Episode Transcript
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Salam alikum. And welcome back to Imman Amaya. A space for stories that heal, knowledge that uplifts, and conversations rooted in trust, faith and transformation. Today's episode is sensitive but necessary. We'll be discussing addiction, a word that carries so much weight. Silence and misunderstanding. Addiction doesn't only affect the person struggling. It ripples through families, communities and generations. But this isn't just a story about pain. It's a story about healing, about resilience, about faith, and about how even in the most working places, one can be transformed with compassion, truth and support. Whether you're someone who's battled addiction, loved someone who has, or you're here just to learn, thank you for being here. You are in the right place. Today I'm honored to be joined by CEO and founder Hussein Ugass, the visionary behind Rahma Recovery Center. With over 15 years of personal recovery experience, Hussein's dedication to helping others overcome addiction is unparalleled. His leadership and commitment to creating a safe, supportive environment has been instrumental in the success of Rahma Recovery Center. Hussain has not only walked the long road through addiction, he is here to share not just what he survived, but also what he learned. Welcome, Hussain.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Is that a good introduction?
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Yes.
Except, like I learned through doing this work, this is how much we didn't know in the beginning. Right.
Because I'm the founder of the organization, just like any other business. Founder? I thought my title was CEO, but throughout time, I've learned that nonprofit organizations actually use a executive director. Founder and executive director. Director of Brahma.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Okay, so let's start at the beginning. Can you take us back to the early part of your story and what was your life like growing up?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: I. We moved to Seattle in 93.
You know, we were some of the. Some of those families that went to. Through the war and Somalia.
We never really left the show until about 93, early 93, when we left and moved to Kenya. But throughout the whole time, throughout the war, everything was still there. So growing up, you know, you learn survival instincts. Right. Going through that war over there. Yes. And moved to America. I see. We went to a refugee canyon. I remember it was Langata. We weren't there too long. It wasn't even long enough for me to pick up on swahil, but. Alhamdulillah, December 7, 1993. So we got here in the beginning, for me, it was.
And for the rest of my family, for us it was. We suppressed our trauma by trying to immerse ourselves into this culture. Right. And try to make the best of this new, you know, land that we're in now everybody hears about the opportunities in America. Yes.
One of the misconceptions that we have had was when we get to America, there'll be dollar bills littered on Cyclops, you know. But Alhamdulillah, I was a smart kid growing up.
I, you know, started seventh grade, eighth grade, you know, I excelled in esl.
By ninth grade, I was a straight A student. By tenth grade at tiny high school, I was the African Student union president.
And 11th grade, they voted me as the black student president.
And I was also playing for the basketball team at that time. And there's a lot of distractions, right? You know, one thing, even growing up, one thing I always kept close with me is I like to defend, right? And whenever there was a group, new group of Somalis that came and you know what, we went to Tahiti High School and they came in and I see people picking on them. I learned the English language really fast. So it's a defender, you know. And people, you know, some of my teammates used to say, why are you defending this newcomer? I'm like, no, these are my brothers. I wouldn't eat lunch with, you know, the Americans. I was come sit with the Somali. Got to be chit chatting with them and asking them about stories of, you know, how it is back home. Because I still had, you know, and I still knew it was like the first five, six years, right? And you still want to know what's going on back then? Alhamdulillah, moving forward a couple years later, because of work and because of, you know, I became a procrastinator, right?
[00:05:31] Speaker A: And how old are you at this time?
[00:05:32] Speaker B: At this time, probably 17 years old, I became procrastinator. I skipped school a lot, but I still did well on my test. I remember my science teacher telling me one time, shit, you get an ace on your test. How when you're here, you're sleeping or you're not here.
When you think I'm sleeping, I'm listening other people's homework. Some of my friends that are in class, I'm getting some of their homeworks. And, you know, that's how I'm learning this to no surprise, because my procrastination, I dropped out. They didn't finish high school. There were other friends of mine who I used to help them with their homework. I remember seeing them walk, right? I went to. I went to my own high school's graduation class friends who graduated, but I was in the crowd. It was a feeling of disappointment. But I was hiding it by pretending to be too cool for that. I always.
I think that's why when I picked up this habit of putting. Putting on a mask, you know what I mean? Like, trying to pretend someone that I'm not. And this would continue later on down the road. My addiction, where I. I used to be, like, mostly different people in different groups that I'm around. I'm this person in this group. And so if a couple of groups ask questions each other, they wouldn't know who they were talking about. I went to sport. A few of my friends went to Bellingham to go to school there at that time. I'm lying to my family back home. So my uncle brought us here. Let me take you back a little bit. We didn't come here with my mom and dad.
My uncle brought us here. Myself and two of my brothers, My mom and dad and my uncles. They didn't really know whether I graduated or not. So I was lying to the family. And when my friends moved to Bellingham, I told people that I got into western Washington, I believe, so I could go hang out with them. I got a job over there.
That's when I first learned about how to sell drugs in bed. And Axis 2000, 2001, sometime over there, I used to be the designated driver for everybody else. But I was also, you know, their weed man, too. Had a guy over there who used to sell weed, and he taught me how to sell it. And then they. One of my paychecks, I just took it to him and then got sentence from him. In 2002, it was Halloween night.
We were. We came. I was designated driver, took him to the bar. Everybody got drunk, and we went to after party. And at that after party, it was the first time girl told me, shane, why have you always done. That's so good. Here, please try this. And she gave me Hennessy.
And when I tasted it, it was the most disgusting thing ever. But the feeling that it gave me, I can't forget. I was like, what is this?
It automatically just. I was already, you know, a extrovert, right? I wasn't a shy guy, but it just made me more of a, like, very obnoxious, almost type of person. But I felt so brave and. And, you know, so out of myself. And the next day when I woke up, I was like, wow, that was amazing. I did not know I triggered something.
I triggered, like, piece of my addiction that day. It never stopped. You know, addiction, they say it's. It's cunning, baffling, and it Was cunning me just from the get go, because I was hiding it from the guys that I was designated driver for. Why would they care? Yeah, right. I would be drunk, drunk driving them with them, thinking that I'm so. Until they finally, like, at a bar, I just couldn't hold myself. I'm sorry. I saw them take a shot. So, like, all right, I'm gonna drink with you guys. And they were all shocked. We're like, how. How is that you're able to handle this much alcohol? And then I had to come clean. Like, I've been drinking the whole time. You know, they just laughed it off like it was nothing. Ah, welcome to the group.
Growing up, I knew I had a potential, right? And a lot of my family knew, A lot of my teachers knew, you know, my peers at that time, they even knew.
But I felt like more than anybody else. And I never really felt like I let someone else down. I always felt like I let myself down. You know, the biggest guilt for me always was, Hussein, what have you done to Hussein? That was biggest deal. I rarely thought about what addiction is doing to my family and my lying and my deception and using one life to cover another. You know, I became a pathological liar. I can make up his story, man. It was an amazing skill. I don't know, you know, how I ended up becoming that fluent and just telling just. I was a perfectionist when it comes to life. But subhan Allah.
In 2023, I was at a really low point where, you know, I spent too much of my drug money. I didn't have that job anymore because I was getting too drunk and wasn't making it to work on time. I came back to Seattle area. I looked at her, and I heard one of my buddies say, hey, we're going to Alaska for you. Want to come?
Sure. Okay, I salute. I got to get out of here. Don't want people to see me around, you know, I went to Alaska. My brother at the time, my older brother was also going to Alaska.
Who I ran into Alaska were some of my friends from Seattle that were serious, serious upholsthat I was going through was nothing compared to these guys, like, heavy, heavy trainers. And I just fell right into it. I felt comfortable. I'm like, these guys are about that life. We were working for a seafood company called UN Seafoods. UN Seafood had a UNC bar right across the street from there. They also had a UNC liquor store.
So we'd get paid. We take our paychecks to unc liquor store, cash it there, pick up some liquor, take the leftovers, go to Unc Bob's hand. And it barely had enough to send back home. It was this crazy cycle. It's like, I think about three months of it. And then one day we were at the unc bar, and we ran into Samoan guy smoking weed outside. He's like, where'd you get this phone? How'd you get it all over here in this island? He's like, yeah, I got a little song if you guys want some. The price that he told us just kind of blew my mind. Like a woman who spent $20 here in Seattle. He was like a little bit of hustler. And my brain started clicking. Same night, I made a phone call to Seattle, and I told, hey, you know, called connect over here. How much can you send? $500. Certain amount.
Passed the statute of limitations, so I will not incriminate it myself. We ended up getting a package over there and got so comfortable with so much weed around that we started smoking. And they also had, like, a dormitory where they police live, right? And get out of the dormitory, go across the street with factory is.
And we were smoking. Usually we used to go outside in snow.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: So comfortable. Maybe we're too drunk to even realize it. We're smoking in the bathrooms. And then next thing, it led to just smoking in the living room of the dormitory. We got busted. They called us to the manager's office to drug test. Almost everybody took the drug test.
One person, you know, said, I'm not going to take it. So they. They. They were going to fire us anyway. I went up there and I told them. They said, we're going to drug test you. I said, why? They said, because we have a reason to expect that you were smoking marijuana. So, yeah, I was smoking. They're like, what? The guy, it threw him off. I remember the manager, he threw him off. He's like, what, are you going to pee in the cup or not? I'm like, what?
Why are you wasting this? It's going to come back dirty. He was like, okay, you're fired. Then I said, okay, cool. They gave me my last paycheck. The rest of the guys, they came back. I was like, give me my last paycheck. And I went to a bed and breakfast on the island. They were like, if you get stranded over here, nobody's going to take you back to Seattle. You're gonna become homeless here. I was like, I don't care. You know what I'm counting on? I have a whole bunch of weeds still and I said what am I going to do? Fly back with Seattle? It's cheaper over there.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Even thinking about I might get caught.
Cunning and baffling, right? I. I got lucky. Two days I got a job with a ship salvaging company. So what that company did was they had tugboats that would go out into that crazy barren sea in the middle of winter when those fishermen get in trouble and their engine died or there's something wrong with the boat, their boat. We go out there, either fix it there or tow them back to this harbor which was like 110 miles away. Remember they hired me as a welder assistant. I didn't work that well.
They were paying at the time $19 for welder assistant. I was like cool.
This is like 2003. $19. I'm like okay. They're like, do you know what I'm going to say? I'm like I hope it's something that I don't know. The guy said grab his fire extinguishing which is sit next to the welder, make sure he doesn't catch fire. Well, you know, painting. I think that was good. So I wake up every morning, wake and bake, roll me a joint, come right next to the. And give me a cup of coffee next to the. Well, they didn't drug test me or nothing. Sure enough, one thing led to another. The owner of the company and his son and I became friends. He found out I had some weed. You know, I shared it with him.
How did you get it? Yeah, I told him, I said I can. I don't have address anymore.
I have address here. He said I received all the packages. We have a. Basically a mechanic shop for the boats here, right. And we get stuff sent over here all the time. I receive packages from the Lord for the a once a week. It's like cool. And to let to another from one phone he said what else can you bring?
The cocaine it was just. It didn't even last long. I think it's like having less than four months before his girlfriend at her birthday. Usually when we get the package, what we do is cut it with nasty mixing bacon so that make sure it's not that strong and you know, a little bit easier to digest.
She wanted to do a lion because chemo is too pure. And she almost diagnosed and they ran her to the hospital ER the emergency camp. The great thing that happened is the guy took all the drugs out of my room and took it to his dad. Said this is Allah's plan, right.
The next morning the Sheriff came. That was the sheriff's stepdaughter. They locked me up. They put all the charges on me. It was close to 10 charges that could have given me almost over 20 years in prison.
Once they. They didn't have court system there. It was just a small island. They had holding sales.
And the best they could do, ship me to the main city, which was anchorage, Alaska. Because 2004 in Anchorage, Alaska, is when my first time seeing black people in Alaska. Smart thing the kid there was. Once they shipped me over, he went to his dad, he said, listen, man, the Sam starts talking, we're all going to get in trouble. And then his dad's dad goes, what are you talking about? He took him to his saint.
We're all in it, man. He was like, we'll deal with it.
His dad took a flight to Anchorage, talked to old buddy of his that had a law firm there. A couple of weeks of stressing in there. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't have a court date coming. I just keep looking at my charges every morning. It was a native American kid that I became friends with. Good thing that happened was all the money that I was working from, the $19 an hour, all my paychecks, I never taxed it, but I had drugged me. So all my checks, when I came to Anchorage, I mean, yeah, Anchorage, Alaska, they told me, hey, we can't keep your checks in property. You have to sign them over to us. So we're going to put it in your books.
24,000, $23,000 in there.
It was like, okay, Alhamdulillah. I got a visit from an attorney. He goes, hey, man, we have a law firm here. Once a year, we draw out a name from a bone and we do a pro bono for free. We do somebody's case for free. And your name came up.
I'll find out later that, you know. Yep, he, the guy and his dad ended up buying some of that money that was there. They figured out how to get it turned somehow. So the guy kept finding out that the longer that I was in there, within those two weeks, other people in the island were all also getting busted with the same cocaine that they. They said that I was on bringing that because the. The kid is still over there selling to people, right? So he was like, you can use this. He said, they're putting all this on you. Then who's doing it over there now?
You know, obviously, you're the guy who had all this hope then. If you're here locked up how come you are getting busted with the same folk?
We fought the case. I went out. They gave me a chance to get out on there.
A white guy named David Boucher, who was the boyfriend of the Native American kid that was in my cellmate. Ended up coming because my bail was an amount that I couldn't afford to pay. But because I'm not from Anchors, I was a fly person. They wouldn't let me out. They would let me out. To get somebody that can take responsibility for you while you're here. Out of the hollow experience. This is the craziest part of the story. The guy said, hey, man. I said, I came back one day. I was stressing. I'm like, I can afford my bill. I don't know nobody here, man. So I guess I'll just be sitting here until my case over. Could take like a year or so. He's like, maybe I can talk to my mom's boyfriend. I'm like, who is he? He's a Vietnam veteran. And, you know, he's a good guy, David. So I was like, okay, let's call. I get on the phone, this drunk white guy told him, hey, man, how are you? My name is Hussein. Said, we frozen. I said, I'm from East Africa. He goes, no shit? I said, yes. He said, I remember exactly. He said, I knew it. I knew it, I knew it. I said, what do you mean? What's going on, man? Dave. He goes, you're Mary Mambui's son.
I said, what? He goes, he said, I was stationed in Mombasa. I met a young lady named Mary Mombui. And years later, in the 80s, she wrote me a letter saying that she had my son. And I knew you were going to come look for him. I was like, what? I said, who's. Who's son? He goes, mary, mother, I'm coming to get you, son. Thinking back like, this is. This is all a lot, you know, we plan and they planned various. Allah's planned out. He came to visit me. He kept do. I learned about Mary von Boomi. My attorney came to visit me. He was like, who's this David Boucher character? I told him, I don't know, but let's figure this out. He's going to try to get me out. He goes, yeah. He came to see me, man. He said, drunk, I don't know if it's going to be okay in the court. They said, just set up a court date, man. Set up a court date. Sure enough, Dave showed up drunk at the court date. I've never just by coming to visit him was the first time seeing him. So I'm sitting there and you know, cuffed up and waiting. I said, where is he? He goes, that guy back there with the hat tilted, with the glasses on. I've been giving him water and coffee all morning.
Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Allah is the greatest. David stepped up to the podium. So the rules are in order for you take responsibility for someone getting out on bail. You have to know them at least for one year. David bu came to the point and then he looked at the judge robbers.
And then the judge goes, bu.
He goes, over here. They call me your honor. He goes, yes, your honor. Robert sir, yes. They're buddies from a local vfw. They're Vietnam veterans. They know each other from like VFW is a local bar where the veterans hang out. He said, bu, who is this? How do you know Mr. Ugas? And then he goes, this is maximum bugas.
He looked at my paperwork and then ed his name on there, right? He goes, he looks like amines. He goes, don't listen to that stuff. Well, I. And this is how Allah works, right? Allah had plans for me.
They let me out the same day David came, picked me up. David Boucher ended up working at a Latino bar. That's a restaurant and a bar in order. So the rules are that I have to be with him 24 7, right? I have to live with him. I had to go to work with him every day. I remember the guy the Latino was psorias and Anchorage, Alaska. A brother named Hector from Cuba owned it. We became friends Thursday nights. They had that every Thursday night. And David was the guy that worked. He made sure the club lights work properly and everything like that. So you know, our job was sometimes we get paid cash and get to drink for free.
And at the door of that Thursday nights was a young lady named Sardas Vasaria.
This young lady would become now my ex wife and a mother. Two wonderful boys, Abdasiz and A.D. 17 and 19 year old. Today my case finally got resolved. It ended up being from almost 10 counts of felonies to a misdemeanor attempted possession of a controlled substance.
Now at that time I was the first person to get convicted of any such thing.
Because in order for you to be convicted of that of case like that, it's usually falls around felony area. Because when you are attempting to get something, either you get stuck, you get caught in sting operation where you were trying to buy from an undercover agent or Police saw you out in a trying, you know, buy drugs. But their explanation was, I was at that hotel that night. Obviously drugs were being used because someone almost died from using drugs. And I was part of that crew then I must have been attempting to use drugs with them as well. So it wasn't possession, it wasn't, you know, trafficking, because all the charges that they gave me, none of those. They said 10 to 1% of the control substance. My lawyer was like, this is laughable at best. I was like, all right. When I didn't think about is immigration. Anytime you get convicted of any, they don't care what it is. You get any kind of drug conviction, snatching.
So here I am, you know, men about to walk out and ice officers are waiting for me. They snatched me up, put me in jail. Same jail that I was bailed out. This time I can't bail out because I have to wait till they get enough people to put on an immigration flight to bring them to the COVID detention center. I waited for about another month in jail and they brought us over. I remember the shame that day. I came from ctec airport slipping down at that time, just shaggy, didn't shape or been in the haircut for a while. And she looked rough and dejected. They put me in there. I was in there for four months at the time.
That's when I found out that my ex wife was pregnant with my son. June 10, 2006. It was eight day. It was my court date, immigration court. So they didn't deport me, take my green card away or let me out. My family and my friends knew about this. So they let everybody know. At the e place at the masjid alhamdulillah, it's like close to 100 people that showed up. Not seeing that and so many people in one place, it felt like it was about a thousand people there that day. As the argument was going on, the immigration judge goes, everybody stop. You know, told my lawyer to stop. Told the u. S. District attorney to stop. The u. S. District attorney asked me a question. He said, are you a muslim? I said, yes.
He goes, is it against your religion to use drugs or alcohol?
Said, yes.
And he goes, seeing your record here that said that you were out of, you know, he's reading all my record from when I got charged, right? There's. There's testimonies from bartenders, you know what I mean, That I was at a bar, you know, there's drug news and all that stuff. I'm seeing all these things, said, how are we Supposed to trust you if you're not even faithful to religion. Well, I told him those things don't have nothing to do with each other. He said, my God is a forgiving God. I'm a Muslim. I was born. I'm going to die is what I'm going to die with, God willing. And when I make mistakes, I can always repent and hope for the forgiveness of my creator. Whether or not I. Liar.
You wouldn't be able to know about how I present myself as a, as a Muslim man. Because as a Muslim man, it's something that comes from within.
It's not something that you should show outwards. Our faith is from right here. Said so you wouldn't know. I could be the biggest liar and be a Muslim or the most honest human being, still be a Muslim. The judge told everybody to stop and said, I want people here to introduce themselves. Like there was no room to sit. Voila. The courtroom was so full that people were in the hallway and the first floor was like my family, my uncle, you know, a lot of Somali moms Edoying. And everybody introduced themselves. Some of them like, yeah, we're friends with the family. You know, I'm growing up. And then the judge was like, I don't want to hear nobody's arguments anymore. I said, with someone that has this much love and support behind him. These are the type of people we need in this country. The free deport you. Who are we letting to stay here? People that nobody cares about. Say, young man, do something useful to work your life. There are people here who love you and care about you. And they let me out that day.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: When do you know that something is just normal drug use and when it's an actual full blown addiction that's taken over your life.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: This is a perfect segue into when I actually found out about that. I was an AD, right?
So from 2006 I came back. I went right back to the same thing that I was doing.
It didn't take long.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: And now you're in Seattle.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Yes, now I'm Seattle. So while I was in, in detention and immigration, I was paying myself. I was doing fine. I was, you know, working out.
I came out, it didn't last long. Probably a couple of months ago, drinking and lying about it.
That time my ex wife moved to Seattle. I couldn't understand it. I was fancy. I'm like, I'm doomed. Like I'm cursed.
And it wasn't long, man.
My ex wife got pregnant with my second son and she was pregnant and she was like I'm not dealing with this.
Boys are Muslim, but you're not acting nothing like him. So I got so mad, I'm like, how dare you? She left, moved to Florida. I cut them off. I was resentful.
I needed my own disappointment. So I project it all. It would take another few years of just spiraling out of control.
In 2000, some of 2008, I shot.
It was June 13, 2008. It was Friday night.
I was taking a pistol away from a friend of mine, recently passed a lot of mercy on it. I mean, I ran into fentanyl overdose, and he shot me. And this man took a break from the streets, but I didn't take a break from drugs. I tried to start a decent relationship with my sister. At the time, I was hoping to get married to her, but because of my drug use and my addiction, my life caught up to me. And she found out, and she went, oh, I don't have nothing to do with this either.
In 2010, I was like, you know what I need to get the hell out of. Shot early 2010, after my hand healed, so hoping that I'm gonna find, you know, people a little bit better.
But I've used this before. You know how they say birds of a feather flock together? I was flying with pigeons and small birds here. I ran into, like, falcons and eagles in Minnesota. Thousand times worse than us over here.
Sure enough, I don't know how, but I blended right in.
I had friends in St. Paul. I have friends in Minneapolis.
I had friends in the suburbs.
And this is when I started, you know, putting that, you know, the mask on the different locations.
I got in trouble, I ended up going into.
In one summer, I got two cocaine trafficking charges in one summer. One of them literally outside an apartment complex with some African American brothers from Chicago. I'm outside on some apartments in Richfield, Minnesota, selling drugs and passing around bottle and gin, which is the craziest thing. Like, if I look back right now, I'm like, who is that guy? They came up on us, and I tossed my, you know, stash somewhere with the bottle of. A bottle, bottle. And I tossed them together. They found it. They charged me as crap. But it was heroin in there, right? My stash was heroin, but they put the charging documents as crap.
I got out on bail. Within 45 days, I was in North Seattle at some white folks after party. Brothers I was with, as usual, were being rowdy outside the house where I'm doing business.
So the neighbors call the police. The guy. These guys are arguing on a House next door to the house where I'm dealing with drugs. The police show up at the house.
One officer, he goes around the back. He went. Kept knocking the door, nobody open. He goes around the back, the house, getting in the backyard and looks through the window and he sees literally people like, there's a big kitchen island, people buying drugs from me, doing lines of cocaine. They cause me back up. They kicked the door at him. We ended up beating that case because of illegal seizure. You know, that's not where they call the police. He had no reason to come around the house. But during that time, my attorney was like, what is wrong with you? It's like you have some kind of a. You want to go to jail, man? They're going to deport you. I was like, what can I do, man? I just. I feel like I'm cursed, bro. I can't shake it. And at that time, I gave up on life, right? I. I just lost my ex wife and possibly my two sons, which I believed I'll never see them again. I cut off my entire family. I'm not talking to my mom at this time. My mom. To take it back a little bit. When I was in jail in Alaska and she found out, my mom started becoming a little bit mentally ill. Slowly, surely, her mental illness grew to a schizophrenia and also just. Just playing crazy, for lack of a better word. My mom used to go through so much trauma, everybody would think she's fine. And she wake up in the middle of the night just from a nightmare of something happening to me and her. She'll have these episodes and just walk out of the house in her body. Nobody would see her for kaboom.
She'd just be wandering around until some family find her and take care of her. And then when she comes to, she'll explain to him who she is, and nothing will bring her back home.
This continued for years, and especially when I cut off everybody and not my brothers, my sisters, nobody knew where I was.
Some people thought I was there, some reason. They kept looking at the hospitals, prisons, jails.
And I knew that.
I knew that what they don't know don't hurt. My guilt comes, man. My conscience used to eat me up. I used to want to shut it up with heavy, heavy drugs.
I didn't know what was wrong with me. And then finally my attorney was like, listen, man, while I fight your case, going to rehab, sir. I don't know where rehab is.
So, you know, it's a place for people like you who are dealing with substance use. I went up there, going through detox was the scariest thing because it was the first time that I had to face the same without being high. For close to a decade, I did what they call assessment. And I remember I sat down with my counselor and told me, sam, you're suffering from co occurring disorder.
We're dealing with mental health problems and also substance use, severe substance use disorder, also known as addiction. Before I even could ask the question, tell me more, I started tearing up. I started tearing up because I found an answer, right?
I'm not crazy. I'm not cursed. Nobody got the evil eye on me.
I'm not just doing this over and over again on purpose.
I have a condition called addiction or substance. Whatever it is this guy's telling me, it happens to a lot of people. You know, 5% of all human, all the people in the world have this addiction addictive genes in their brain that, you know, one is too much and thousand is not a mouth. As I went through my treatment, that makes sense because I remember if I started with one drink, I wouldn't stop. Thousand drinks wouldn't be enough for me. I would just keep going until I pass out, right? If I start with one joint until I finish the whole bag. Almost. Same thing with cocaine, same thing with pills, whatever I was using at the time. As I learned more about this, one thing I kept thinking about was, what about these other fools? What about these other members of the community, the women, Smiley sister, the Smiley brothers that I've always been around? So I always thought about that. I'm like, they need help too.
That was a little bit of my downfall. My lawyer fought the case, Alhamdulillah. They said if I stay out of trouble for one year and I stay clean, they're going to help me throw away both cases and I wouldn't get convicted. I was like, cool. So I had a purpose. I had a reason to do this. So I did immersed myself. I went to my AA meetings, NA meetings. I got a sponsor. I love that guy, man. His name's Dale. I'm still in contact with him. He's like a biker white guy with like long, you know, motorcycle handle mustaches. And he and I had nothing in common.
My first person that I wanted to get as a sponsor was the first black guy that I saw in the program in an AA meeting. And then the guy was like, no, man, it's like, not cool. I said, why? He said, you need to go to someone that's exact opposite of that with me. You don't get comfortable. That I'm. I'm your black brother that you might start lying to me, right? But if somebody was completely opposite of you, at least you get a chance to be honest with them. I said, okay. I asked Dale, Dale looked at me, he goes, you know I'm a prick, right? I said, no, I don't. He said, you're gonna find out.
But if you're not ready to deal with the prick, then go find someone softer than me. I go, no, man, I could deal with you. And sure enough, man, that guy taught me so much. He had me do the same 12 steps that I'd already done in my treatment. He had to do it all over again. I got more honest with myself, you know what I mean? But at the time, I didn't know. Once again, Cunningham, baffling and powerful.
The. My addiction was cunning, right? Just do this, just do this until you beat the case.
So I know I finished the year. I beat the case, got out, got myself a salon brother who had a town card service. And some of the clients that I was picking up started asking white guys that I used to pick up. Chicks fell with them, hey, no, we can get coke. And sure enough started, you know, taking him to the coke dealer guy. Drug dealer mentality came back. Why am I giving him the money? I get the money from them. So I decided to have my own cocaine. And next thing, I. Cycle began. Well, you know, within six months, I'm up four or five o'clock in the morning doing cocaine, selling cocaine with some people. I have people in the back of my town car doing cocaine. I'm telling them, I'd have a driver ask me a line, you know, and this is when my heroin addiction started. And it's actually. First time I tried heroin was through some Somali brothers. But they told me it was.
It was a. What they call it, hasish. It was like Afghan hashish. I didn't know what heroin looked like. Smoking it with them just gave me the feeling, like the Percocet feeling. I was like, you know, there was the opiate connection between the heroin and Percocet. I had no idea. But all I knew was that I know what that feeling was.
I was pill pumping when I seen my life getting out of control and I couldn't handle the heroin anymore.
And there's a couple of times when I couldn't find no bite from. So I went through the withdrawals and I moved out by myself. And it was painful, man. It was excruciating pain. I'm lonely and. And you know, it's what I wanted. Die. But I called the recovery service again. I said, listen, man, it's bad this time. It's not even the pills and the cocaine and it's heroin this time. Alhamdulillah. Because I built such a good relationship with those people and they knew kind of work that I put in my first time around. And them knowing that people have. Because they, they know the attic, right? They know that this isn't one time like this. So my family's always asking, they say, hoy, can you really take a mellow salt on someone? It's not a car wash magic pill that you can take that can fix you. It's a lifetime journey. I remember my sponsor Delta said, shannon, we didn't become addicts overnight. We perfected the art. We put in years. Said, there are people who are brain surgeons that have put less time in their craft than do we put in our craft. Every single day that you are an addict, it will take you 30 days of their life of sobriety.
So to. To. To. To equal to that one day. Goodbye.
So how many days in a year? I was like, yeah. He said, he said, recovery is a lifetime journey. And. And like everything else in Lifetime Journey said, work, you know, marriage, you know, health. You're going to have some failures at some point, but because you have those failures, you don't give up. You just dust yourself off. That's why I learned more about my addiction and who I am and why my brain works the way it does. And the day came when I had to do two things. I had to take the phone call to my family, my ex wife, and make amends. And that meant I have to complain. It's the ninth step of the 12 step program, which, insha'Allah, we're gonna be implementing the 10 steps of recovery in Islam. So inshallah, with the new teachings from Dr. Khalid.
So the first person. And I'm so glad that I contacted Hoya first, right? I called my sister who lived in Minnesota.
Of course, she started crying on the phone, are you alive? Because they thought I was done with this, you know, and told her, first time I went into rehab, you know, what happened the second time? You know, I never told her how heavy my jobs are. No. None of my family up to this day. I think my older brother started starting to get a little bit more information. Nowadays, none of my family and I really don't care now. It just never. They never made it, you know, a priority to know what kind of drugs I use. So I told my I told my sister I want to get my. How's mom doing? First of all, she's like, mom's in and out of mental health issues because of your situation. Give her a call.
I called her this 2012, which we're gonna do a little correction on the record that I have 12 years of recovery straight now. So in 2012, I contacted Hoyo and I told Hoya it is true some of the rumors that you've been here, you know, I have been struggling drug and alcohols and also criminal problems. But now it's exactly how I told her in Somalia, same country where I learned these things that I chose to ruin my life with.
They also have a place that can help me, you know, get clean, find a healthy way to live.
And with the help of Allah, I think I can do this.
Say hi.
If that's what they're saying they're going to do over there. Stay there please.
Look at the. I feel like the apple.
Say, are you okay? Say this.
I said, are you okay?
If you're gonna. If you're fine, I'll be fine full time. My family, they're hiding from me. How serious my. My mom. My mom's was getting seizures and passing out. And I grew up just having a conversation with you. It's how serious my father. Now I had a different reason while mistake with having that conversation with mom. He gave me the courage to contact my ex wife.
And how she become my ex wife is, you know, in detail. There's two ways, right? There's the divorce, which is the dalaka or the divorce come out of her life for a certain period of time. And also she ended up marrying another man.
So that gave me the legality of. I never really gave him a dala. This is how I perceived it. I called her first thing I asked how do I do? I was still too much of a coward to make amends to her.
Because I'll tell you right now, sorry. So Zara, what she has done, how much she has done for my sons, something that I will never be able to hear and I will forever be grateful to her. And she's someone that had, you know, the Hidayah that Allah gave her, the courage that Allah gave her. You know, even though today she does not claim to be a Muslim, but it was Allah that led her to number one, never once, never once said anything bad about me to my. My son, my boys. And number two, always just told him the one important thing. Your father is sick. When he gets better, he'll find you all the subjects he's can't depress for years, having medication, he's got my personality. He bombs stuff in and he sits.
And I had to be man enough to, you know, talk to him.
It's like, I remember what he said to me. Hey, man, as you call father.
Felt like I didn't deserve it. You know, I can't force a kid to call me dad.
You know, when I was in his father or I wasn't around.
Biological father, but not a father.
So I had to earn that back. And trust me, it took me years.
I made amends. But Sardis told me one thing, said, don't say it, just show it.
Another thing I've done, though, throughout the whole time, I supported them financially the best way that I could. There were times when I was so deep in, like, addiction, I couldn't support myself. But the days where I had a drug money or just normal job money, I supported them. And luckily, the only amount of money that I was ever asked to pay in child support was like $149 for both kids. I don't know how I got. I'm telling you, I just kept getting. I always tell people I just catch another one of my mom's die. You know, there's times where I, you know, survive from people shooting at us. You know, at a drug deal gone wrong, I cast another one. It's one of the reasons why I don't crush my Sujid when I'm in prayer. You know, I always adapt. You know, in my Sujid is my time that I show my gratitude to my creator and I always study my time. My sidi, he did that. This is like when I had to come grips with this person that I've become.
You know, I was in denial a lot. You know, I. You know, using the. The fact that I'm getting clean and giving myself kudos, but in denial of how much I have grown, how many bridges that I've burned, how many lives that I've made. I just. God so many people I liked. Strangers, family, friends, you know, slides after lies, after lives, after life.
A lot of deception where at times I was in fear of whether or not that people that I have scammed might come after me, you know? But I became a truck driver, Alhamdulillah after my second time around. And being on the road as a trucker helped me a lot because I got to know a chef named Chef Mufti Mink on YouTube. It's Allah's world, right? It's Allah's world because Every episode that I listened to was exactly what I need to do that day. I don't know what my mind was, whatever I was struggling with.
I forgot how to perform slot. I literally forgot how to perform slot. And I was half Adventist. I finished the problem.
I was doing it with vision. Second time when the war happened and I was half it. Even when I was living in my early years in Washington, those times, I used to need the prayers at the ministry.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: What advice would you give someone to someone currently struggling with addiction? And what would you say to a loved one who's trying to support someone with an addiction?
[00:52:16] Speaker B: Now this is for those who are struggling right now.
Best advice that I can give you is through your dark days, there's always a brighter day ahead. And I know as cliche as that sounds, it is true. Addiction is not who you are.
Okay? Addiction is a substance that you use. And a disease that you're suffering from. Cancer is not who the person is. It's a disease that the person has.
And through chemo, through medication, the person can find recovery. Now, the difference between you and someone who has a cancer is someone who's a cancer has the fear of dying from the cancer. While you have the fear of finding the cure. You have the fear of being without the cancer. See, there's two different ways, right? The person who had the actual cancer and the person who's suffering from addiction. The person who's suffering from a cancer, they're hoping not to have the cancer anymore.
While you are afraid who you would be without the cancer, were so used to the failing and, and keep messing up and keep trying again and keep going back to the addiction that sometimes we're afraid of success and afraid of, of the cure and afraid of, of the recovery. But once you get a taste of recovery, you not ever want to go back to addiction.
And even if you do, because the sweetness of recovery, you would want to go back to it again.
So you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna develop a sweet tooth for recovery. And every time that you get the sour taste of, of. Of addiction in your mouth, you just want to go ahead and jump to the sweetness of recovery. I promise you, I promise you, anybody can do it.
It's not something that's going to fix you right away or fix you next year or fix you the year after. It's something just like your five day prayers. Just like you're waking up and brushing your teeth and putting clothes on, just like wanting to eat and go to sleep. Something that you're going to have to do it for the rest of your life to live the life of discovery.
Because the life of recovery, once you become part of who you are, you'll forget who that person was. WALLAHI There are times when I think back of my addict person that I was in addiction, that I don't recognize that anymore. I don't.
So recovery is possible.
There is a brighter day. You just hang on there and just ask for the help.
Take that first step.
You probably already admitted to yourself that you're powerless against this thing because you know deep down you're powerless.
So just take that first step and ask for the help. Help is available for the loved ones especially. I'm talking to the people in our community.
The opposite of addiction is love. You have to support the person. You have to give them love unconditionally, but you don't have to enable them with that love. Right? Sometimes tough love is also love. So if it means, you know, setting boundaries, giving them, you know, rules to go by, and even giving them deadlines sometimes, right? We want you to go find recovery by the end of the week.
It doesn't matter if they go into recovery and they fail, you just help them again. Hey, it's okay. You tried.
The thing where you have to hold your ground is when they don't want to go, when they don't want to go, you have. You have to cut them off. I promise you. It hurts me to say this, right, but the best way to get somebody help is to not enable them.
Not enable them. And we do this a lot in our community. So love them, support them, help them to find the help necessary. But most of all, help yourselves in educating what this disease is. If you don't know what an addiction is, if you don't know what the person is suffering from, then how can you even find the help necessary?
So look for the answers so you can at least figure out what the tattletales are. When someone is high, someone is abusing drugs, stuff like that, then you can get them to help.
What does healing look like today for me?
Today I'm happy if at the end of the day, I made it to my five daily prayers. If I go to at least a message, three out of my five today, the best work that I do is to work with the community.
Our organization, 100%. Such a young organization.
There's not a lot of urbanizational work for me to do, but I find a lot of joy in doing community work.
And with this community work, I'm building Relationships with my community. I'm earning the trust of the community. So when we eventually get to that place so we have the structure necessary and the treatment and the support staff and everything that the community keeps asking of me that I'm referring them to other places to go to once we have that, that they would know, saying I'm 100%, you know, and I'm not doing for me like I say, always say the work that I do for my community, it's never been a bond, it's never been change, success or monetary gain. It's always been giving back to my community. What Allah has provided me this blessing.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: What's the difference between Rahmah Recovery center and then other rehab like places?
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Some people have opened rehab places because just like any other business, they saw an opportunity. The world, this country is dealing with a lot of addiction and mental health and addiction treatment facilities are as necessary as grocery stores nowadays. So a lot of people go in because it's a business opportunity. Right?
The reason why it's taken us this long to actually get an actual treatment facility because of number one, my vision for this organization is shifting. My community's response, our community's response. What I'm learning from our community in the beginning, what the thought was for home recovery center, what today is miles apart.
I've had an idea that I was going to combine practical work in the field, right? But now it's going to culture, educate the community.
Certain programs like Al Anon program, you know, that families and person who's suffering from addiction can have like you know, weekly meetings is, is going to more than just your traditional recovery because what we provide, you see what I didn't have, this is what the start of this whole thing was. When I was in recovery, I was at a crisis point where I was. Am I choosing my recovery over my fate? Because I was around a sober house where I could smell the sizzling of bacon and eggs no more, you know, so disgusting. Using the bathrooms I couldn't do properly. A lot of sweatsa. Right. And I wanted to provide space for my community that they didn't, what I didn't have. So they don't have to worry about that. They can just focus on that recovery. But the need of the community keeps shifting because we're over two decades in of suffering, in silence and in shame. There are 20 year olds, 30 year olds in our community with families without their knowledge. I don't blame these mothers and fathers for enabling this because they were afraid, you know, the fear of what you don't know. Right. They didn't know how to express this. They didn't know where to find the help, and they didn't know how to understand what this person is going through. So they're like, fine, let's try this. You know, our methods and our tradition doesn't work for the Eden. Doesn't work. As a matter of fact, it works the opposite. If I'm someone in addiction, the best family I want to be around is Somali family who has no idea I'll take advantage. I'll manipulate the body. Seriously. And this is exactly what happens. Right. For every Somali family person who's at the attic, they use all kind of mental gymnastics and mind games just to, you know, have a grip on the fair. So this becomes a disease of my entire family suffering from. This is why focus keeps shifting. I'm seeing this in the field now. I'm talking to mothers and fathers in their own homes. I'm witnessing how this person is talking to them. The interactions between the son, the daughter and the parent. I'm watching it. I'm like, he's playing, he's playing. Don't fall for this. And they're like, well, we don't know what else to do. So we got educated. Inshallah.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: I think it's harder when you're more like, emotionally attached to the person compared to when you're coming from the outside in. You know, sometimes that's why we have to bring in people from the outside to help us navigate, like, the family dynamics and the family systems.
I saw a video online where Ayanle was interviewing you.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:02:49] Speaker A: And you said sometimes you feel bad because you think you're profiting off of your community's pain. But I wanted to tell you that you're not profiting off of your community's pain. If anything, you're helping them heal. So I hope you continue to keep doing that and your work is appreciated. And you said also that you're trying to create a space for women and youth.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: Can we know more about that?
[01:03:16] Speaker B: Yes. So, inshallah, the ultimate vision for Rahman Recovery center is under the Rahm Recovery center umbrella. We want to have a obviously no drug addiction treatment component to it and the sober living homes for women and men, but also a safe space for youth.
Kind of like where Maeve has. Right. But with us, it's not going to be more focused on just sports and recreational activities. They can find that anywhere else. Right. This is going to be a space where, you know, the young men and women we're dealing with are going to be the ones who have siblings who dealt with this. And they have to watch the trauma of their older siblings go through this addiction. So we're going to help heal them and their parents at the same time. We're gonna have a space where they get to be there while their parents express those feelings. And those young men and women, like the. The adolescent ones when they were young and they saw their mom going through, you know, the mental health crisis because her older son or daughter is suffering from this. We want to see them, their parents heal and they themselves healed. So we need the mental. This is what we need from the community. That's why we need the mental health support people, the therapist, the anybody who has any kind of a youth engagement. Allah keeps answering my dua. Allah send me the right people at the right time. And inshallah, there's a lot of more stuff that we're going to do, inshallah. But just to keep it simple, you know, a healing space for the family. You have to heal the family because the family suffer too.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: Having suffered, can you talk in Somali to the parents and let them know just how to help their kids?
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Yes, he knows he succeeded.
A dunki manta sugar hadi.
And.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Thank you, Zain. Thanks for joining us today. And I'm gonna post more about Rahma Recovery center in the comments in the description box and just let you guys know how to connect with Hussein and how to help you guys family and better support you guys. So thank you.
Holding, holding on to longing.
Holding on to nostalgia.
Holding on to home.
Holding on to grief.
Holding on to the memories.
Holding on.
Holding, holding on for your life.
Holding on to root holding on to culture holding your breath.
Holding on to faith.
Holding on to God.
Holding, holding for the future.
Holding, holding on to the uma One story at a time.
