As a kid, Darren was teased for his speech and learning disabilities. In high school, he got into trading baseball cards. He loved the statistics and having all the info on all the cards, and became the guy his friends would go to for sports info. He loved being that guy for his friends, and this gave him self-confidence. He eventually started going to trade shows and started making big money. It eventually turned into a mail-order card trading empire, which was the beginning of his early wealth. He went to his dad and asked him for 8-9k in insurance for his collection. That’s when he knew it was serious. He became a local celebrity entrepreneur, appearing on the Sally Jessie Raphael show. When he came back home, even with all this money, all this fame, he still felt like the kid in the back of the room. One time at a sleepaway camp when he was 14 years old, he had stomach pains. He went to the nurse & got a clear green liquid, and felt on top of the world. He was laughing, and talking and was the life of the party. He learned to fake his pain to get this green liquid, it turned out to be the opiate Demerol. Shortly after this is when he started becoming a full-blown drug addict. He learned how to manipulate his mother and father to get more pills. It all came to an end when he was 21 years old, he was arrested 4 times in 6 months. The judge let him go through a small counseling & recovery 1-year outpatient program. 2 days after leaving the program, he was involved in an auto accident because he & his friend were taking Xanax and drinking. After he went through recovery again, he planned a fly-fishing trip with his dad. After a deep heart-to-heart conversation, His dad gave him the confidence he needed to start his own talent agency. He named it Prince Marketing Group and Magic Johnson, Mohammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Dennis Rodman, and others were some of his first major clients. Even though he was still broke at this time, these first major clients gave him the credibility to become a “super-agent.” Even at this time in his life, he was sniffing Oxycontin, Ambien & Percocet every day.
On July 2nd, 2008 everything changed. He had a moment of clarity and decided to change for good. He got in a uber that night, and went directly to the closest AA meeting in the area, and hasn’t looked back since. He made a spiritual pact with himself and God, that if he got sober, that he would devote his life to getting others out of the darkness. This was the birth of the Aim High Foundation. In 2017, Darren lost his father due to an unexpected aneurysm. He had a conversation with Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) told him to go get some time with his dad, to say goodbye, and ask his father if he wanted to keep fighting. His father said he was ready to go, but Darren reassured him that he was going to stay on his path to recovery, no matter what. Since then, Darren has spoken to kids, adults & everyone that needs to hear that they are not alone on their road to recovery. The best-selling author of "Aiming High" his autobiography and founder of the Aiming High foundation has continued to help all kinds of people, his life’s goal now is to devote his time and resources to help as many people as possible become and stay sober. This is Darren Prince in his own words on Knockin’ Doorz Down.
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