This is a first-person YouTube video/transcript of Tommy Vext describing his recovery from addiction, the role of fitness and mental/spiritual practices in his life, and severe injuries he survived in 2010. He contrasts accepting life with accepting responsibility to change, recounts past weight and substance struggles (including addiction to sugar and heavy drinking), and emphasizes daily rituals, rehabilitation, and fitness as central to longevity and mental health. The transcript includes gym/audio clips, repeated lines, and a short promotional note about First Form.
Questions this video answers
November 2, 2020
2010
Skull fracture; left arm broken with limited range of motion; ruptured spleen (leading to spleen removal) and was pronounced dead and revived in hospital.
Sugar (candies and sweets)
He said he had once gained almost 320 pounds and at one point had "lost over £120" (transcript wording).
Chapters
Absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober. Until I accept life completely on life's terms, I could not be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as what needs to be changed in me. And my attitudes.
Baptized my real miracle. Chapter.
Five. You did it again. Sold your soul just to get this breath.
You know, I've been told that there were two kinds of people in this life. They're the kinds of people who just accept everything for the way that it is. And then there are the kinds of people who accept responsibility for changing those situations and circumstances. I'm somebody who. I subscribed to the latter. You know, I didn't come from very much, and I did not have a lot of things available to me in my early life. But I had a dream and I had a desire, and I followed that through, and it wasn't easy. And I think I really admire and relate to so many athletes because I see, you know, athletes physically embody their work that they've done. They physically embody results for. For a lot of people in different industries, you really don't see the results until you kind of get successful. And then people will say, overnight sensation. But meanwhile, you've been grinding in the studio, you've been grinding in the gym, you've been grinding at work for 20 years. And that's not the story that people get. It's the. It's an incomplete story.
The sky cutting me down in my br.
You took my time. Keep running your mouth. We're down here at Self Made training facility in Costa Mesa, walking you guys through part of my routine. And for me, even. Even before I got sober, fitness was a big part of my mental health. My first addiction was probably sugar. And when I was a little kid, I was overweight. And that carried me through my adolescence. I didn't have very healthy dietary options, and I grew up in a pretty poor situation, and there wasn't a lot of education surrounding nutrition. I definitely was addicted to candy and sweets and sugar, and it affected my athleticism. And then around 16 or 17, I started getting into fitness, and my weight has fluctuated. Actually, there was a time in my early 20s where I had gained almost 320 pounds. I was not working out. I was not healthy. I was drinking every day, and I was suicidally depressed. And I remember I had played a concert with one of my bands, and I saw video footage from the show, and I was like, no, no more. And I was like, I couldn't believe how far I'd let myself go. A few years later, I got into recovery and I took the health and the fitness kind of aspect even further because, you know, for me, being sober was about mental clarity and spiritual awareness. Now in working with the physical body, it's all the three parts of the triangle for me and helping fight off, you know, mental health issues and stuff that I've struggled with my entire life. And I think a lot of men don't talk about it enough. The more it's being destigmatized. I think between, you know, law enforcement, the military, and, you know, men in the music industry, there's a lot of people standing up talking about it. And for me, health and fitness is a huge component in helping keep my mind balanced, keep my body challenged, and have focus. And something I do when I'm on tour, it's something that's a big part of my life and I notice a massive difference when I'm not doing it. For me, working out used to mean something different. It was like, I want to look a certain way, and now as I've gotten older, I want to feel a certain way. I want to feel physically capable and I want to feel youthful and I want to have energy and I want to be an example of positivity. I wasn't born with a body that a lot of athletes had. I have to work for it. I had to work twice as hard. Especially as somebody who's lost over £120 at one point in my life. We have to do what's best with the bodies that we're given. And I think considering, you know, the drugs and the alcohol and the things I used to put into my body and the unhealthy foods, there's a massive difference in the quality and the foundation of the happiness and joy that I find in my life. And that foundation is a solidified principle that helps me to deal with life on life's terms when bad things happen or when things happen that are beyond the scape of my control so I don't slide back into depression.
One of the things that is really important is, you know, a lot of people don't know a lot about my backstory. I suffered major life threatening injuries in 2010 where I was actually assaulted during a home invasion. My place was broken into, I was beaten with a crowbar, my skull was fractured, my left arm was broken. So I have limited range of motion in my left arm and my spleen actually ruptured and I was Actually pronounced dead and revived in the hospital. So through the course of having to, you know, go through emergency surgery and then do physical rehabilitation, really important for the function of training for my movement so that I can like extend my life longer. I'm immune compromised as a result of not having my spleen. Training plays a vital role in my mental health, but it also plays a vital role in the longevity of my life and the quality in the length of those years that I have. And so I know a lot of people out there, you know, like my story, like overweight. Maybe you've had surgeries. Maybe you have, you know, I've had knee surgeries at bad knees. I've had my entire abdominal wall opened up, you know, for emergency surger surgery, for the thing with my spleen. You can do this thing, you know, If I can do it, you can do it. I remember seeing this movie with Anthony Hopkins and it's called the Edge. And I met him years later and I've gotten to know him, he's a really cool guy. But in the movie, they're stranded in the woods, him and Alec Baldwin, there's a bear chasing them and their plane crashed. He's like, well, one man can do, another can do. And they were, he was referring to these African tribes with 15 year old boys would have to fight lions that would come into the village with spears. And, you know, that's something that always stuck with me, these little kind of pop culture mont things that I've heard over the course of my life. And I try to start my day. You know, I put my cell phone under my bed so I have to get on my knees and surrender before I start my day. And then I start, I do my readings so I can get my mind right and try to go out in the world and like bring something and pack something into the stream of life every day. And so this is, this is what we do. This is how we do it. This is how we, we change the world by changing ourselves. I'm very, very excited to be part of the first form family. I love everything that they're about and. Yeah.
Good morning, my neighbors. You too, dude. When we were in Russia, I went to the gym in Russia and like literally was just like, hell yeah.
Any little thing I think it'd be doing, because it doesn't matter.
