The inspiring true story of an Aussie man’s journey, of fighting to escape violence and learning to face fears, that changed his life forever…
Severely obese, depressed and an avid drug and alcohol addict, Australian author Luke Kennedy was trying to get his shit together and reset his life. After venturing to Thailand for one final hurrah, he partied hard, overdid it and his path collided with prostitutes, drug dealers and shocking violence. In this edited extract from his latest memoir, he gives us a glimpse into his life before it led to that fateful, and nearly fatal, Thai trip which ended in enlightenment after a Buddhist Monk forced him to confront his demons. The debaucherous trip became much more than just a good story but a fundamental mindset shift and stepping stone towards a silent mind.
I don’t want to do this. What if they’ve got weapons, too? I might get locked up. I might get…
“Punchy, how much do you think they’ll have?” my old friend Stintz asked me, seated next to me in the driver’s seat of a stolen car, his words interrupting my inner thoughts. Punchy, my nickname, I had picked up through graffiti and winning organised street fights. I loved it. “I’m not sure, bro. Don’t know about cash, but they’ll have heaps of pills,” my mouth spat out, trying to drown the other conversation in my head: my doubt and my fears. My thoughts were always there, always loud. Those loud thoughts were the reason I was sitting in that car about to run through a drug dealer’s house to rob him and his friends.
A couple of hours earlier I had been sitting on a warm couch with a bunch of my boys, the morning sun peeping through gaps in the curtains. It was the end of the second night without any sleep but with copious amounts of ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol. Time on drugs gave me what I was after: a slight reprieve from my overactive mind. It gave me some stillness, some silent time. It helped me care less about what other people thought of me – at least, for a short time. As the effects started to wear off and the misery of my harsh reality began to hit, my loud berserk thoughts were back in full force. And they were worse than before I got on the drugs.
Shouldn’t have said that last night. You reckon they’ll care? F–k, I’m going to be sick tomorrow … Should I have something to eat? When did I eat last? Ummm … wonder if I’ve lost weight. I’m gunna go home. F–k going home. Everyone else is still going. How’s my face look? I bet it’s oily. I haven’t showered in a bit. Do the boys think I’m a grub? Have they showered? Wouldn’t mind brushing my teeth. How can we get more drugs? F–k, I need more drugs. Any vodka left? I think I finished it all off. I was facing reality as the drugs wore off, and these thoughts were crawling their way back in. I didn’t want the thoughts back.
How can I hold these thoughts back a little longer?
“Anyone got pills? Have we finished the vodka?” I slurred, glancing around the room filled with pale, miserable faces, purple bags sitting under every single defeated eye. There was no response besides a couple of weak and beaten shakes of the head. The room had three lounges in a semi-circle, a large-screen TV playing music videos and a coffee table with empty beer bottles on top, a bong, empty satchels and a bloody tissue after two of the boys had a drunken wrestle a few hours earlier and butted heads. The jovial atmosphere of the night before had disappeared with the darkness of night. What was left was misery, the sun’s rays now illuminating our horrible existence. One of the boys was slouched down into the couch, his head below his shoulders and giving the impression he had no neck.
“F–k… wouldn’t mind a pill,” was all he could mumble. One of the other boys who had been in the wrestle the night before chuckled and coughed, a bit of blood-stained tissue still stuck on his head. “Anyone got pills?” I repeated a little louder. “Think we’re done, brother,” Stintz said, disclosing the information we were all trying to hide from. I had met Stintz four years earlier when he was 15 and I was 17. He was an innocent little skater boy back then, a young boy with an underlying mental health issue. He too was searching for stillness. He also craved silence.
With years of being in Sydney’s most infamous graffiti and street-fighting crew, Stintz’s defence, or more like attack, of the manic mind was to not only bury it in substance abuse but to also crush it down through adrenaline-filled, life on the edge experiences. Not skydiving or swimming with sharks, mind you; more like bursting into a business, jumping the counter, throwing an employee to the ground and robbing them. Or, like me, he also enjoyed a fight. He looked up to me. When I first met him he was a short kid with blond hair who was looking for guidance. Now four years later and still a touch shorter than me, he had broad shoulders, a thick neck with tattoos hugging it and many scars on his beaten face. He also had a team of younger people who looked up to him and did harsh acts at his request – the vicious cycle of gang life. You either fight your way to the top or you’re left at the bottom doing things for those above you. Once at the top it’s your turn to call the shots.
“Punchy, do you think I could beat him, he’s a big boy?” Stintz asked me a few months after I first met him. There was an older guy from a rival crew who had called Stintz out. People in our crew never backed down, even if it meant a possible defeat. “Brother, he might be big, but his heart is nowhere near yours.” “With you in my corner, Punchy, I’ll take on anyone.” “I’ll always be in your corner, my man.” I was the main fighter in the crew. As I had grown up around the boxing scene and in a family of fighters – my dad and brother were both professional boxers – I won all of my street fights bar one.
I started my downward spiral after getting kicked out of school at 15. When I met the now-infamous graffiti crew RM I fought my way into it. I saw the way my dad and brother were looked up to: fighters were like gladiators in our circle. They deserved respect. I wanted that respect. I just went about it the wrong way. Years of organised street fights, getting stabbed twice – once in the lung and the other time in the head – and an unrelenting approach to gaining recognition meant I soon saw myself at the top of the crew.
I was happy to be labelled a fighter and leader. Again, I saw this as being like an ancient gladiator and it gave me a false sense of power. It gave me an identity, one that helped me feign confidence. In front of the boys I was this big, strong leader. I could handle any situation and wouldn’t back down to anyone. I even looked happy. Internally, though, it couldn’t have been further from the truth. I was anxious, depressed and paranoid, and a lot of nights I would cry myself to sleep after praying to be a better man.
In social situations away from the false confidence of gang life I was incredibly awkward. If I had to meet someone for the first time I would stutter, sweat and be inside my head trying to work out how to get away. The labels of fighter and leader I grasped with both hands because it helped me fake my way into feeling confident. All this fighting, all this crime, all this drama . . . there was a deep method to our franticness. I’m not sure if Stintz was aware – I don’t suppose I was back then either – but each of these things we were up to was again the result of us searching to relax our thoughts a bit. At the time of us committing these devastating acts our thoughts were gone.
“You’ve got this, Punchy,” one of the boys barked at me from behind as I readied myself for a fight one Sunday afternoon. A park was the setting for our fight, the same park I used to kick the football around with my dad. Now years later I was hopefully going to stand above my knocked-out opponent. Bouncing from foot to foot as I warmed myself up, I looked over at the guy I was about to fight: he had a few boys in his corner and I had the same. My thoughts teasing… What if he has a weapon? Will he beat me? He’s pretty big. So? F–k him. Imagine what the boys will think if I lose… You won’t lose. You might. I feel sick. Let’s get him.
Whack! My first punch brought silence – to my mind, that is. Fighting was an active meditation: no thoughts; stillness of mind. It was pleasurable. I look at everything that most people are addicted to or enjoy and it soon becomes evident that the addiction or joy is caused by a lust of stillness, of silence. Take playing a sport, for example. You’re totally present. A golfer isn’t addicted to walking a course in shitty suit pants, nor do they enjoy hitting more bad shots than good. They’re in love with those microseconds of pure bliss as their eyes scan that ball floating through the air. The world could be ending outside that golf course but none of that matters to a still mind.
Stintz was really a good kid, but he was still a kid. Other people his age were being influenced by sports stars or celebrities. His mentors, like me, were leading him to gaol. “Well, f–k this,” I said a little louder to my zombie-like friends, trying to force some energy into myself and them. “If we’ve got none left, let’s go get some!” So there we sat: Stintz and me. In a stolen car outside a unit block that housed a drug dealer.
It was a beautiful beachside suburb, morning walkers strutting past, their smiling faces, healthy figures and joyous energy seeming to glide them across the footpath. The setting summed up my contrasting existence – a microcosm of my entire life. Like my life, the outside environment didn’t reflect what was happening on the inside. Soon a drug raid. Fuck. What if he has a gun? Hope he has heaps of cash too. How many people are in there? Should’ve brought more boys with us, but then we’d have to split the cash up more. Maybe we will go back and get some more boys. F–k doing it. I want to just go back to the house. I don’t want to do this. What will the boys think if you bitch it? You have to go in. Anyone watching us? Should I do this? F–k, what will Dad do if I get busted? Arrgghhh!
“Alright, let’s go.” Silence… The loud thoughts were gone. The blurry static washed away, and what was left was clean and pristine, a sense of ultimate presence. All my senses rose along with the hairs on my neck, but again the blissful still mind was there. This was what I desired. As we soldiered across a grass patch still soaked with morning mist I zeroed in on the front security door. It was more a hindrance door than a security door for my fat foot with 120 kilos behind it. My armed robbery meditation was underway.
My body was tense, every vein rushing with blood, my accomplice ferocious in his skipping step. The grass sped past my feet. But… my mind was still. Taking a presence-filled deep breath as though I was deep into a meditation, I leaned on my left leg and lifted my right foot. BANG! The hindrance door wasn’t even that. It ripped off the hinges and fell inward like the first in line of standing dominos. It was loud. That sound meant disorder.
Stintz was right behind me as we bounced over the floored door and ran up carpeted steps. I could smell bacon cooking. Although the sounds of our raid were evident – doors smashing to the ground, our feet stomping upstairs – behind all of that was a stillness, a deep silence within my own mind. A focus. My thoughts were gone. It’s what I always yearned for. It’s what all of us want.
We had bought drugs off this guy before and knew exactly where his unit was. Two levels up sat our target. When we reached level one I heard a door slam closed. I noticed another open an inch, probably someone eyeing to see who had just trampled through their front security door. We didn’t care about their restful Sunday morning; we only cared about the reprieve from our minds. We ran up the remaining staircase as I readied myself to kick down another door. I froze. There he stood – our silent mind dealer. Standing outside his unit door barefooted, looking like he just woke up. He had no shirt on his white, skinny body. A faded, poorly designed dragon tattoo went from his belly button up over his chest. His hands were behind his back.
“Punchy!” I felt Stintz grab my right arm. “Look out, he’s got something.” Our target heard what Stintz said and responded: “It’s only what you’re after. I don’t want any bullshit.” He revealed what he held in his hands: a plastic bag filled with smaller, sealed-up satchels. Inside the satchels sat our little colourful pills of hope. Pills of solace. I went to smile before realising that wasn’t what tough guys do. “Where’s the cash?” Stintz shot out.
“Come on, boys, I’ve got family here,” he pleaded.
“Well, you better want to go grab that cash then before we bust down that door too,” I said, nodding towards the blue front door that stood tall behind him.
“Wait a sec,” he said, handing me the bag of pills and turning around.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing his arm firmly. He turned and looked me in my eyes. “Don’t f–k around,” I growled. He shook his head, and with a turn of a key opened his door before sliding inside, not wanting to reveal to those in the unit that he was being robbed.
“Bro,” Stintz said. I looked over at him, and although he was standing in the one spot he was bouncing a little. He was excited. He looked like a kid about to run out to a filled-up Christmas tree on 25 December. “Let’s just run in there!” he suggested. “Nah, lad, just chill,” I said, looking around at the rest of the units. I could hear people moving around and I pictured them all looking through their peepholes at the robbery going on. “Just chill,” I said again. I heard the unclick of a lock on our target’s blue door. He slid back out with another plastic bag, this time smaller. “Here, it’s all I’ve got. I’m done with this shit.” He passed the now-unwanted baton. It felt as though he was handing me his old life, ridding himself of the drama that being a drug dealer comes with. Drama I was happy to take for now.
“Look what we got, boys!’ I said, entering the room filled with depleted bodies. I threw the bag of pills on the ground and noticed a touch of energy rise in each person. Stintz sat on the floor to lie down. His energy went the other way. A robbery can take it out of you. “Open your mouth, brother,’ I said to Stintz as I started throwing ecstasy at him. After four attempts one landed in his mouth and he chased it with some water. “Throw me another,’ he said, as I swallowed two. These mornings were far too common. At the time I didn’t know why I searched to always further my high. Often when off our faces on drugs I would get an insight into my boys’ internal struggles. “Punchy, I’m not looking forward to tomorrow when I’m coming down. I’m already doing my head in. I’m going to try to get a girl over to keep me company. I hate being by myself. You know what I mean?” Before hearing things like this I thought I was the only one with the loud mind. I had no idea my boys were the same. We all suffered internally, so why did we keep doing things that ended in us suffering even more? At the time I didn’t know why. I do now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For eight years of his life, Luke Kennedy was an obese alcoholic and drug addicted thug. Leading a violent street fighting crew, he was stabbed on two separate occasions. On the outside, he looked strong and confident, but on the inside he was scared, depressed, anxious, paranoid and obsessed with what others thought about him. After losing 50kg, Luke turned his life around and is now one of Australia’s most sought after motivational speakers, mental health advocate and mentor to troubled youth.
By LUKE KENNEDY
SEX, DRUGS AND A BUDDHIST MONK by Luke Kennedy (Gelding Street Press, rrp$32.99) is available at all good book stores or online at www.geldingstreetpress.com
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