Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.
We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Sean Hemeon is an award-winning actor, writer, an abstract, expressionist painter. He has appeared in 9 1 1 Criminal Minds, true blood, which I loved in cws husbands.
Sean began his career as an art gallery director in Santa Monica before transitioning to a full-time artist. His work has been exhibited in galleries across Los Angeles as a writer. Sean’s forthcoming book, the Good Little Drug, Lord, is an Ode to Redemption Recovery and the Mother Son Bond. Ultimately uplifting memoir about a gay Mormon drug dealing informant for the federal government.
That [00:01:00] sounds really interesting. Originally from Northern Virginia, Sean now resides in Los Angeles with his husband and their two Boston Terriers, Ludo and Gusgus. He’s the recipient of WBCs Lgbtqiaa Plus Writers Fellowship and has published works in Beyond Queer Words after a decades long absence.
He recently completed his BA in Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, and this year marks 20 years of Sean’s sobriety. Please join me in welcoming Sean. Hi, Sean. Yay. Yay. So excited to chat with you, by the way. I love True Bloods. Such a good show. Let’s do It was fun to work on was such. Yes, it’s It’s awesome.
Awesome show. I was wondering if you could just tell the audience a little bit about how you got to writing the good Little Drug, Lord.
Sean: How did I get to writing it? Well, you know, well, okay. [00:02:00] There is a very clear response to that. Okay. For me that I will share.
But I got there creatively. Just, you know, by the last 20 years, just continuing to write. I’ve always been a person who’s journaled. I’ve journaled since my teen years, so journaling and writing has always been a part of my life. And I’ve been writing all kinds of different things. One man shows screenplays, other writing things.
So I’ve always been writing. And then it was, it was the push at UVA working with my professors who are all published authors that sort of just kind of ushered me into this next phase. But, but why now and why, you know, 20 years later the story is so, I mean, gay Mormon drug dealing narc for the federal government.
I mean, so I, it seems like,
Gissele: where do you start? Why don’t we start with the Mormonism? So you were raised Mormon.
Sean: I was raised Mormon. Not in Utah though. I am from Northern [00:03:00] Virginia. There are big Mormon wards lots of, you know wonderful Mormons.
And that’s where I was raised. And with, I have six other siblings. I’m the middle child of seven. Wow. The thing that’s slightly different about my family is my father never was, nor never will be. Well, he’s passed on, but it was never Mormon. we were raised by him, but also by the other fathers of the church wards
Doing like the Boy Scouts, all that kind of stuff. Still, I’m sure it’s more acceptable now, but like having a non-Mormon father was low key, like shameful, like ugh, that that poor Hemeon family, how, you know? So we felt that, but it didn’t matter. I was devoted to my mother.
My mother was my person and she very much made me her person. You know, little, little gay boys we’re emotional. and my father wasn’t giving my mom much. Poor guy was exhausted trying to, raise a family of seven. So you could imagine how that’s a big family.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sean: I
Gissele: mean mm-hmm.
Sean: I have two kids
Gissele: and I gotta tell you two, sticking my butt. So imagine [00:04:00] seven.
Sean: I can’t even, I can’t even, and it, it’s more than it. It truly, it truly takes a village.
Like truly like back in the day when we were tribes and villages, the whole village would raise a kid, you know, unity.
Gissele: Yeah. We’ve totally lost that. Yeah.
Sean: Yeah. And so my mom just was lost in all of that, raising the kids and, you know dealing with her own depression and anxieties and that kind of stuff.
and she leaned heavily onto the Mormon church, almost like in a codependent way, to the point where it was like the church was above her family. Like she just had no sort of structure, stability to really own it. So like, everything was dependent upon that. So, you know, it, everything was about saving our soul, like forcing us to go to church.
You don’t understand like, I’m saving your soul. So you can imagine that’s what they
Gissele: truly believed, right? They truly believed that that’s what it was, that they were doing it. So it, it came from a good place. It’s just the, the perspective [00:05:00] is yeah.
Sean: Different now,
they’re slightly not different because it’s still, it still comes from the belief of the afterlife.
Like, we’re living this life for the afterlife. And so like what we do now really depends upon, upon what we do that gets us to the afterlife. I mean, my mother’s never gonna get her own planet ’cause she’s not male. Sorry. That was a back, that was a cheap one. That was No, that was
Gissele: hilarious though.
Sean: I’m sorry.
I’m apologies to,
Gissele: apologies to
Sean: everyone
Gissele: and it was funny.
Sean: If there’s Mormons listening, I’m not like resentful anymore, but just more power to you. If that’s true, then you know what? I got it so wrong.
Gissele: Yeah, I, but I have a hard time reconciling, I think when it comes to religion in particular is the sometimes conflicting perspectives of, well, you know, we’re living for the aam, we’re saving your soul.
We care. And at the same time, there’s certain people that are excluded. Right. Like people from the gay community, they’re [00:06:00] not included. Like, the whole thing that I can’t ever reconcile with myself is like how the teachings, ’cause all of these are basically based on the Bible. I could be totally wrong.
I I’m a spiritual, not religious. But, but the fundamental beliefs about love being the true essence, right? Like God loves his children, Jesus loves his siblings, and, but that, that sometimes religions deviates so much that there’s certain groups of people that are unacceptable. Is that what led to your, exit from the church?
Sean: Essential essentially, yes. You know, I mean, most religions are based upon a man’s interpretation of these ancient texts. The Mormons. And had a single man, Joseph Smith write his own text and Really Be Bend. That’s right. The book of Mormon, I remember and really, really bend it to his will. And he was having revelations [00:07:00] directly from God, which were all very convenient with what he needed at the time.
It’s just specific, they’re,
Gissele: it’s just, and that’s why like, is this God or is this man? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Sean: Yeah. If you, if you asked him, he would’ve said God, but that’s just where our, our brains can go. Our brains can make, we don’t make us believe anything with a, with enough, with enough power.
Gissele: You raised something that I really also always struggled with in terms of religion.
And again, like religion has been a really important factor for people that I know in my life. It’s basically been lifesaving, so I’m not saying anything against religion, but the only thing that I always found puzzling, even as a kid, I remember thinking like I. Why are some people spoken to directly and why do some of us have to go through other people?
Like I would just wanna start Yeah. Talk straight to the Lord. Right. It’s like, it’s so it,
Sean: I thought No, no. I thought that at eight years old. That’s so funny you said that like in Sunday school, I was like, I had a lot of questions about the founding of the church. Like why are there not the [00:08:00] miracles now?
Why can’t I talk to God directly? Like I had all of those. Yes. And I, I was told, I was like, I was told to go pray more. I didn’t have enough faith. Like I was told I was wrong for thinking that like I didn’t have enough faith.
That truly is what my spirituality is based on now. Yeah. Just direct contact to whatever I believe in. Of course that’s there. But this whole middle person is making a lot of people suffer in this world, in my opinion. You know, I like to tell myself that, that the shame is manmade.
I, that doesn’t exist in my spirituality or with my God or with whatever I believe shame is, shame is manmade to control people.
Gissele: Yeah. Wow. I completely, completely agree. I definitely think that it’s not from like, you know, God source universe, like there’s nothing but loving and accepting unconditionally.
And some people don’t like the word unconditional love, but it’s that, that love, like the true love, not the, the love with expectations or with judgment or with criticism or [00:09:00] conditional, it’s that, yeah, it’s, it’s that unconditional love for, for all fellow human beings. And that’s where like, I.
Religion lost me. That’s where in its absence of accepting certain people, because to me, I couldn’t reconcile the loving God who loves everyone. And it’s made man in its image, which means all of these different variety of people, it’s made in God’s image and that some people are not acceptable. I just, it didn’t compute in my little brain and I really, really struggle with that, which is why I’m not a religious person.
I can understand people’s need for support and what you were talking about, community, religion and churches give people community and that I feel we have lost so much, which is I think why people are so strongly they move forward towards religion and, and the in religion as an institution. ’cause I think we’ve lost that.
But at the same time I [00:10:00] really struggled with like, I. There was this, there’s this meme that was shared on Facebook, and it’s my absolute favorite. And there’s, it’s a picture of Jesus talking to the 12 apostles and there’s Jesus saying, okay, love everybody. And then some of the apostles go, even those people over there.
And then Jesus goes, I’m gonna start again. tell me where I’ve lost you. Because that’s basically his messaging is like, love everybody. Not, not just some people like love everyone. Everybody is worthy of love.
Sean: It, it’s a much better experience for me now, coming from living from living with a worldview based upon fear.
And there was demons and devil everywhere. There was a lot of fear. But living now from a worldview of, well, we were created for love, to love by love. Mm-hmm. I really, I really love the teachings of this man named Meher Baba, who lived in the last century. Actually, [00:11:00] most people would know him ’cause of don’t worry, be happy.
It’s a very famous phrase. And, and Meher Baba was like, listen, everything that’s needed to be said has been said, so I’m not gonna speak for 42 years. And just be an example and don’t worry. Be happy. Do your best and leave the rest to God or the universe or whatever you believe. And I’m like that, that, that I can, I will subscribe to that.
I will subscribe to the universe being created for love and to love. I mean, I can do that.
Gissele: we talk a lot about what we should do, but we don’t follow,
growing up, I was, I was raised by two people that experienced serious trauma and we weren’t taught to trust. And so one of the things that I looked for was people’s behavior. You could have told me anything. I didn’t care what you said. You could have told me that you were the best person in the world, but it was how you acted that demonstrated.
And I think the person you were just mentioning is, I’m gonna be the lighthouse, I’m gonna be the example. If people choose to follow me or not, I’m gonna stop giving advice because everyone’s always telling people what to do, [00:12:00] right? It’s like, go do this, do that. But are we embodying love and compassion are we embodying these essences.
And I really had to ask myself that question when there was lots of things in my life where I was not embodying love and compassion, but I was telling people they should. And so then I was like, I need to stop talking and I need to start doing and being, and so what I, what you just said, I think is, is super important.
Sean: I think Meher Baba was raised Zoroastrian, and I may have this wrong, but a lot of that is based upon your actions with Zoroastrian. Mm. It’s like, it’s like how you exist in the world. I may have that wrong, but that, that feels right. Like as far as like, it matters how we show up, you know?
Gissele: Yeah. Anyway. Absolutely. I, I love that. So I just wanted to transition in terms of how you began, like your. Relationship with addictions. Was it, yeah. So, so what was a pivoting point and why do you think that that you kind of leaned into Addictions?
Sean: Yeah I will, let you know Sean’s idea in theory of the addiction cycle, [00:13:00] which is very simply this, I already.
Shared about my thoughts about shame and in, in my world, and this is speaking from 20 years of being in recovery, this is speaking from bouncing through a few different 12 step programs. ’cause, you know, I wanna make a t-shirt that says there’s a program for that. ’cause you know, there’s a money program, there’s like a food program, there’s a sex program, a relationship program.
It be, I, you know, there’s 12 steps is is all about just sort of having, gaining a spiritual sense awareness about yourself and the world and healing from your past trauma. So like, really that’s what it is. It manifests all kinds of different ways, but for me, what I have noticed, despite what the outside looks like, what the different programs, it’s always essentially coming from this core of not enough, this, this bedrock of messaging that says I am worthless, I’m not enough.
And anybody can chart their childhood and point to different things that reinforce that. And my ego’s job is to reinforce the personality that’s being built. It doesn’t know if it’s right or wrong, it just reinforces what’s there. [00:14:00] And so it strove to reinforce this not enoughness.
And that’s the lens I looked at through the world and built a case file of, you know, reinforcing, you know, Sean, as he exists, is a not enough person. So with that, with that bedrock shame that I existed in, there’s a lot of pain that came from that. And what happens with addictions is like they provide, you know, at first it’s fine.
I’m not knocking people who do drugs or drink. It’s just like, at first it’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah. But with somebody like myself, you know, when I first had my first sip of alcohol at like 15, 14, or when I had my first hit of methamphetamines at 19, I literally said out loud, oh my God, I wanna feel like this all the time.
That’s trouble. the addiction cycle is this. you have that thing. It provides relief from that clear existential angst emotionals, you know? And so you re keep reaching for the thing. But what happens is, you know, our brains are built on habits. That’s, that’s what they, our belief is just a repeated thought over and over until it becomes unconscious.
And we, [00:15:00] that’s the way the brain, just the mechanics of it are. So if you keep reaching for a certain thing based upon a trigger or a cue, it just gets embedded. It gets so embedded that an addiction is basically a reflex. That’s all it is. It’s just like, once you get the thought, the thought becomes.
The thing that puts you on the rollercoaster, I could think of using the thing and I’m done for, I’m done for, because I get locked into the thought pattern in my brain and I have to finish that rollercoaster, which means using, but at that point, using has become such consequential, so consequential in my life that it just creates more shame.
And so I actually think the addiction is not the thing itself, but the payoff, which is more shame, which is more not enoughness. And I’m more addicted to reinforcing the belief that I’m not enough. So I’ll keep using to reinforce that all of that feels powerless because it’s all happening unconscious below my prefrontal cortex to stop it.
So that’s why I believe in the powerlessness of it. I am, yes, [00:16:00] I don’t have control over this thing, so I need to avoid triggers that make me. Think of it or places people, places things, that kind of stuff. So that’s Sean’s theory of addiction. Take it or leave it. But it’s, it’s generally accurate, I think, in what I’ve experienced.
So, so when I’m 13, my hormones are kicking in. I already have messaging that homosexuality is gonna send me to hell and definitely not have my mother love me, which is even worse.
Gissele (2): Yeah.
Sean: Well, when I start noticing I have a different feeling about my male classmates, I automatically go to a place of, oh wow, I did something so bad to this Mormon god that he cursed me with the disease of gayness.
Mm-hmm. I am worse than a piece of crap. I don’t know if I’m supposed to cuss, but I, I am worse than that. Mm-hmm. I did something so bad that I have been given this thing, this punishment, and that’s what I thought. And I [00:17:00] immediately wanted it to die at 13, I was just like, what’s the point? You know? So when I first had my first weed, well, weed made me paranoid, but I still did a lot of it.
Gissele: But as weed can do, yeah,
Sean: yeah. No. And so in my family, unfortunately, fortunately it’s kind of cute, but not really cute, but like the eldest brother got that brother drunk for the first time. That brother got that brother drunk for the first time. That brother got me drunk for the first time. Mm-hmm. Cute.
And like, oh yeah, brothers are bonding. It’s like, sure. But like at the same time it’s like addiction ran in our family. So it was our way of bonding the best we could. Mm-hmm. It’s totally fine. I’m not really knocking it, but when I have, of course. When I had, when I had that, that first, those first couple beers and realizing how good I felt, like, how there was another option of how to feel in the world.
I was like this, I want more of this and I want this all the time. And that same day, going home and being pretty inebriated for a 14, 15-year-old in front of my mother. And she not even giving a clue ’cause she’s just so much in denial or naive or with the Mormon stuff. The fact that I got away with it really [00:18:00] solidified like, cool, this is, this is what I’m doing.
So by the time I graduated from high school, I was already blacking out. My drinking was kept to the weekends, but it started creeping into the week at 18. You know, and so I was already experimenting with other drugs ’cause you know, tolerance, tolerance builds for everything. And so, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Gissele: It’s your body’s way of reaching homeostasis, right. Yeah. So you need more and more and more and more to get to that same level.
Sean: the alcohol relieved me. It didn’t save me. What actually saved me was finding out that my, my new best friend from eighth grade, ninth grade, this other fellow, this other guy, felt like I did.
And we, we fell madly in love in ninth grade and we hid our relationship all four years of high school. Part of that is super romantic, like Romeo and Romeo. Yeah,
Gissele: I know I am,
Sean: but the other half of that is super tragic because I’m trying to be football captain home. I’m a total cliche homecoming court dating the girls.
Like we’d have to go on double [00:19:00] dates, watch each other, like, you know, hook up with the girl. Like it was tragic. And so by the time I’m also 18, that thing has started. We didn’t have the emotional. Intelligence. We didn’t, no, but he even lived at my home junior year in high school because his home situation was so terrible that my mother asked him to stay.
So my like madly in love with boyfriend lived with me It saved my life because. I was like, how could something so wrong feel this? Right? Like, love, love. We had love, we did not have the, vessel to hold this love. Mm-hmm. It was
Gissele (2): a,
Sean: a mess, but we had this love and it saved me.
and so, so when that tragically ended at 19 mostly because we did not have the tools at all. Yeah. I mean, we were teenagers. I was already messing up and terrible. He needed to break up with me, but I blamed him because he left me for another, I started coming out my freshman year in college and he came down, visited me, met one of my new friends, and they went off together.
And I was like, the world [00:20:00] hates me. And so 19 is when I went off the deep end. And really since he was my world, since he became my God at thir at 14
Gissele (2): mm-hmm.
Sean: With him gone. I had nothing. I had nothing, nothing, nothing. So that was when I attempted. My suicide. But really, I will say it wasn’t, it’s, it was different.
Somebody who really wants to do suicide, they do the goodbyes, they really plan it. They really, like, they know they’re doing it two weeks from now. Mine was all improvised. The night of, it was one of those, I’m cutting my wrists, I’m stabbing, you know, mirror shards in my wrist, I’m gonna bleed out. If I do, that’s great.
If I don’t, whatever. That’s kind of like, it was more of this cry for help. My mother found me. Yeah, of course. And this was my, this was my coming out to her. This was my, you know, the, the next day I saw a therapist and she encouraged me to tell my mother. And I did. And my mother was not prepared.
Not prepared with her naive ignorant, I don’t wanna say she’s stupid, ignorant, but like, just ignorant, just not having all the full information. So of course the very first thing she asked me was, do you have aids? And I’m like. Girl, [00:21:00] I don’t have aids. Like,
Gissele (2): oh my God. And then she
Sean: start, she starts crying, making it about herself because she was like, I’m not gonna have grandchildren.
And it was like, ’cause this is mid nineties. No, this is,
Gissele: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sean: Oh no, this is 2000. But isn’t it
Gissele: funny how like, parents just do that? Like, the only thing I, I kept thinking was like, what world do we live in where we make people feel like they’re not enough? Like that, that it just, it, it just breaks my heart so much.
that, Certain love’s unacceptable. It’s love. It’s love is love is love is love. Like I don’t care who my kids marry. I, I am like, marry an alien. Marry. Like, it’s, you don’t fall in love with gender. You fall in love with beings, the whole essence of the person.
They love a, a being. They, it’s. Well, how could love be wrong? And it just, it just breaks my heart so much that every single day there’s, there’s these beliefs outta fear, out of sheer fear. And to be honest, I don’t really know [00:22:00] what they’re really afraid of. Like, what’s the real fear behind it? Oh yeah. What is it like,
Sean: maybe as, oh, I have
Gissele: two
Sean: thoughts on that.
Gissele: Oh, okay. Go tell me. I have, I have,
Sean: I have, well, I have two thoughts and they’re both related so my mother with the religious side and then my eldest brother was a perfect Mormon. Went on his mission, went to BYU married in the church, but he’s left the church since then.
But like, he was the shining example for my mother. My two other brothers were like my dad, they left the church and they were like, that’s, that’s a crock of shit. Like golden plates my butt. Like, you know, they were making fun of it. They were doing all those things now. But my sexuality was a threat to both and here’s why.
One for the religion. I could speak to the Mormons. I don’t know about the other, Christian faith. My, the believing in my right to marry based upon it not being a choice, meaning I was born into the sexuality and I get to love who I wanna love is a direct assault against the core of the Mormon faith, which is the family [00:23:00] is the centerpiece.
It is the key to the afterlife. You get, tied to your family for eternity. Everything is based upon the male female unit. So if they were to fully. accept they allow gay people in the church, but you can’t act in the lifestyle, which is what my mother said to me. She’s like, well, we know we love you and accept you, but just not the lifestyle, which is Christian Code for sex with other men, but it is a direct assault against their core, so they can never accept it as mm-hmm.
Some something that you’re born with.
Now my dad’s side, you know, my dad being, you know, a child of the 1950s, you know, man’s man, you know, just that kind of stuff. Even though, you know, he was a hippie, he was chill and everything, but still he was a man.
Man. He was a man. Mm-hmm. Like misogynistic man. And I think homosexuality is a direct assault against toxic masculinity as well. In fact, it needs homosexuality to exist. For it to exist because it needs what [00:24:00] they think is that mirror of like, well, that’s weak, that is feminine, which is also very sexist.
And this is, this is how they react to it. So it is a direct assault against, you know, the Hemeon man family line, because now we’re all gonna be seen as weak and feminine, which is messed up, but also mm-hmm. It’s, but mostly actually not, also, mostly because of that. So that’s why, and, and if they were to accept.
Homosexuality as not being a choice. I get to love who I wanna love. It’s a direct assault against their manhood as they see it, their manhood as they see their place in the world. It’s how they exist. So for both sides, it’s an existential crisis for them to allow to accept me as I fully am, as you understand me to be, as many of your listeners understand me to be.
and most people in this world do not have the emotional intelligence, the mental capacities to walk through this existential crisis. [00:25:00] So they double down on it, you know, or Yeah, they evolve. My mom’s evolved.
Gissele: And, and that’s important because people can change and can be more open.
As you were talking, I was thinking about, have you heard of Alok? Alok was saying that the reason why people are so threatened by other people, like let’s say homosexuality, is that if you allow people to live their dreams and be themselves, that shatters the fact that they are living who they think they should be.
And by watching somebody live their most authentic life, be who they really are, sort of breaks that mirror of like, oh my God, they’re living exactly how they wanna live authentically. we can’t do that. We have to live like people expect us to. We have to follow this, stay in this box. And I think it’s very scary for people to see people living.
Their biggest, boldest dreams and so [00:26:00] rather than thinking I can go there and align, they’re like, no, you gotta come down. You gotta come to this level. You gotta come down here.
Sean: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s scary. Yeah, you’re right. It’s total threat to that. I mean, I can spot, I can spot a Mormon anywhere. To me, they have the same sort of energy and the same sort of look, I mean, especially the cultural Mormons, like mm-hmm.
You become, you become generic. you become a piece of the many. And, my mom certainly, you know, lived with so many fears about continuing to be accepted in that community. Living through what she did with me, she was already battling it with marrying a non-Mormon.
But, you know, it like, yeah. Just, just to give her some grace, you know, her first husband my mom is gorgeous, was gorgeous. Mm. At BYU, she marries the BYU football captain. Mm-hmm. But it, it turns out this a-hole was incredibly verbally, physically, emotionally abusive. I mean, they’re 21, 22, but still, like he was abusive.
Mm-hmm. To the point. I also come to find out he was abusive because, you know, the cops arrested him for dealing steroids. [00:27:00] So my mother comes from Utah to her family in Northern Virginia. ’cause my grandfather worked for the US Geological Survey and my grandfather wouldn’t talk to my mother because she got a divorce.
It was too embarrassing for him at the church. So, of course, my broken bird of a mother gets swooped up by my very charming father and they get married four months later. ’cause you know, she’s taught to believe that like her save is through a man is through getting married.
So this charming man comes through and promises to save her and there you go. Mm-hmm. So it’s, you know. It’s all set. It’s a, the system is set up against you.
Gissele: But I was just thinking as you were talking, thinking about Alok’s perspective, if you are allowed to live your dream and, and completely disregard the church’s perspective, right?
If you married your amazing husband, what’s to stop other people from saying, you know what, I don’t need to follow this. I [00:28:00] can just live my dream by myself. I could just follow my heart and live my dream, and then it’s a threat to the whole institution.
Gissele (2): Mm-hmm.
Thank you. That was
Gissele: really, that really kind of hammered it in there for me. I’m like, oh, I get it. There’s all of that fundamental fear of people really stepping into their own power and accepting themselves, right? Yep. There is an element of religiosity that, or at least of, of the religion as an institution that requires people to feel they’re less than, right.
Yeah.
Sean: The back to the shame, which is what that shame.
Gissele: and I was gonna talk about that. ’cause one of the most important things that I feel, I mean you said many critical things, is you talked about the shame spiral. Mm-hmm. Which is people going like, you know, they use because they feel like they’re not good enough.
And then after they use, they feel like, well, I’m already here. I’ve already a terrible, worse person because I now on top of that used, I’m gonna keep going. Mm-hmm. And then you get down that shame spiral, which makes [00:29:00] recovery so much worse. But we don’t treat people for shame. We treat people for addictions Right
Sean: at, at first.
And if you want long-term recovery, okay. At first. ’cause in my, in my, in my world, if you want long-term recovery, it’s you then therefore have to go after the shame. But what happens, what happens if you have a keen awareness of this as I kind of did, meaning like I. I recognized that I just didn’t feel enough.
And what happened to me after I came out to my mother and why, you know, I started this whole thing with like gay Mormon drug dealing narc for the federal government. What essentially happened to me was I took that mantle as like, I’m just f you all. I am not enough. Like I took, I embodied the shame. I embodied this powerful rebel energy.
When I say powerful, it just made me feel powerful because it was a major f you to the Mormon God, to my mother, to the world. I had so much rage. ’cause there was just [00:30:00] so many things that happened in my life up to that point that just seemed so effing unfair. That just seemed so wrong.
And I was like low key unconscious, being like, okay, you want me to hurt? I’m gonna make you hurt. Watch this. And that’s when I found crystal meth. And that’s when I was like. I’m 22, I’m 21, I’m invincible. I can stop when I want to. None of the consequences will happen to me. That’s how I started.
and I started that with also like, I wanna feel like this all the time. Very dangerous words, very, very dangerous words. And and I went hard. I went hard and every single consequence happened to me times 10. I got lucky. I got incredibly profoundly lucky to the point I think it had to happen that way.
So I can sit here and talk to you about it. That’s the only way of explaining it.
Gissele: Yeah. Oh, wow. so in terms of the shifting from being a drug taker to a drug [00:31:00] dealer, how would that shift? were you using at the same time when you were a drug dealer as well?
Sean: Of course. So I went to theater school in Richmond, Virginia because it was like, when it came time to decide what to do with college, I loved my theater classes. I didn’t think of it as a profession. I loved my theater classes in high school, but I was so forced into playing sports and living up to this idea that my brothers gave me and trying to be straight.
And but I would even play, I would do like half of the beginning of like whatever play we were doing. And then Rod down to the lacrosse field at the same, it was, it was, it was fun. The director really respected me. I think he knew the director was a mentor of mine. He definitely knew and could see lots in me that I couldn’t see and stuff.
But when it came time for college, I was like, oh, I can still do the theater thing. That’s kind of fun. But I never took it fully serious as I obviously do now. But,
Gissele (2): so
Sean: I, I went to school at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, 90 miles south of DC And while I was there I. The first couple years I will say, like, I ended up dating somebody else and it is, we were just lots of weed [00:32:00] and 911 happened.
I lived in New York for a sec. All that doesn’t matter by my, what does matter is I got to a point where after that relationship ended, I couldn’t face another breakups. So I went hardcore into the DC scene every weekend from DC with a friend. We would just party all through the weekend. We’d stay up for two days and come back and I would do my classes and I was like, cool, I can do this.
I can do theater, school and party from Friday at night to Sunday and come back.
Gissele: But you were a functioning drug user?
Sean: Yeah. Okay. Yes, because, but I was like 22, so it was like, you know, the easier to metabolism. Yeah, exactly. Easier to hide, easier to bounce back from. It changed when I met, a drug dealer who became my boyfriend because it was the allure of, you know, this nightlife thing, the allure of the drugs of doing this thing was all there.
But when he walked in and like. You know, the seas parted. It was the second coming. It was like, who is this? What is this? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He immediately took a liking to me and I went off with him, and then I was suddenly like seeing the most drugs [00:33:00] I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You know, it was like, it went from like, you know, being in high school and like four friends splitting one tiny pill of ecstasy to like in one joint.
Did any
Gissele: part of you go, maybe this isn’t the way like that any part of you go like,
Sean: well, I, yes and no because again, I was living under the illusion that I’m so young, this is really cool, but I knew wasn’t the part of this. Yeah. That Exactly, exactly, exactly.
That. Like, like, this is thrilling for tonight. Like, this is really cool for tonight, and that’s what, that’s how I looked at it and it was like, you know, it was the first, you know, I, somebody was smoking the meth. I was like, that. That scared me. That was a little like. What? No, that’s real addicts over there.
But I ended up dating him because I was so still so fascinated with the world. I was also very fascinated with getting free drugs and mm-hmm. and it didn’t take long for, you know, that fall semester just sort of fall apart because to get back to school, I needed drugs to drive, but he was getting it late.
So suddenly I’m missing Monday classes, and then [00:34:00] suddenly I’m missing Monday, Tuesday classes. And then it sort of started creeping into my schedule a little bit. I totally messed up and missed many rehearsals. I got almost booted from school by the director and, and, and I didn’t wanna admit that like my, he couldn’t keep up with my addiction.
So what ended up happening washe did a lot of drugs, but he liked ketamine and if you do enough, you kind of go to sleep. And so he did that. There, there was, there was one night where, you know, he was a big dealer in DC but his phone was just blowing up and he passed out and I knew his people, his clients.
And so I went and made the deliveries. ’cause I wanted to feel what it was like just for the night. But then when I came back after being successful, you know, like, Hey, look, I’m running your business. And also I’m watching him like feeling like I could do better. Yeah. But still, like, not even thinking of that.
Anyway, he just, he went off the deep end and just accused me of all these kinds of things. And so with my rebel resentful energy, I was like, f you, I proved to you that I [00:35:00] can do this. And so I was like, okay, for three months I’m gonna be a dealer. Mm-hmm. And that’s how I started. The dealing, but, you know and in that time I drove my car under the back of a Mack truck because I fell asleep at the wheel, which should have been a warning call.
I failed a bunch of finals, which should have been a wake up call. It wasn’t, I I chose not to go back to spring semester school also should have been a wake up call, but it wasn’t. But it started weighing on me. And so I was like, okay, I’m just gonna prove I’m better than that stupid ex-boyfriend and take all of his clients.
Mm-hmm. And, and I did. And I had a really busy weekend. I was like, great, I have all this money. I proved my point. Now I can go back to school. And, by that point I built the dream of, working in Hollywood. And especially after, you know, watching my mom see the celebrities at the Oscars, or my dad, I’d go to the movies with him the way he looked at like.
Tom Hanks or Sylvester Stallone. Wow. Or like, I would just be like, oh, I wish my dad would look at me that way. So I was like, okay, I’m [00:36:00] gonna be a big famous actor. But that weekend was the weekend I got arrested. I fell asleep at the wheel in an alleyway. My, license was suspended.
I didn’t know it because of the car accident. And at that time, I believe the ex-boyfriend who I was confronting right before then, called the cops on me. So I was just about to get out. I was just about to go, you know, do it some other way. And I was arrested.
I was arrested with possession, with intent to distribute. And the great irony here is, they had a mandatory debrief with these federal agents. And they were, they were essentially in so many words saying, Hey kid, you gotta keep doing what you were doing. If you want to give us some intel, that will help your case out.
But I was like, People are gonna know I was arrested, they’re not gonna deal with me. And they essentially said, you know, figure it out. And I was like, I have to deal more than that. suddenly I’m being faced with having to find a way to deal bigger amounts of drugs in order to get connections to suppliers [00:37:00] bigger than my ex-boyfriend in order to give them actual intel that will get my case.
my court appointed lawyer he was saying it’d be like three years in jail. I was like, three years is a long time. But the agents were like, Hey, we could do 10 plus years. We can find ways to make this happen. I’m just like, what is happening here?
but I also saw enough movies. I was like, I’m not a narc. I’m not gonna narc, I’m not gonna do all these things. snitches get stitches. I know, but, and exactly. And by this point, I hadn’t drawn a sober breath since the fall it just suddenly dawned on me as like, I forgot what it was like to be sober.
And by this point I just started smoking it. I rationalized like I needed to. I just started smoking it. As long as I don’t inject it, then I’m not an addict and I don’t have a problem. That was the belief. But I was smoking a lot and, and that was like my baseline. And then I was doing ketamine and, well, I was doing GHB, which is a party drug that makes you feel like you’re drunk and euphoric.
I was doing that to actually feel happy and high. So GHB and meth, I was doing 24 7. Wow. And then ecstasy, ketamine on top of that. And
Gissele: [00:38:00] holy micro.
Sean: Well, I mean, I’m now dealing with the anxiety and stress of potentially being an informant dealer.
Gissele: No,
Sean: I’ve never successfully. Described or portrayed the profound sense of loneliness that I felt because I already felt lonely as a teenager, hiding, being in the closet hiding who I really am.
But with the drug addicts, it was like I was now part of the outcast. So I already felt lonely there. But now being this potential informant, I couldn’t even tell the outcast. So I suddenly felt like this outcast of the outcast of the outcast, like I, I flaunted it in front of my family. They all knew. And, and you know,
They were telling me to inform. They knew everything. ’cause I was like, look at me now. Look at me. Make all this money. And my brothers would make fun of me. They were like, is there like a gay mafia? Do you all have like matching pink guns? And I’m like, trying to take this serious.
So I started traveling other cities to bring drugs back, to get connections to [00:39:00] suppliers near DC that would help. And, I met somebody in Atlanta and the city DC became dry, which means there was no drugs. And so eventually everybody started buying from me. I’m on top of the world.
This is amazing. The agents want intel, but I’m enjoying being like legendary status dealer, DC I’m enjoying this power. Big money, big money, big all, I’m a celebrity. I have talked about power, like power. And as a
Gissele: person who has felt powerless in the past, that must have felt
Sean: I was, I was primed and ready for crystal meth.
Crystal meth, man, that makes you feel like you’re Superman, the president and a porn star all in one. and it’s tragic because if you’re as repressed as I was, it allowed me to like, the thing I loved truly.
If you asked me deep down like, what did you really love about being out there? If there was anything you loved, well, there’s two things I loved. One was finding connection in the lowest of places. ’cause it had such profound meaning for those people closest to me, we were all just hurting. And we recognized that.
Gissele (2): Yeah. But
Sean: yeah. But the other main thing was my goodness. [00:40:00] I could dance for hours. I just pushed everything away and I would go dance for six, eight hours. And the liberation of that was so the excising what society thought of me, my family I was definitely on drugs doing it, but there was also some part of it that no drug could touch.
And so that’s what, but, but at this point in the story, even that like was pulling away from me because I’m so bonkers. But you asked me originally why the book now, what ended up happening was I was involved in an incident in Atlanta where a young man who I just met that night, he died. he OD’ed on GHB and we think he went away and had alcohol.
I provided the drugs, but he had done many drugs before me and I was with a supplier, his friend, but classic movie scenario, we dropped his body at the ER and sped away. And, you know, I walked away realizing I potentially had a chance to save his life, but I acted too late because my paranoid brain, my disillusioned, like all the, like, it was, [00:41:00] it was all of that.
And so two weeks later I get a call from this young man’s mother ’cause I was the last number on his phone bill. And she just begged me to know what happened, begged me. I was paranoid, I was all the things and I hung up on her. And that is one of my biggest regrets from this time. Obviously there’s a lot, but this one, like, I robbed her.
Of the sense of closure for her son. I tried to find her a year later when I got sober. I tried to find her writing the book, but the book is like a message in a bottle. There’s a whole chapter just for her just to be like, this is what happened to your son. That messed me up. So I stopped traveling. Then I had one of my runners who would run the drugs around.
He had a connection to this straight guy who supposedly worked for the Russian mafia. I got desperate at that point. I was like, okay, maybe, maybe this will be a big enough get for the agents. And then and so I met the guy and young like me and he was really messed up ’cause he was very attractive.
And I was like, I really sexualizing my anxiety and stress of [00:42:00] feeling rooting for this guy. You would put, you know, like, I mean, the gun would be in my face, like pinned up gun in my face, especially when I owed him money. And I’m just like looking like he’s close to my face. I’m like, just kiss me. It’s so bad.
Yeah.
Gissele: It’s just like, he’s so handsome.
Sean: He’s so bad. It, so bad. Oh my God. I just, I just think that’s the Probably kept you alive. Yeah. Yeah. Right. If you would’ve
Gissele: been probably more afraid.
Sean: the meth would just, again, make me feel invincible. and mm-hmm.
It also turns out he had the best meth that I think DC had ever seen before, ever. That I had ever seen. It was just this. Mm-hmm. And so it was so good that I started and I was so. Now tragically messed up after what happened to the boy and the mother. And also wrestling. Like, I don’t wanna be a narc
that I started using more than I started selling and I started owing him money. And then he became very volatile. Very like threatening. And so when it came time to do my sentencing [00:43:00] hearing I, I’m so paraphrasing, people should definitely read the book
Gissele: ’cause it’s, I’m sure a lot of people have questions ’cause I’m jumping through things here. When it came down, when it came down for my sentencing I gave up. I was like, one, I started actually believing like, oh, I really can’t stop using drugs.
Sean: Two, I’m afraid of what this mafia guy will do. Do. Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t wanna live the rest of my life with the shame of being a rat, which is I, which is so funny to me now, thinking of how like that’s embedded in our society. That, that, like, that’s really what I believe. But really it was just, I was terrified.
I was profoundly terrified of prison. Like the not not being able to stop using and the mafia guy just eclipsed that fear just by like 1% for me to be like,
Gissele (2): mm.
Sean: But when I showed up for my sentencing, the federal prosecutor asked for the case to be dismissed.
You know, my court appointed lawyer, this guy named Dennis Braddock, who like heart of gold [00:44:00] does thousands of these, pulls me aside. He was like, what did you do? I was like, I didn’t do anything. He’s like, I’ve never seen that before. Like, I mean, he was blown away. And
Gissele: not meant to be there. I,
Sean: I still don’t know why to this day I really don’t.
And I lasted six more weeks out there. it really was to keep using, but I convinced myself like, oh, I should find a way to pay. His name was well in the book. His name is Vadim. I should find a way to pay him back because now I’m worried he is gonna go after my family. ’cause now he’s threatening my friends.
Gissele (2): Mm-hmm.
Sean: But really that was a lie to keep me, I mean, kind of true, but also a lie to keep me using. I lasted six more weeks until I made that call to my parents. And and in that moment of clarity, when I called my parents and being confronted by Vadim, I’ll say this and then I’ll move on from the story.
Two weeks prior that my best friend out there, this girl who was with me through every step of it, she was, raped in college and that’s why she was like hiding out amongst the gay boy drug addicts and, and she was somebody I, I loved and could trust and, but I didn’t tell her.
But [00:45:00] I, at this point, I, when I told her everything after the case was dropped, she said she wanted to go to rehab. And I kid you not. I looked at her and I was like, you can do that. Like, I really thought rehab was for Requiem for a Dream or the, the guy’s doing heroin. And, and I was like, well let, okay, two weeks is my birthday.
We’ll have a going away party, which is hilarious. Anyway, that time came and that was when I really got to my knees and realized I couldn’t stop ’cause I wasn’t stopping. And that, that broke my brain, all illusions, A window of clarity opened. I called my parents and they came, she called her parents who lived in Boston, which was nine hours away.
They got in the car half an hour later and were zooming down to her and then, and then Vadim confronted me and I didn’t know any what else to do. So I was just honest. I was like. I’m, I’m, I’m gonna go to rehab and can I do like a payment plan when I get a job? Who was a payment plan with the mafia? I’m not kidding.
My editor made me change this in the book because it sounded too [00:46:00] unrealistic. Yes. So the wording is different. You got it. Here, you you’re gonna tell the truth here. Go ahead. The truth is, I, I kid you not vadim, when I said this to him, took a moment and he goes, you can do that. Like, he didn’t even know that and I was like, yeah, that’s, yeah, yeah, man, you can, you can totally do that.
And then he took a long pause and then he was like, you know, I’ve always wanted to sell real estate And I was like, I. Man, you can, you can do that. And then a long pause again. And then, you know, we had a few months together. Like we made a connection. We had a connection, you know, was
And then he was like, okay, yeah, man, you know what? Forget about the money. Best of luck.
Gissele: Oh.
Sean: And and then I got, Sean got, got in the minivan with my parents and, you know, started my journey in recovery.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sean: There was a lot. I I gave you the big bullet points. There’s obviously, there’s a lot more in [00:47:00] there.
Well,
Gissele: I’m gonna read the book, so I’m excited for that. Yeah.
Sean: Well, I go backwards in time because this is relevant to our previous conversations because, the experience of Okay. Being confronted with my actions of most of my actions were my bad choices that were consequential to me.
Gissele (2): Yeah.
Sean: When the experience happened with the young boy in Atlanta and I acted too late because I was like telling myself like, he’s not dying. Like this can’t be happening.
Gissele: Yeah. You don’t wanna believe it.
Sean: it really made me confront like, I already knew.
I felt like a piece of crap about myself, like worthless. I owned that. I was like, don’t like myself. Self-loathing, physical harm all, doesn’t matter. Hate, yeah, hate this, but I still felt like I was a good person, which is different than feeling like a pile of crap, you know, self-loathing.
Mm-hmm. maybe the Mormon upbringing me, like, I still was like, but I [00:48:00] like, I still nice because you,
Gissele: you felt like you hadn’t hurt anyone other than yourself. Yeah.
Sean: I
People fought me like I had knives.
vadim with the gun and stuff like that. I defended myself when I had to, but otherwise it was like, no, I think I’m a kind, good person. I’m lower than dirt. Like I don’t belong to be here, but but this experience with the young man made me confront that like, I’m not a good person.
Or is that what that means? And then especially, the mother, her voice still echoes in my mind, really made me confront like, am I evil? so I go backwards in time in my book, like I started at 19 at the suicide, but I go backwards in time. Mm-hmm. To really dig into what led to the experiences of everything I just described, and especially led to that moment of.
Really being confronted with thinking I was a good person or not. Based upon these actions, these consequences that occurred. Again, up to that point, only involved myself, which didn’t matter because I hated myself. You know? then going backwards in time is a lot [00:49:00] of what I’ve already shared with you in this podcast.
I mean, the clarity with which I was able to share it was because I was digging into the book and going backwards in time and gaining this deeper awareness, which, you know, leads to compassion for oneself. Yes,
Gissele: yes. So what role did forgiveness and then compassion have and helping you get to the other side of that in being able to face your experiences with that mom and young person?
Sean: I’ll be completely honest with you. I don’t know. On a deeper, deeper, deeper level, if I’ve fully forgiven myself. I think forgiveness is active. I don’t think I say, I forgive you, and then it’s like, mm-hmm. Yeah, no, because I’m still dealing with the same mode of thinking that led to the actions.
I, forgiveness needs a change in behavior. It needs an amends, it needs [00:50:00] something. And, and I think forgiving myself by having compassion, understanding the circumstances that led to that. that led to it on the day and also on the day of hanging up on the mother, understanding the circumstances, which I’ve already explained.
You guys can fully understand that. But then even going beyond that and understanding my. My history my adolescence, my childhood that even led to that point is like, yeah, my goodness, that poor boy Allows the compassion, which makes the forgiveness, like, yeah, I, Sean, I forgive you.
Like, yes. It makes sense. You know, you did the best you could with what you had. Like, it allows for that and, and forgiveness being active, it’s just the constant reminder of that. I think of like 80% there, because there’s sometimes, especially writing the book. And I think that’s also why now with the book, personally, because I have the capacities to really walk through this, but there’s been certain, even doing some of these podcasts, there’s been certain triggers that have brought up [00:51:00] deeper parts.
I don’t wanna say new triggers, but triggers that have brought up a shade of that story that like, ooh, whoa, I haven’t felt. That kind of icky shame there, you know in a really long time, which doesn’t mean I necessarily may feel shame currently, I just think it’s kind of energetically in the body and coming up.
And so giving space for that to continue to come up. And also facing it like, you know, the first couple times I did podcasts, like back in January and, and sharing the story about the young man, like, ooh, ooh, the vulnerability hangover was like you said too much. you’re embarrassing.
Like, you know, it was a lot. So I feel like I’m absolutely getting it there with the more I’m talking about it, the more I’m bringing it into the light, the more the more head nods I get. Like, like, you’re okay. You’re okay.
Gissele: I just wanna stress how powerful that is because I think forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness.
It’s a multi-layered [00:52:00] thing. It’s an ongoing journey and it’s the same with compassion. and I think that’s where it’s helpful to know that it’s a process. The other key part that I think is so fundamental, which is why I so much wanted to talk to you, is that from my perspective, only thing that get us to really, really understand how our behavior impacts someone else is if we’re able to sit with that discomfort.
And we can only do that if we can be loving and compassionate and forgiving with ourselves, because shame has a very innocuous way of trying to not get us to see, to convince us of things, to try to avoid things. And so. People think that it’s like, oh, you’re gonna, condone or you’re gonna let yourself off the hook.
There is nothing more difficult to do than to be compassionate and forgiving to yourself when you don’t feel you deserve it. [00:53:00] And so what helped you get to that point where you are able to confront this is being able to sit with it with some level of kindness. Criticism doesn’t get you there. Criticism only gets you down.
The shame spiral further. And so this is why this story is so important and so powerful, I feel in helping us come together as a, you know, in this world, you can’t address racism if you don’t experience the shame of being racist. You can’t address homophobia unless you’ve addressed the shame of being homophobic.
And you can do that more willingly. By sitting with compassionate curiosity, which I think you’ve been able to some extent to do. But I think it’s extremely powerful to understand that this is an ongoing journey. And I do hope that that woman’s able to read the book and understand and maybe at some point come together with you and reconciliation in, in [00:54:00] conversation.
And you’ll have different feelings in those moments. And so I think this is why your work is so important, So I commend you for your courage in being able to face that. ’cause it’s very difficult, especially since it’s somebody’s child, right. I commend you for sharing that story.
Sean: Thank you. I, I appreciate hearing that because it is really confronting the shame because without the perspective that you just shared, it just compounds.
It can compound the shame. So maybe my first 10 years of sharing my story, I got a lot of validation out of it, but I may not have shared about the young man and the woman’s phone call publicly because in those, the few first few times I might have it, it made me feel more ashamed which just makes things a lot worse.
you know, hurt people, hurt people, I was very selfish, but rightly so, because I was dealing with a lot of wounds and trauma. So it made me very [00:55:00] protective. Totally fine. Makes complete sense. Healing. Healing the traumas allows me to, you know not be as selfish. we get on people so hard for being so selfish and egocentric.
It’s like they’re probably really hurting, like really, really, really hurting. And so it starts with having that compassion for ourself. I also think in my experience, if I am feeling shame about something, I’m actually not healing. I’m not growing. I’m stuck in that shame cycle. And so for me, it, it has been this commitment, this hardcore commitment to radical acceptance radical self-acceptance.
there’s a line I’m not here preaching the, aa 12 step ways, but there is a line in what we call the big blue book. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. And. acceptance is the antidote to shame. And, resentment is the block from even getting to the shame.
it’s a fortress made of resentment, protecting the shame. we gotta own our part in the [00:56:00] situation, which kills resentment. Owning our part kills the resentment. Acceptance heals the shame. And then we grow, and then we grow, and then the love just comes when it’s supposed to.
I did not force myself to love myself. I did not force my heart to wake up. Mm. It just, just happened when it was supposed to, I did not know this then, but in the last couple years, it has come to my attention and it is now a belief of mine that what I learn, when I learn how I learn is not up to me.
I really believe that. I read every gosh darn self-help book. You probab possibly could filled up my mind with all, like the self-help things, but like, when it actually clicked over that happened when it was supposed to and how it was supposed to,
You know, so, that leaves me off the hook of having to try to control even my recovery. ’cause I was trying to control my life before it leaves me off the hook. And all I have to do is focus on today with you right now and finding a way to be okay with what’s happening right now in this podcast.
Like, that’s it. I’m gonna [00:57:00] hang up with this and I’m gonna go about my day and find a way to be okay with what’s happening in my life. That’s acceptance.
Gissele: I love that. So I have this kind of theory as to, like you were talking about when you, you put all this efforting in, right? So I believe that everything that you did to support yourself was like planting a seed.
Like when you plant seeds, you just put them in the ground, you keep watering it, you give it sunshine, but you don’t know on what day approximately you do. But some are gonna germinate, some are not. And it’s the same thing with the, with the habits. Going back to what you had said earlier, the habits that feed our soul, right?
Like the habits of, of that compassionate curiosity, the habits of, of being willing to forgive ourselves, the habit of, of trying to understand the impact of our own behavior and how we, we got there. I think all those are those seeds that you’re planting, that germinate on whatever nth day so that you have no control over.
But all of the stuff you did beforehand that you were investing was an [00:58:00] investment in yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And so I do feel like all of that helped you in your journey? And so, because I hear a lot with people that I’ve worked with and people that I, I’ve communicated and supported is that they’re like, well, I’m doing all of these things.
but
when you’re beginning to love yourself in this journey, you don’t feel like anything is changing. And you’re like, why am I even bothering? But something happens on that n date. Like you wake up and you feel a little bit different, or you feel a little bit more worthy.
And so, yeah. So it’s an, I feel it’s an investment that you’re planting seeds in those moments that, you know, germinate when you think they will, but you’re investing in that. Anyways,
Sean: I’ll, I’ll one up your metaphor, because I Nice
’cause for the, for the longest time, I, you know, you heard me talk about this rebel energy, this sort of like, yeah, fu energy, which is really powerful. But come to find out the fuel of that is resentment. The fuel of that is like, even in recovery, it was like, you know, [00:59:00] growing up with my parents, like, Hollywood, your what actor?
Like I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll prove everybody wrong I mean, simple example, the drug dealer boyfriend. Like, you can’t deal, you’re an idiot. I’ll prove you wrong. You know, for spite. Yeah, yeah. That energy. Prove ’em all wrong. Fueled by resentment is the same energy I think a lot of people use to climb the mountain, the, the mountain that they’re on.
Like, I’m going to climb up this mountain and I’m gonna be on top and prove you all wrong. And yes, it’s lonely up there, but who cares? I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna make something of it. Mm-hmm. It’s, it is all resentment. I’ve gotten off the mountain, I’ve gone down to the valley and I am like, I’m gonna make my garden here.
Y’all can come to me. That’s how I’ve approached Hollywood now, and it has been so much more loving. It has been so much more like, I’m just gonna tend to my garden and plant my seeds and let you all come to me and I’m gonna sit and I’m gonna meditate in the middle of my garden because I, I want to enjoy it more.
So let’s calm the [01:00:00] voices down so I can look at, oh, how beautiful the pansies are, or whatever you want to call ’em. But, you know since getting off the mountain, my life is far more peaceful and this is actually really good. The mountain breeded, the, the need to be the best or the greatest.
That’s the only place I could land in order to prove everybody wrong. When I went off the mountain, down to the valley, it, it shifted to being my best, the greatest in my life. It wasn’t about this otherness, it was about how can I be the best version of me in my life? And, I needed peace and solitude for mindfulness, for these things to really come up and emerge and, it’s great.
And I think our job is to be our best in everything that we do. Like I definitely strive to be my best in acting. Absolutely. And in writing this book.
Gissele (2): Yeah.
Sean: But not the best, not better than the other person. [01:01:00]
Gissele: Mm-hmm. Wow. I think your comment about authenticity is so important because so often, going back to what we had talked about earlier with the whole institution thing, we think we should be all of these things.
We should, we think we should desire all of these things, you know, the house the marriage the cars and the vacations and all of those things. But we’re not listening to our hearts in terms of like, what would be my dream life? Who do I wanna be? What kind of person?
Irrespective of other people, it may not be following what they wanna do, but that’s my dream and my joy. I was talking to an interior designer who like does work in mindfulness as well as interior design. She was talking about how everything is such a cookie cutter. Like everything just looks the same.
People are all trying to be the same. And it’s like, where is the beauty of the authenticity as demonstrated in somebody’s personal environment? And I think that’s where. Like authenticity really leads us to our happiest [01:02:00] life, our most authentic version. The other thing I was thinking about was, and I had this conversation with myself ’cause I was a real achiever.
I had a lot of that fu energy that you were talking about that I’ll show you. I definitely did that. And I also had this, this whole, because I didn’t feel I was good enough. I just, I never felt good enough for many different reasons. And I always connected my worth with achievement. I had to like, had to achieve, like, had to be the director had to make this much money.
Sean: Yep.
Gissele: I once had a conversation with myself and I asked myself, can I still love myself? If I accomplish nothing? If I don’t do anything in this world, I don’t make an impact. I don’t achieve the thing. I, I don’t even, can I still love myself. Woo. Yeah.
Sean: That’s even hard to ask myself right now.
Gissele: ’cause it goes to the essence of we don’t have to earn our own love.
We are enough [01:03:00] just as we are in this moment. We don’t have to do that. And that was hard for me to look at because I had attached my worth to my achievement. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And then the question was, who am I? If I’m not these things? What makes me worthy? And that’s, it’s, it’s tough. It’s tough for us to talk about, but if we could get there, if we could teach our children that they’re so beautiful and worthy just as they are, they don’t gotta earn it.
They don’t have to be a specific way. They don’t have to look a specific way. And I think our world could change. Oh my God. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe I, we could still love it as it is. Like you talked about acceptance, right? Can we accept the world? As it is and just choose to be more loving. Right. But hard questions.
Sean: Oh, I mean, that just cuts right to it. I’ve come to, come to believe that [01:04:00] my purpose in life is to be the most authentic version of myself. I mean, that’s, and I’ve been led there by accepting the hardest parts of myself, which was first my sexuality, and then, you know, I fell into being a painter.
I didn’t even expect that. Like how my, I think my creativity and how it expresses itself is, is also something I didn’t choose, is something I accept about myself. And so, yeah, my expressions come out. I, I have so much joy with acting, with writing, with painting. Mm-hmm. And that’s just how it expresses itself.
And so,
Gissele (2): yeah.
Sean: That’s, that’s my job. That’s, I think my, my job is, and acceptance, by the way, is how you lead to authenticity, because you are accepting who you are on that path to that. But. We have these really powerfully annoying parts of ourselves called the Ego, who just gets so wrapped up in the Western world and how society raised us and all the externals and constantly reinforced to do the [01:05:00] exact opposite of what everything you just said.
So it’s so, it’s so hard. It’s really hard to just hold onto that.
Gissele: It’s, it’s hard to be, yeah.
Sean: Because it’s like, yeah, could I be, if, if, if no more success happened in my life and I had all the financial stuff I needed. Sure. You know, financial freedom, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s no more success. You
Gissele: can’t think about that without security.
You need at least to be able to feed yourself and pay your bills. Yeah.
Sean: By, by the way, imagining that right now of just like. You know, pay my bills great. And I don’t need any more success or achieving, I just had a big sigh of relief, so I just, yeah.
Gissele: Yeah. There’s, there’s no pressure. Yeah.
Sean: If I dream life for me, if, if I could just, if I, if I could just sit in my studio and paint and then every so often act and then write something like I am living, that I truly am living that now.
Gissele (2): Mm-hmm.
Sean: I think I would be so satisfied and be okay with that. I do know for myself, the, challenge of showing up and being opposite Angela Bassett [01:06:00] or
Gissele (2): mm-hmm.
Sean: Getting a book written and sold or like, is now the new thing that feeds me. Mm-hmm. It isn’t like, look what I did. It’s like, look what I did.
Like I showed up on set and I went toe to toe with Angela Bassett and then like, oh my goodness. And my, my painting is evolving, like that feeds me in a very different, different way rather than. Look what I did. Accept me. Love me. so I am fed by that creative challenge and that feels authentic to me.
But that’s a tough question. I just,
Gissele: yeah. I just wanted to say, Sean, as you were talking even before that, I have such a strong feeling that this book should be a movie.
Gissele (2): Yeah.
Gissele: Because there’s so many parts that are so incredible, right? Yeah. And I think it should be that you gotta put it back, like the thing that they made you take out.
I think that has to go back into the movie. Yeah. ’cause I think that’s so extraordinary. ’cause I think we’re living in a world now where we’re starting to realize, Hey, people are more focusing on manifestation and all of [01:07:00] these things happening.
Quantum jumping. I think there’s much more receptivity to things happening out of the blue in terms of like, how is it that you got off? Yeah. Without, yeah. Like, right. Yeah. How is it that this person just said a big mafia boss? Like, okay, well you don’t have to pay me. that’s extraordinary.
Yeah. And I think it would make a wicked movie.
Sean: I
Gissele: think. I think I would go
Sean: see it for sure. I think I’m definitely, definitely thinking of that. Definitely brainstorming that, I’m almost at the point where one way of continuing telling this specific story in a different format would be like, you know what if it was like a TV series?
Because that way we actually get to tell the full length of my story, but also, but we get to spend time there. There are some characters that true to life characters that just like you wanna spend time with. And also because, you know, when I was out there, and this is all, this all relates to everything we’re saying was.
Obviously you and I can understand this from this perspective or outside of it, but when I was like in the story, it was a big [01:08:00] deal that at one point I’m looking around at the people I’m with and the people I’m dealing with, all, all addicts, all tweakers, all crazy, whatever. But I realized at one point, look, in talking to all of them, we all had tragic stories.
We all had some one-upping of some terrible things that happened. Like that girl, like I told you, she was running away from a terrible rape incident, so she was hiding out in the safety of the gay boys, gay drug addicts. But, imagine like a television show where we’re just, we’re we got my story, but we’re expanding and, and following some of these other folks exploring.
Yeah. And really, really settling into all these other characters so it becomes yes. A protagonist story, but more of an ensemble kind of piece, which I think is fascinating to give voice to this. And also to give an understanding to the, the Washington, DC judicial system, especially at that time, which was very, very, racist.
I mean, when I was arrested and I was put in the holding cell with 50 other men, I [01:09:00] was like one of three white guys.
Gissele (2): Wow.
Sean: So there’s a lot to say there outside of my story.
Gissele: And how many people actually got off the way that you did, or how many people who would face drug charges ended with years in jail?
I,
Sean: well the, I was arrested like Sunday and I was put in front of the judge on a Monday and I was brought in. It was a whole. Experience disorienting, tragic. And then I’m brought in and I’m waiting to go next. And there’s these two young black men who are before me with this old white guy, balding.
He’s laying into them for a dime bag of cocaine. And he’s saying things like, you know, you gotta do better for your community. You gotta be a better example for your community. And he set like the bail at, at like a thousand dollars or something. Like, like he was leaning into these guys. And I’m sitting here like, I’m going next.
Possession with intent to distribute. Got more than a dime. And so I’m expecting to be eviscerated. And I, and I step up there and this old [01:10:00] man, this old judge, he looks at my file, he looks up at me and he looks at him in my file and he looks up and he is like, son, are you in school? And I like, and I’m like, yeah, I go to VCU in Richmond, Virginia, and the guy’s eyes light up.
At that time, I didn’t know this. He goes, he goes, oh my goodness, how about those rams? Because the men’s basketball team was now on their way to, like, the NCAA’s never happened before. And so the guy’s like, oh my gosh, how about those rams? He starts talking basketball with me. I’m like, I didn’t even know we had a team.
I’m like, yeah, great. You’re like, yeah. And then he goes, he goes, I’m gonna say whatever
Gissele: you want, judge.
Sean: Yeah, no. And then he was really, he was like, well, okay, all right, well if you’re in school, you know, go back to school. I’m gonna ban you from Washington dc which I was for a couple months. Mm-hmm. And then he said, you know, he let me off of my own recognizance.
Didn’t set a bail or anything. So just the disparity between. This college white boy stepping up there versus these two young black men who were probably about my same age for like, I’ll never forget that. Like I, I’m just like, [01:11:00] never forget that. So I don’t know how much white privilege, I don’t know how much racism.
These are things that I’ve only thought about in writing the book and understanding from that time period, you know, my case might have been dismissed because their case files were so massive and they just needed to get rid of something. Who knows? I don’t, you know, again, my court appointed lawyer was like, this does not happen.
So,
Gissele: wow. Yeah. There is, maybe there was an element of divine intervention in terms of you needing to be somewhere else. Right? Like
Sean: when I drove the car under the Mack truck, when I fell asleep at the wheel, I, in my sleep said something said to push my foot on the brake. So I was pushing the break as I was waking up, as it was crunching under the thing.
I walked away from that. Like there was some divine even then that blew my mind. Yeah. So I have many elements like that. Yes, I’m one lucky SOB, but also was a divine to be here story. I think there’s divine guidance
Gissele: for sure. Like I’ve heard that divine guidance, right? And then it makes you kind of [01:12:00] like, oh, talk to me now.
They need the advice now. And it’s like, it’s not on command. It’s not on command in terms of like, you know, you gotta learn to tap in and listen to your higher wisdom. But
Sean: yeah, definitely. I don’t know yet if this is a film or if this is a TV show. I’m still kind of working through that and seeing what happens.
the drug world is so different now because fentanyl wasn’t around then, and that’s like laced with everything and Oh my gosh. And, and methamphetamine is now 10 times stronger. It’s just, yeah. It’s just, I don’t, I know of it because being in recovery, people come in, but like, I just don’t have much experience with that.
thank goodness I got out when I did.
Gissele: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well couple of more questions, if you don’t mind. Yeah, yeah. My next one is what’s your definition of unconditional love?
Sean: Well, conditional love is, I will love you if you act like this, this, and this, which says more about me than you.
Gissele (2): Hmm.
Sean: So then unconditional love to me [01:13:00] is being able to accept that which I love fully and wholly as they are. I have unconditional love for my two little doggies. They make me mad when they misbehave, but it doesn’t make me love them any less.
Gissele (2): True. Yeah.
Sean: unconditional love is radical acceptance. That’s what it is. It’s holding space for them to be their most authentic self.
Gissele: Mm.
Sean: What a gift.
Gissele: Yeah. What a, yeah, what a gift and what a gift dogs are. I used to have a dog. He was doorman shepherd, unconditionally loving, always just so happy to be there.
So happy to be alive. so grateful for everything, right. Yeah, he was like my best teacher. I miss him quite a bit.
Sean: Hmm. I don’t want to think about mine going to away. No, no,
Gissele: no, no. You don’t have to. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be a downer. I know. They’re so,
Sean: they’re two and four. I still have them for another 10 years.
Got plenty. But like, I know, but it’s like, I can’t even face it now.
Gissele: Yeah. It’s it’s yeah, it [01:14:00] is very overwhelming. And it was his time to go just because he was suffering from seizures and he had mobility issues, so he was very old when he died. But but yeah, like you keep, you keep those memories in your heart forever.
So last question is, where can people find you? Where can they, you know, like where can they work with you? Can they buy their books? What do you wanna share?
Sean: Well, I want to put in the, okay, so if people are listening to this before I have the publication date it’s totally fine ’cause you will add it when I give it to you, when I do actually have that.
However, however, if you wanna be in the know about everything, I try to put everything on Instagram. I, you know, the book, the Acting, the Art, all of that there. So it’s like one place. So that’s @seanhemeon, which again, we can put in the show notes. Also, my website has, has my writing, my acting, but mostly of my art, but it’s also the place that I put everything.
So and that’s seanhemeon. Com. So those are the best places to find me. Follow me, keep up with me, talk to me. Let’s chat. [01:15:00] Hey, you know, yes.
Gissele: Oh, thank you so much, Sean, for this conversation. It was enlightening and definitely needed. Thank you for sharing your story and hopefully there’s going to be another, another visit in the future maybe to update us on the story.
And I’m definitely gonna get the book and I hope you do too.
Sean: Yeah, well, you know, I, I’ll come back and when I have the actual publication date, because there’s a whole arc with my mother that is perfect for Oh,
Gissele: perfect. Oh, perfect. We’ll just do it. absolutely. I enjoy you so much.
Yeah, this is good for many different levels and yeah, and I’m looking forward to reading the book.
And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.
Have a great day.
Sean: Thank you.