Low testosterone. Erectile dysfunction. Fertility struggles after 40. These conversations are happening quietly in exam rooms across the country but rarely out loud.
In this powerful episode of the ANEW Insight Podcast, I sat down with renowned men’s health and fertility specialist Dr. Kian Asanad, director of the USC Fertility and Men’s Sexual Health Center in Beverly Hills, to uncover what’s truly happening behind many of the symptoms men experience—and why sexual health is often the first indicator of deeper metabolic and cardiovascular issues.
What we uncovered was both empowering and unsettling: many forms of erectile dysfunction and infertility are not simply “aging problems.” They are early health signals—messages worth listening to long before serious disease develops.
Who Is Dr. Kian Asanad?
Dr. Kian Asanad is a fellowship-trained urologist and men’s sexual health specialist at Keck Medicine of USC. He completed medical training with Alpha Omega Alpha Honors at UCLA, his urology residency at LA General / Keck Medicine of USC, and advanced fellowship training in male infertility, microsurgery, and sexual medicine at Northwestern University—one of the nation’s top andrology programs.
His clinical expertise includes:
- Low testosterone and hormonal disorders
- Erectile dysfunction
- Peyronie’s disease
- Ejaculatory dysfunction
- Vasectomy reversal
- Genetic and congenital infertility
- AI-enhanced diagnostics and microsurgical fertility restoration
Dr. Asanad’s practice centers on restoring not just physical function—but quality of life. As he explained, men’s health care is ultimately about helping men reclaim intimacy, purpose, confidence, and family building goals.
What Are the Most Common Causes of Male Infertility?
From Dr. Asanad’s clinical data and experience, three major categories dominate most fertility evaluations:
Hormonal Imbalances
Up to 15% of men undergoing fertility evaluation show hormonal disruptions, most often low testosterone, which affects both sperm production and overall vitality.
Key hormones evaluated include:
- Testosterone
- FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone)
- LH (Luteinizing Hormone)
- Prolactin
- Estradiol
Morning testing is critical, because testosterone peaks between 8–10 AM, when accurate readings are obtained.
Varicoceles (The Leading Structural Cause)
A varicocele is a group of dilated veins around the testicle that increase scrotal heat, impairing testosterone production and sperm quality.
- Present in up to 40% of infertile men
- Can cause testicular atrophy over time
- Often completely correctable with microsurgical intervention
Physical or Anatomical Factors
Evaluation includes careful examination of:
- Testicular size & tissue health
- Presence or absence of the vas deferens (the sperm transport ducts)
- Signs of congenital absence or obstruction
Men born without the vas deferens—commonly linked to cystic fibrosis—produce sperm normally, but require surgical extraction and IVF due to blockage.
Lifestyle’s Role in Testosterone and Fertility
Lifestyle factors play an enormous role in hormonal health.
Top contributors to low testosterone include:
- Obesity and excess visceral fat
- Metabolic syndrome
- Type 2 diabetes
- Hypertension
- Chronic inflammation
Fat tissue converts testosterone into estrogen, lowering androgen levels and disrupting fertility signaling.
Can Exercise Naturally Boost Testosterone?
Yes—and the research is clear.
Studies published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine show:
- Moderate exercise (3x/week, 30 minutes) significantly improves testosterone levels and erectile function
- Weight training large muscle groups—legs, chest, quads—is especially beneficial
This isn’t about extreme fitness. Consistent, moderate movement supports natural hormone regulation.
Can Diet Improve Men’s Testosterone and Sexual Health?
This is where Eastern longevity research and Western cardiovascular medicine intersect beautifully.
Dr. Asanad commonly recommends a Mediterranean-style diet, long associated with heart and sexual health:
- Vegetables and fruits
- Whole grains
- Fish and healthy fats
- Plant-forward proteins
In Blue Zone populations—where diets are largely plant-based with minimal animal protein—men show:
- Healthier metabolic profiles
- Better hormonal balance
- Reduced cardiovascular disease rates
As I often tell patients:
“What’s good for the heart is good for the penis.”
Why Erectile Dysfunction Often Signals Heart Disease
Penile arteries are smaller than coronary arteries.
This means blocked blood flow shows up earlier in erections than in the heart itself.
ED can precede heart disease symptoms by years, making sexual dysfunction a crucial early warning system—not simply a quality-of-life issue.
Many men who haven’t seen a physician in decades first encounter care through ED complaints, which become opportunities to detect:
- Diabetes
- Cholesterol disorders
- Testosterone deficiency
- Cardiovascular disease risk
Are Vasectomy Reversals Successful?
Yes—often extraordinarily so.
With microsurgical techniques:
- Success rates exceed 95% when sperm are present during surgery
- Reversals remain highly effective even after 20–30 years
- Pregnancy success depends on female partner age and fertility factors
Fertility Options After Vasectomy:
- Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal
- Restores natural fertility pathways
- Sperm Extraction + IVF
- Sperm retrieved directly from the testicle or epididymis
- Hybrid Approach
- Reversal performed while freezing sperm simultaneously
Dr. Asanad often tailors strategies to the couple’s age, relationships goals, timeline, and reproductive health.
Congenital Causes of Male Infertility
Rarer genetic and congenital issues include:
Pituitary Hormone Deficiencies
When LH and FSH production is absent, fertility shuts down—but can be successfully treated with hormone replacement, restoring sperm production in over 90% of cases.
Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY Chromosomes)
- Affects 1 in 500 men
- Often results in low testosterone and infertility
- Testicular sperm extraction still succeeds in ~50% of cases
Y-Chromosome Microdeletions
About 10–15% of men with no sperm carry deletions affecting sperm production genes.
- Types A & B: zero chance of sperm retrieval
- Type C: sperm retrieval possible
Important insight:
Any male child conceived with this deletion inherits the same infertility risk.
Men’s Fertility Reflects Overall Health
One of the most profound insights from this conversation:
Reproductive health is not isolated—it mirrors total bodily health.
Hormonal imbalance, metabolic dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, and even hidden genetic issues often first reveal themselves through fertility struggles or erectile changes.
For Information, get more details about Dr. Kian Asanad here are his social media channels https://www.keckmedicine.org/provider/kian-asanad/ , https://keck.usc.edu/faculty-search/k…, https://www.yelp.com/biz/kian-asanad-…, https://www.instagram.com/asanadmd/?h…, linkedin.com/in/kian-asanad-md-3691a9228
Final Takeaway: Men’s Health Is Preventive Medicine
This episode reminded me of something essential:
Men’s sexual health is not just about intimacy.
It is about early detection, vitality, longevity, and whole-body wellness.
If erectile changes, fatigue, reduced libido, or fertility concerns arise—these are invitations to assess deeper nutrients of health, not signs to ignore or medicate away.
Watch or Listen to the Full Conversation
🎙 ANEW Insight Podcast: Men’s Fertility, Testosterone & Cutting-Edge Restoration with Dr. Kian Asanad
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🎧 Apple Podcasts | Spotify
🌐 www.anew-insight.com
Continue Your Healing Journey
- Course: Deprogram Diet Culture — science-based, trauma-informed healing
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View here the full podcast Transcript:
20251029 Lance Wright Part 1
Dr. Supatra Tovar: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome everyone. I am so thrilled to have Addiction Recovery Specialist and my new friend Lance Wright with me today, Lance. Hi,
Lance Wright: Hello, Supatra. Good to see you again.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: You too. Lance and I met because we both were very honored to be chosen for TEDx Temecula and Lance really has an amazing story, an amazing speech, and so I had to have him on my podcast ’cause I really do wanna pick his brain some more and learn more about him.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So I’m gonna read you a little bit about Lance and then I am going to drill him with all my questions. Lance Wright is an addiction recovery specialist with over 32 years of sobriety and is the founder of Life Over Addiction, [00:01:00] a program that helps individuals and families navigate recovery with compassion and clarity.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: His raw and redemptive personal story from addiction and incarceration to healing and service fuels his mission to reframe addiction as a survival mechanism rather than a moral failing through his work, Lance draws on the science of neuroplasticity to show that recovery is not just possible, but deeply transformative.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: His approach blends education, collaboration, and daily practice to help people rewire destructive narratives, rebuild trust and rediscover purpose. Today he empowers others to move beyond shame, reconnect with themselves, and embrace recovery as a lifelong path to healing and wholeness. Lance, welcome.
Lance Wright: Amen. Good to be here. Thank you for having me on, I appreciate it.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh, I’m so [00:02:00] excited. I, you know, you really did impress me with just your raw honesty and just how vulnerable you were up on stage, and I think people who are struggling with addiction, or anyone who knows somebody struggling with addiction can really gain something from your message. So I really want to, as much as you feel comfortable go into your history if you can just give us a glimpse into what your life was like before recovery.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: That can be from early on as you like. And then what emotional forces were driving all of your behavior back then?
Lance Wright: Well, I mean, I think what you, when you define addiction, it’s the beginning point of every conversation we are, we’re going to explore today because the understanding of addiction in society is people that have a problem with substances or alcohol or criminal behavior or eating or gambling, and those are all external [00:03:00] manifestations of an internal problem with our thinking.
Lance Wright: You know, I mean, you heard me speak, and I’m a firm believer that every one of us on this planet is raised in a certain way, where our little super computers are programmed. The little girl, you the little boy, and me, and we experience things. And if some of those things aren’t necessarily healthy or positive, how does that impact one’s programming growing up? And it might be small. It might be big and it might be in different areas, but you know, for me growing up and I didn’t really learn everything I’m sharing with you now and the ability to be vulnerable with it until I got into recovery in like ’93, ’94, ’95 while I was incarcerated, but up to that point. It was just the way things are.
Lance Wright: It’s how we do things. I talk to the clients a lot about it every day, and I’m very vulnerable with them because I can’t expect them to understand something that they’ve never heard or seen [00:04:00] themselves. And so for me, my journey and my story and my programming, or how I develop the way I see the world or myself, and it started as a little boy. And you know, you heard me speak, but really my earliest memories were being home alone in the bed with my little dachshund Duchess in the middle of the night, wondering if mom was gonna come home.
Lance Wright: And so my earliest moments in life were a home with my little dachshund dog Duchess, wondering if mom was gonna come home.
Lance Wright: I had to learn how to feed myself, take care of myself from a very young age. When I think about it and I see a little 4-year-old, like when my niece lived with me, I’m wondering how did I survive? How did I make it through that? And I, today, I believe firmly in a higher power or God of my understanding that had my back even when I didn’t, nobody else did. But those early impressions in my programming where I’m alone, I’m different, I’m abandoned. Those spaces within that many people may experience in life and gloss over or [00:05:00] not think of, but those little programmings start to evolve over time.
Lance Wright: Kindergarten, I had ADHD and couldn’t sit still. First grade, second grade, third grade, and teachers didn’t know what to do with me, so they put me in the principal’s office on that little bench and say, just give him something to read, give him something to do. It wasn’t that I was stupid ’cause I could do all the work. I just couldn’t sit still, and nobody really asked what the problem was.
Lance Wright: They just punished the behavior. So that little kid that felt abandoned and alone and scared goes into a school system that says you’re different, you don’t belong, and you’re separate. I’m not saying that the school system or my mom or anybody had these intentions. This isn’t a blame right or wrong thing, it’s just facts that an evolution of a child. And by six years old, I had a very definitive perception of myself as that little bastard kid that nobody loved and cared [00:06:00] about, that I was different and that, you know, I was alone in the world. So by that time I had started to evolve and had a few friends in my neighborhood that were like-minded, not, how do you call a six or 7-year-old, a troublemaker, you know?
Lance Wright: We’d hang out and one of the things that we do is play pinball down at the Greyhound bus station and not having a father and mom being WIC welfare and food stamps, and doing the best she could to put food and pay the bills. I never had things. And so my friends would gimme a quarter here or there, an extra game, but I always felt different or less than people because I didn’t have what they had.
Lance Wright: And it was reinforcing that internal dialogue I had about myself, that perception, that narrative of that programming, that story. And so one day coming home from school, this is where my addiction started,
Lance Wright: You can see the programming. Me coming home from school with this programming or wherever I was at coming home, and I saw a rack of the old Coke bottles or a couple [00:07:00] racks of Coke bottles in somebody’s yard, and I said, I know those are quarters because I’ve taken them to the store from my mom before. I grabbed those little couple racks of Coke bottles and off to the store I went. Now, of course, I wouldn’t perceive it as stealing or theft. We’ll call it requisitioning at that age. And I had a handful of quarters all of a sudden. I was somebody, I had what you had. Matter of fact, I had more than what you had and I couldn’t wait to get to the pinball place at the Greyhound bus depot to give you quarters and to play 10 or 15 games. And that little kid that felt like the little bastard kid disappeared for a minute.
Lance Wright: I found an identity in a sense of belonging and being that I had not experienced and I had money and I was up here. It was my first drug really to think about it. It changed how I perceived myself in the world
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: And people liked me.
Lance Wright: They were like, [00:08:00] oh, that’s great. You’re giving us quarters. It’s ah, Lance!
Lance Wright: But the problem with anything that gives us those immediate relief like that is when those quarters were gone. That little bastard kid showed up in all his glory and now Mom’s purse, the piggy banks, grandma’s piggy banks, it. I was like, I found something that makes me feel normal. It changes how I feel about myself and of course it looks innocent, this little kid, stealing quarters to play pinball or whatever. But that led to somebody teaching me how to shoplift so I could get good clothes and have things. And so I was beginning to be a little thief and stealing and having things like other kids had was giving me this false identity, or it was helping me navigate away from the identity I didn’t want and didn’t like. And it was
Lance Wright: Peers and friends that were like accepting and family and like, yay. And this little kid was finding a sense of purpose and an identity. And [00:09:00] by nine, I was a little thief to be honest, but we were in Northern California in an aunt’s house, and my mom up to that point had taught me drugs was bad and she, my aunt went under the couch, Northern California, pulled outled out the tray and rolled a cigarette, passed to
Lance Wright: my uncle, passed it to my mom, passed it to my cousin who passed it to me. do what they’re doing. This must be okay. I choked and coughed and you know, everybody laughed. time it got around the second or third time, smoking pot was something I really liked. It made me laid back. I was cool. And now I had another thing that helped me change the space in here and in here. And from stealing and pot, it got into burglaries and trying everything but hard, real hard drugs. And of course with that, juvenile halls, youth [00:10:00] authorities, camps, programs. I was reprobate, so to speak. And nobody really ever questioned, why is this kid screwed up? It was, you broke the law, you did bad. We’re putting you in a facility, we’re locking you down.
Lance Wright: Boom boom. And I’m not blaming anybody. It was just the system and how the system’s set up. It’s like if your son or your daughter get in trouble and you send them to their room without their phone for an evening and you don’t explain why you’re taking the phone, they’re not gonna learn why you’re taking their phone. And so I grew up in an environment where incarceration or programming was the solution to my problems, and nobody really ever asked or explored it with me. And so my life up to 16 progressively got worse. Like we talk about alcohol or substances, my lifestyle progressed to a point where I was in a program for like six months behind the juvenile hall where they were trying to [00:11:00] fix me. And in that program I got taken home one night by my counselor and I found out my mom was dying of cancer. He told me and I didn’t hear cancer. I heard, you know, mom’s gonna die. As this little, ’cause you, I might have been 16, but I was more like eight inside my head in my heart. ’cause I really never matured ’cause I had been just escaping reality all my life up to that point. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and I can’t deal with that. I’m very empathic and it was too much for me, and I was already in a drug induced culture and lifestyle, so I just ran away. And over the next three years I found methamphetamine. And the problem with drugs for me is I have mental health problems.
Lance Wright: I have ADHD.
Lance Wright: It’s why I couldn’t sit still in school. Right after I found out my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I met some people that said, Hey, you wanna do some meth? I don’t even know what that is. I thought it was like cocaine. You do it, it’s high for a few minutes and then you go [00:12:00] whatever. So I, I, I was messing with these people and ended up doing methamphetamine with them. And when I first ingested that substance and it entered my system, my ADHD, it was like my entire life was like going through life like the Star Trek Enterprise through warp speed.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: And when I put that substance in my system it was like coming outta warp speed in front of a planet and be like, never even knew you have amazing. I could see it was clarity, it was a euphoria. It was everything that I never experienced, and it took away all the feelings, all the pain, all the, that. It was
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I remember saying, and I share this, I, where’s this been my whole life? I never not want to feel this way.
Lance Wright: And obviously with a substance like that and looking back on my life and the broken soul that I was when I was introduced to that already broken, it [00:13:00] just was off and three years later my mom died of cancer.
Lance Wright: I had turned off any relationship with God or anything decent and didn’t care. And I was associated with some people doing some bad behaviors and actions and in March, no, may of 1984, I committed a drug related homicide, second degree homicide. I speak it openly and I don’t minimize my actions because I wanna honor Matthew, the man, who died, and his mother, Ms.
Lance Wright: Ellis and his wife Tina, and his son Brandon, and their family. I live and do today is to honor them and Matthew, of course, my life and my journey because I can see how I ended up there and how that man didn’t deserve what happened to him anymore than I did. And I’m, that’s not a justification or a rationalization, it’s just that I am responsible for my actions and I live accordingly today. But I didn’t really get that when I was arrested and was sent off to [00:14:00] prison with a 17 year, four month to life sentence. I continued to do the same things ’cause it’s the only way I knew how to cope with self, with the reality
Lance Wright: of my life. And inside I was a piece of garbage, dirty, no good, should burn in hell. I’m, you know, that was my self-perception by that point in life.
Lance Wright: And my first nine years I continued to do the same thing. By day I was really, I looked like this by day. You
Lance Wright: know at night when the door rack that I had drugs in the cell and my roommate and I would every night get high. It was kind of my coping mechanism to deal with a place I couldn’t cope with.
Lance Wright: But nine years into that life sentence, three months to my first parole board hearing, I got caught for possession of methamphetamine for distribution and being high as a kite. And I am in an ad seg cell, and I came outta psychosis about three days later and it was [00:15:00] March 11th when I came out of it, about 1:30 in the morning. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to think that you’re gonna die in prison at that point. But I remember that night vividly. It was the, probably like we talked about disruption.
Lance Wright: It was the first real disruption in the programming. When I stopped and I stepped back and it was like a out-of-body experience in that morning crying and sobbing and weeping, and I looked at my life. I remember saying, how did this happen? This is not who I am. And it was an angry statement internally, like looking at my life because this is, I knew that person isn’t who I am, but I didn’t know how, why or what to do with it. I just knew I didn’t want it anymore.
Lance Wright: And so, at that point I had surrendered to the fact that I didn’t want that lifestyle anymore, but I didn’t know what this new one was gonna [00:16:00] look like. And you didn’t hear me and I didn’t speak about this. This is the first time you’re hearing about it, but the mo, one of the more pivotal points in my life was three months later when we went to the parole hearing, and two things really stood out to me and still stand out. One is I got to go into the parole board and say, look, I get, I have problems.
Lance Wright: I don’t know the answers, but I’m committed to finding out why and changing them. they were like,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yay
Lance Wright: Finally you woke up. And it was really authentically me saying, I’m broken and I know that and I’m gonna figure this thing out. And they just were like, okay, great. And, that hearing, Matthew’s mom, Ms.
Lance Wright: Ellis talked about him as a little boy growing up.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh
Lance Wright: And every word she said, I felt small enough to slither through a crack in the ground.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: wow.
Lance Wright: My self-judgment was overwhelming.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yeah.
Lance Wright: And at the end of her share, she looked over and she made eye contact she said, [00:17:00] my fam we’re Christians. We don’t believe in hate.
Lance Wright: It would serve no purpose. We forgive you.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh.
Lance Wright: Okay. But then she said, we don’t understand how you could have done this to our loved one in our family. And so I believe that day God spoke through her and gave me a spirit or an insight or something I didn’t have in the emptiness of my within space and a direction to figure out my life and to change. And over the course of the rest of my 18 years after that of incarceration, ’cause I total, I did a total of 27 years. She began to be a chief advocate for my release because I had found a mentor about a year and a half later in a AA meeting in prison some Opey Taylor sober kid said, you should go to those meetings when you heard my story.
Lance Wright: No I’m trying to keep my bad language down here, but
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh, you’re great.
Lance Wright: right. You know what I mean? Like [00:18:00] yeah. I should probably be in those meetings even though I don’t think they work. So I’m sitting in these meetings with Opey Taylor and I’m like, okay, I’m here. But they’re giving you a chrono says You’re a good boy and you’re going to meetings.
Lance Wright: So, hey, it’s a manipulative thing. Hey, I’m doing good, right? I don’t know what any of this recovery stuff means, but I’m going to meetings. But in those meetings, there was one night a new guy came to the meeting, came to the prison, to the meeting, and he didn’t talk about drugs and alcohol when he shared. He talked about pain growing up. He talked about losing his sister at Christmas and blaming himself and how a
Lance Wright: girlfriend was horrifically attacked by two brothers, and how he took justice in and became a mu monster major gang
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: member, and how he was pissed off and wanted to meet this God and how he was on death row and a nun told him he wasn’t gonna die.
Lance Wright: And that year on his birthday, the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in California. And how
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Whoa.
Lance Wright: he went to prison and some [00:19:00] old guy named David G came in doing hospitals and institutions work and running meetings and told my sponsor, Richard, you’re full of shit. If you want help, ask me, but don’t waste my time. And Richard was the kind of person that respected that level of communication. So we had said, yeah, I started working with David. He made suggestions. I do ’em. We went through the steps. I still do ’em. They work pretty good. They might work for you. And he kind of just tossed the mic. And I was like, that’s the first person I’ve ever heard that talked about transformation and recovery
Lance Wright: that made sense. I didn’t know how
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: but he had my attention it, he spoke from the heart and he, like you said earlier, when we first started this, his vulnerability attracted me. His honesty and authenticity made me think there was hope. And from that point on my life began to change. He wasn’t one of those people that said you have to do anything. He said let’s sit down over lunch and talk about step one, [00:20:00] step two, let’s meet on the yard and talk about step three as a group of us, like eight or 10 of us. And he was taking us and teaching us what the 12 steps were so that we would be comfortable saying, Hey Rich, would you sponsor me? And the rest is history.
Lance Wright: Richard was not. I can’t say that he was kind of heart and an authentic, you know, Supatra, I care about you. I know you have a problem. You know, I can help you with the problem, but I’m not gonna fix it for you. I can show you how and help you get there. That’s the most horrible place ever, that somebody sees you and knows you and you know they can help you. It’s very difficult. But he
Lance Wright: was a master of it. Over the course of years, I learned to enjoy vulnerability and being honest because he said honesty will produce stronger character and ultimately happiness,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh,
Lance Wright: that’s the truth.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: That is so beautiful.
Lance Wright: Yeah. And so that’s kind of where I met Richard and then he [00:21:00] left and there was a bunch of us on the yard that were like, oh God, Richard’s gone.
Lance Wright: What do we do? And some of us just looked at one another and said, we’ve been doing this 10 or 12 years, let’s just keep doing what we do. Because he had already taught us how to be men undercover. He was helping us grow up and take accountability for our lives and learned that amends was honoring those people
Lance Wright: we’ve hurt, including ourselves by living differently and
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow. Where did he go?
Lance Wright: He left to another yard because he was human and he was, he had his issues and there was a female officer, and you know, the rest is history. On that note.
Lance Wright: It happens in there. You know, after as many years as he did, the vulnerability showed up and he could, you know, it was like an addiction.
Lance Wright: It was like a drug, you know. And so he fell into that and he ended up being transferred to another prison. And I believe around 2009, he was diagnosed with cancer in his liver. And the archdiocese in Los Angeles, father Greg Boyle and a few other real prominent [00:22:00] people in LA went to the court and petitioned for a compassionate release and it was granted.
Lance Wright: And he came home that day, he got out, he came home, saw a few people, hung out with his kids. He ate peach ice cream, they say, ’cause that’s what he always wanted. And that evening fell asleep in his wife’s lap and passed away.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh my goodness.
Lance Wright: But he died a free man and he’s helped thousands. I can’t even count how many people, ’cause for every one of us that he’s helped, and there’s hundreds, probably thousands of us, each one of us is doing the work that he gave us.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Lance Wright: his spirit lives on and he would say, it’s not his spirit. It’s God working through him and through us, because he never took credit for the work.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh Lance, oh my gosh. I can’t even get through this story without just tears. And I think you are so right that there is so much [00:23:00] power in vulnerability. I mean, Brene Brown did a whole TED Talk on that in and of itself, and it’s so true when we can be raw and honest and speak from our hearts and admit our, you know, faults and our wrongdoings, and ask for forgiveness and then carry it forward as a mission.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: You are a living example of redemption and purpose, and I’m just I’m awestruck. I’m just so incredibly glad to know you. I mean, everyone, when he gave his TED Talk, he just, he was so vulnerable and, and people, my friends who were there were saying that they were so just hanging on every word and just wanting and wishing the best for him.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: And so when he was done the speech, [00:24:00] everybody just stood up and gave a standing ovation ’cause it was just so beautiful. So.
Lance Wright: going, Jonathan, get out here and get me off of stage!.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: I know it feel like, it felt like forever. It was just like, oh, when is he coming? Oh my gosh. But Lance, I can’t believe it, but we’re out of time for this half of the podcast, but I’m so glad I just, I really just wanted to hear this story because I know anyone listening is, is just going to be inspired, especially if they’re struggling themselves or they know someone who’s struggling.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: There’s so much humanity and so much to learn behind addiction. So in the next half we’re gonna get into how you are helping people and what the trajectory of that has been. So everybody, you’ve got to come back for the second half of this podcast. ’cause Lance is, you know, just, he’s my heart fella. He is just such a good guy.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So please come back for the second [00:25:00] half. And Lance, I know you’re gonna be back. So thank you all for joining us. Tune in next time for the second half of this amazing interview with Addiction Recovery Specialist Lance Wright.
Lance Wright: Awesome.
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