blew through a million bucks, came back broken. Like even my cell phone was broken. Like I had nothing. I had to borrow 20 bucks from somebody to pay the.There was like an exit tax for me to get out of the country because I'd overstayed my welcome and I had to borrow that from somebody at the airport.And so when I came back, you know, I had this, you know, I, I had been in 12 step recovery for so long that I had this prideful thought that I would just slide right back into the rooms, no harm, no foul. And I had no idea how much damage I had done to myself.You know, I had really gotten to the point to where the things that, that make normal people happy, you know, sunshine, a park, nice weather, I can't feel those anymore. You know, I'm a dull blade. And. And so I ended up relapsing again and actually overdosing in a hotel room a few months after I got back.And this starts, you know, the actual sobriety journey. I go into, into a rehab.

Joanie Sigal00:15:21

And could we say that was your point of no return, that you almost died?

Austin Rampt00:15:27

You know, I had a lot of points of no return. Like, you know, when I went to Mexico, I wanted to die.I thought I was going to die and I was using to die, but the money ran out before my heart did. And I didn't expect that to be the case. I really didn't, but it did. And I honestly, I had a hellacious Xanax habit.And when I say this, people are like, that can't be right. Well, I was taking 50 milligrams of Xanax a day. Five. Zero.

Joanie Sigal00:15:55

Wow.

Austin Rampt00:15:55

And in addition to the cocaine and.

Joanie Sigal00:15:57

Everything, why do people think you can't do that? You can get addicted to Xanax? I mean, why.

Austin Rampt00:16:01

Well, sure you can, but that's. That's 25, two milligram pills a day. Like, it's a lot. It's a heavy, heavy addiction that when I went to detox, they were like, that can't be right.

Joanie Sigal00:16:10

I said, oh, I see what you mean. You know, you can't survive that.

Austin Rampt00:16:14

Couldn't survive it. Right. But I was offsetting it with the cocaine. And so I really think the Xanax saved my life.As bad as an addiction as that was, I think it kept my heart from beating out of my chest. And. And I had always. My whole life, right. When I was a kid, I was very good at baseball, and.And I. I used to remember that my dad wasn't a really affectionate guy, but I used to recall that when I would hit home runs, he'd be in the stands high fiving the other parents, going, that's my boy. You know, and, and, and I got the message somewhere that if I achieved, I was worthy of love.And the opposite also is that if I don't achieve, I'm not.And so early on in this story that I was telling you, I always tried to bring something to the party with me because I had that feeling inside of me that if I didn't, they weren't going to let me hang out. And so this rehab that I went to when I got back really addressed the. This not good enough wound that I had inside of me.And I remember my therapist putting a picture up on the wall, and it was a picture for her daughter, who was 18 months old. And she asked the question, what does this little girl have to do to deserve love? And of course, anyone looking at it would go, well, nothing.It's a baby, right?

Joanie Sigal00:17:27

Right.

Austin Rampt00:17:28

Yeah. And she said, well, you know, the only difference between you and that little girl is an idea, and you're the only one that has it, you know, and.And I've never forgotten that. And that was, you know, 12 years ago. And. And I'm a father of five today. They all live with me, you know, like, not a scattered father of five.And are you married again? I am married for eight years, yeah. She's incredible. I like to say, as long as her denial holds, our marriage will continue. You know, she's.I'm definitely the reacher in this one. I'm reaching up. No, she's great. And we have three, so we have a lot of kids. Youngest is one.

Joanie Sigal00:18:08

Wow.

Austin Rampt00:18:09

Yeah.

Joanie Sigal00:18:12

And what's your business, other than podcasting and writing a book?

Austin Rampt00:18:15

What are you up to? Sure. So I have a couple of companies in the peptide space, so if you're familiar with peptides at all.We have a telehealth company and definitely familiar with them. Yeah. So I've actually been in that space for a long time before anyone really knew what they were.I started my first peptide company in 2010, before any of the names had really circulated. And. And there's been a gold rush lately in that industry, which is.

Joanie Sigal00:18:41

Oh, yes, there has. Yeah.

Austin Rampt00:18:43

Yeah, totally. So there's that. And. And yeah, it's a busy life. It really. And you know what I've realized? I'll tell you a little story.I. I actually had a vasectomy before I went to Mexico because I did not want more children. And it's probably a good thing I had that vasectomy. But when I got back, Hayley, my wife said.I told her, and she said, oh, I was like, you just kicked me in the ovaries. That's how she tells the tale.And I said, well, you know, if we actually do end up getting married, I'll go ahead and get that reversed, not even knowing if I could do that. But I did. And I remember we had my daughter Delilah, who's now 6, and I thought that was it. I thought we were done. And she. And she wanted another.Another baby. And I. I was against it. I was like, no, come on, we've got to start the clock. Get a little freedom, you know, from the kids. And.And finally I. I conceded because I knew it was really important to her. And so we had my son Nicholas, who's three months, or excuse me, three years.And I was at a retreat, a 12 step recovery retreat, about almost two years ago now, about 22 months ago, and I got a call and she said, honey, I'm pregnant.And all I could think, and I still think this, you know, is that for a guy that went through and destroyed his life in such grand fashion like me, this is the perfect life for me because the thing I want more than anything in this world, but the thing I fear just as much is that, like, really deep, intimate Connection with other people and. And, boy, I get that in spades from my own family, you know, so.

Joanie Sigal00:20:22

Absolutely. Better. Well, I think that's wonderful. And tell us you have a book. Tell us about the book and where we can get it.

Austin Rampt00:20:30

Yeah, so the book is called One Last Hit, and it is the detailed version of the synopsis that I just gave.

Joanie Sigal00:20:36

Okay.

Austin Rampt00:20:37

Hopefully in the country and the whole. The whole nine. And you can get it on Amazon. You can get it on my website, which is onelasthitbook.com. It's on Audible all sorts of places.

Joanie Sigal00:20:48

So all of the dirty details are in the book, listeners. You didn't get it here, but you can get it in the book.

Austin Rampt00:20:55

Yeah, it's a PG13 version, for sure.

Joanie Sigal00:20:58

Okay, fair enough. Well, listen, I appreciate you. I appreciate you telling us your story.You know, I mean, you came through and very, very, very well done on all of your sobriety and where you're at today. And, you know, for. We don't. I know we have families that listen to this podcast.I don't know if we have people in recovery or people who need to get into recovery, but whoever's listening, it can be done. You know, you can get as rock bottom as Austin did, and you can come back and you can have everything you really want to have.You just have to make the decision.

Austin Rampt00:21:35

Hear, hear.

Joanie Sigal00:21:36

Yep, yep.

Austin Rampt00:21:37

100%.

Joanie Sigal00:21:39

Thank you, and best of luck with your podcast. And, you know, if you keep doing what you're doing, we'll keep doing what we do, and we just put an end to this pandemic in our country.

Austin Rampt00:21:50

Oh, man. You know, I did. I'll end with this, of course. I saw something the other day where they're making a vaccine for fentanyl. Have you seen this, Joanie?

Joanie Sigal00:21:58

I don't want to know about it. That's scary.

Austin Rampt00:22:00

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, if it actually works, you know, it'd be wonderful, but it just kind of blew my mind, you know, that they were kind of.

Joanie Sigal00:22:07

I don't know, money.

Austin Rampt00:22:08

I don't know.

Joanie Sigal00:22:08

It's all about the money, Austin.

Austin Rampt00:22:10

It is about the money, Johnny. That's right.

Joanie Sigal00:22:11

Yes, it is.

Austin Rampt00:22:12

Always is, always is. Well, thank you so much.

Joanie Sigal00:22:14

Well, thank you. And you. You be well and enjoy that family of yours. We have five grandkids, so I can sort of semi relate. But anyway, enjoy your family.

Austin Rampt00:22:23

I will. Thank you so much. You have been listening to the Addiction Podcast, Point of no return.For more information, reach out to us on Facebook or go to www.the addictionpodcast.com. Our email is the addiction podcastahoo.com.