The Repurposed Life: From Meth to a Miracle | Dale Lendrum | TEDxCSULB

The Repurposed Life is a miraculous journey. Dale Lendrum walks us through his 30-year history of drug addiction and incarceration and how effective rehabilitation and the exercising of our humanity can truly change lives for the better. From state prison to teaching at California State University, Long Beach in seven years, The Repurposed Life is a story of inspiration and hope for all.

Dale Lendrum is a 52-year-old, returning student at CSULB. Prior turning his life around in 2008, he spent 28 years addicted to hard drugs and the criminal lifestyle that often accompanies it. He would be jailed on more than 24 occasions and imprisoned, 6 times, spending a total of 10 years behind bars. Determined to turn his life around, Dale enrolled at Golden West College in 2009 where he served two terms as A.S. President before graduating with honors in 2013 as GWC’s Outstanding Student and transferring to “the beach.” At “the beach,” Dale earned his BA in Communication Studies in 2015 and was recognized with the ASI Golden Nugget Award for Excellence in Student Leadership. He is currently pursuing his MA in Communication Studies at CSULB where he also teaches Interpersonal Communication. The most important thing Dale’s learned? “We are blessed with each other, because we need each other.”

[TheArtistOfLove]

Thank you! As a recovering meth addict, this gives Me hope! Thank you!

[terrirodgers]

I can't believe this doesn't have thousands of 👍. It's a powerful talk full of insight, resilience, courage, and an honest assessment of what is wrong with our entire prison system and national mentality on drug use and addiction. Very well done, sir.

[rileytimes]

absolutely love this. getting that personal experience is so important. thank you Dale for sharing your story, and thank you Ted for boosting it

[sonnguyen-jupu]

what motivation from an ex-addict! changed his life around from addict to productive person!

[lindawatson]

Your story is so inspiring!! My son is in rehab and I’m thinking a 1 year program “ Helping Hands Mission”, in Baltimore will be a great thing for him to do to give him purpose! I hope he will go there other wise he will relapse if he goes right back to where he was living almost guaranteed. He says he has been addicted for 18 years that it’s almost impossible to get better... you proved him wrong! You lived the addiction for 28 years and recovered with trust and repurpose! Thank you so much for your honesty and caring! Keep doing what you do!! So appreciated!!

[lynnmcquillan]

Courageous man - Thankyou & God Bless 🙏✌️👋👍

[vls]

Dale, thank you. You are an absolute inspiration.

[benjamindsouza]

So proud of you, so happy for you, having been an addict myself! Your talk was really so powerful, so motivating, & I hope the so called authorities would take note!
Btw the system here in India is no better, but it's showing signs of improvement with the introduction of courses on Yoga & meditation, apart from occupational therapy. In fact I had the opportunity to serve on some Vipassana (awareness of the reality as it is) courses, being a Vipassana meditator & a yoga practitioner myself - practices I adopted as part of my personal rehab programme that did not include any rehab centres.
May you have a long & healthy life to inspire many more!!

[kristyanderson]

Such an inspirational story! And Amazing life style changes made to live a better life and to help others be freed from the shackles of Addiction. Beautifully said!!! Thank U 4 Sharing!

[crystalparker]

Great story, and inspiring. I have somebody that I love very much that is addicted to meth, and in jail now, for idk how long. It's very difficult, and I think that's putting it very mildly, because as someone on the outside of this, who has no real control over anything, you don't know what to do to help. All I ever try to do is let him know, I haven't given up on him. But at the same time, I know he has to do this. I can't do it for him. But seeing your story gives so many people hope. Thank you for being willing to share cause I know, there's such a stigma.

[paulrando]

Wow very powerful share, thank you for your honesty and openness, from one addict to another & Ted for giving, hope, strength & courage, keep up the good fight, all those struggling, your worth it 🙏

[dallashall]

Dale Lendrum is such an awesome light in this dark world. His experience, strength and hope shines as a beautiful example of what IS possible!! I am so grateful for this Tedx talk. I am grateful for Dales story. He is truly an inspiration!

[dalelendrum]

Peace and love and humanity y'all.

[rhondagodwin]

Why is youtube basically muting the sound on this video? Shame. I listened anyway. Thank you for your courageous video, Dale and Ted!

[savedbygrace]

GET SOME!!! That was awesome!! ❤️
I may be coming to Southern California soon to give my story and if and when I do I will be watching your talk as inspiration and as a reminder of the Truth! We can and We do with a little Help! Life can be beautiful, let’s figure that out!

[krististallings]

This is one of favorite Ted talks, and I've almost all of them. This man is very motivating and a great speaker.

[petergambier]

Well done Dale for coming out the other side to tell people your story that will hopefully make people think that it's not a good path to take and will only cost you money or your health or both and that addiction is a full time job that is not a good investment.
I too have spent many years selfishly feeding my habit and using different drugs to have wild and wonderful long time parties
but this could not go on and my biggest and hardest battle wasn't the drugs, it was fighting alcohol dependance and addiction
and so now I have been sober for about 8 years and 2 years off illegal drugs like the weed, I actually like my sobriety now
but it took a long time to get there and I want to keep it that way.

The trouble is that nowadays the amount of different drugs and strengths of those drugs is vast, and that when you and I were
growing up (I think we are about the same age, I was born in 59) we had the basics of LSD, Speed, Opiates, Marijuana, and MDMA.
Nowadays the choice of how to get high is just so vast with new products coming along all the time.
What I noticed when the Legal Highs first appeared in the UK is that not only were they rubbish but that my fellow drug takers wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, they were incredibly toxic and had low strengths but within a few short years that had all changed as the chemical constituents of those man-made highs were tweaked in line with the laws classification of them and what was once legal then became illegal and the government frantically scrambled to keep up just as these chemical labs
scrambled to tweak the existing compounds to make the highs even stronger and keep withing the law.
 These new drugs actually tended to be even more addictive and nasty than the illegal ones, and I can tell you
from personal experience the actual highs produced weren't even very nice, they had an artificial quality to them that was nothing like the old school drugs of the past and their much nicer, more pleasant highs.

Luckily the government eventually saw sense (and the cost of this battle)and finally banned them outright and a good thing it was too, because they were nasty and getting nastier and the country that was manufacturing and supplying them was mostly China in a kind of reversed Opium war, where in about 1839 the british government was importing Opium from India into China to exchange for things like Tea and Ceramics because the British had nothing to trade with apart from Automatia which was one of Britains greatest assets and the Chinese wanted big time, so they started getting the Chinese addicted to Opium until they saw what was going on and stopped the East India Trading company from selling it and the Opium dens were closed and shut down putting a massive dent into the trading companies profits.

What is so scary is that because of the UK governments zero tolerance policy to drugs more people will continue to become addicted to drugs like Heroin because Marijuana stays in your system for about 3 weeks, heroin is therefor about 24 to 36 hours.
So on the outside, companies like scaffolding firms have employees that will use a legal high instead of illegal ones because
of this zero tolerance policy, and the same applies to prisons where drugs like Spice are rampant and undetectable and widely available and being smuggled inside in an alarming rate.
This zero tolerance policy is probably the main reason why meths has become so rampant in New South Wales as it was very
hard to get hold of heroin and Cocaine and therefore a gap in the market was quickly filled by the Meths industry, and cities
like Melborne have seen the addict rate doubling in just one year to about 300, 000.

Unfortunately the US makes more money from having people in their privately run prisons, spending a month tracking down and prosecuting a white collar crime isn't as profitable as catching and imprisoning gangbangers for smoking and selling weed,
so we are basically fighting a losing battle in the war on drugs and when Britain went out to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan where they trashed the Opium fields to stop the Heroin trade they just couldn't keep up, and eventually pulled out and now there is about 4 times the quantity grown there and the money generated helps to fund the insurgents in their fight against the Western powers.

So lets face it, the war on drugs is over, it costs too much and just like the way that the criminals made vast empires and profits
during the 1920's prohibition, so the drug gangs and people like Pablo Escobar made vast profits from drug prohibiton.
I know what I would do and making something illegal really isn't the best way of dealing with the problem is it?

[miahleissa]

Beautiful. I love stories like this. They have the potential to restore our faith in humanity. All we have to do is listen and feel. Thank you so much for sharing this video. very moving

[julsonapril]

Beautiful My Brother!!!
I'm so touched by ur compassion for urself and 4 the world!
U my friend r Changing the World, Ur words r powerful with the truth, God Bless You💋😗😗😗
Congratulations on fulfilling your purpose here
Warrior is what u r, Fight the good fight and be the light
Namaste
Ur Friend
April

[bellamae]

You are so inspiring! I've suffered with meth addiction for 9 years, since then I've inflicted head tremors and tics. I am on the road to sobriety, please tell me some if my motor functions problems can be reveresed. I'm so worried, I hate what it has done to my health. God bless