Mike Majlak Shares A Heartbreaking Story From His New Book "The Fifth Vital"

Mike Majlak is a social media influencer, entrepreneur, podcaster, YouTuber, and author. In his new novel The Fifth Vital, Mike tells the unbelievable story of how he became part of the opioid and drug epidemic that swept the nation when he first started experimenting in high school.

At fifteen and sixteen, he spent most of his time weighing and selling eights of weed to fellow classmates and strangers, inheriting drastic amounts of the substance hidden in his bedroom. By junior year, he started taking mushrooms, LSD, Percocet, and Ecstasy. Halfway through his junior year, his life took a drastic turn when he experimented with OxyContin. Taking it for the first time, all his depression, anxiety, and worries disappeared before him.

This led him into a downward spiral of addiction, violence, and hopelessness. His continued drug use led him to crime on the streets where he could have died many times and thought he would never be able to survive. It wasn't easy, but he was able to get clean and turn his life around in a way that he would have never imagined. Having overcome his demons, Majlak hopes that sharing his story will give readers the strength to keep going.

I talked to Mike about why he decided to tell his story, how his addiction first started, and much more:

James: How is your quarantine going, and how have you been staying sane during these chaotic times?

Mike: I've spent the entire quarantine working. I feel like this pandemic is pushing people to go one of two ways: either complete meltdown or 100% grind mode. It's so cliché to be one of those people that says "you should try to work through these times and be productive" and put yourself through the mill, but I've been one of those people. I've also been fortunate to have a bunch of roommates to kick it with during the quarantine, and I feel bad for people who don't have roommates or people to share their time with because I imagine it's gotta be torture.

James: For people who haven't heard of your life-changing new book, The Fifth Vital, how would you describe it to them?

Mike: The Fifth Vital is a captivating story of traumatic events that plays out like a movie. It's an introduction to the underbelly of the drug epidemic in the United States, the street culture, as well as a showcasing the meteoric rise and comeback story of an average American citizen who went from heroin to Hollywood. But more than anything, it's a story of hope that will encourage any reader in any predicament in their life to keep going.

James: What exactly does The Fifth Vital mean?

Mike: For the entirety of modern history, the health of a human being was measured by four vital signs. In the early 2000s, the fifth vital sign was added in, which was a question to the patient: "How much pain are you in right now?" That single question—that single addition of the fifth vital sign—is a massive contributor to the over-prescription of narcotics and opioid problem that we've had in the United States for the past twenty years.

James: Why did you decide to tell your story to the world?

Mike: Because I knew it was a story worth telling. I feel like I have a good finger on the pulse of what people would be interested in hearing, and I knew that the life I'd lived would become a crazy story worth telling. And then couple that with my coming into a massive platform and starting to see what my story did from an inspirational standpoint for other people—I knew it was time for this book to come out.

James: Growing up with a supportive family, how did your addiction first start and how were you able to get your hands on such dangerous drugs?

Mike: That's the thing about this epidemic. It doesn't discriminate. It doesn't matter if you grew up in a supportive family, a foster home, a good socioeconomic environment, or in the projects. The opioid epidemic is non-discriminate, unlike anything we've ever seen.

In the early 2000s, Oxycontin by way of Purdue Pharma was the most dramatically over-prescribed drug to ever hit this country. At seventeen years old, my town and thousands of towns like it were over-inundated and oversaturated with Oxycontin. It was everywhere. It was at every party I went to, and everybody was doing it. By the time I graduated high school, a large percentage of my graduating class was addicted to Oxycontin.

James: What was the lowest point in your life?

Mike: In 2010 at the height of my own addiction to Oxycontin, crack cocaine, heroin, and everything else that I was doing at the time, my mother—with no one else to turn to—asked me to care for her father who was dying of Parkinson's Disease and dementia. Wanting to help my mother in any way after hurting her for so long, I agreed to do it. And one day, while my grandfather was downstairs in his recliner calling out, "Help, help, help" to me, I was in the attic smoking crack and too paranoid and too scared to go downstairs to help him. It's a regret that I still haven't gotten past, and it was the lowest point of my entire life.

James: Throughout your struggles, what gave you hope?

Mike: For me, it was my mother. Everybody has something different in their life that they go to in their darkest times…at least the lucky ones do. For me, it was my mom, and she never gave up on me. She was there in the beginning and during all my darkest times. The thought of her was constantly in my head when I found myself spiraling toward my own demise. And that's another big part of my story that's in my book: asking people what your light is, what your thing is, and, once you find it, never letting go of it.

James: What's your craziest drug-related story?

Mike: Every one of the stories in this book is craziest enough to wear that crown. My life during that time was described by someone close to me as "one the longest consecutive series of unfortunate events I've ever seen."

But the story that sticks out the most happened in 2008 during a drug deal gone wrong when two kids tackled me and shattered my right ankle so the fibula bone broke through the skin. Those guys continued to pummel me before my friends jumped into help. We then took off in my car and had to make multiple stops to drop off heroin before we were able to go to the hospital. While we were driving to the hospital with the exit ramp in clear sight ahead, we were pulled over at the last second by the major crime task force and the narcotics team. I was pulled out of the car and had to lie facedown on the ground for over an hour, handcuffed, with my fibula sticking through my skin while the cops searched my car. When I finally was able to get to the hospital, I had two plates and twenty screws put into my ankle.

James: How did your family react to the trauma going on in your life?

Mike: At first, my family was supportive, but as other people who have been through addiction know, eventually the collateral damage on your family is so great that they're forced to completely give up on you and surrender to the inevitable. In my case, many of them did.

But the reason I'm so fortunate and so lucky is that they didn't give up definitively so that when it was time for me to actually fix things, they were still there to support me. I can't even begin to describe the inner sadness and respect I feel for the families that go through the opioid epidemic watching from the sidelines. It's a story of tremendous pain that I wouldn't wish on anyone, and also a story of tremendous courage and graciousness in the face of the most absolute adversity.

James: Is there anything that you decided you wanted to leave out in the book?

Mike: I had endless opportunities to censor myself and leave stuff out of this book, and every time I tried to do so, something in me told me not to do it. This book is as close to an uncensored autobiography as you can possibly get. That said, there's probably another 40,000 events that easily could have easily made it into the book.

By default, due to the accepted length for a book, only one percent of the shit that went down actually made it into the book. There are endless stories that didn't make it into the pages, but not because I chose it to be that way but because we're bound by time and length of what's acceptable to put into a book.

James: Tell me the story of how you and Lana met. Has having Lana in your life kept you away from your demons?

Mike: First of all, her name is Amara...haha. Amara and I infamously met as a stunt for a Logan Paul Vlog. It feels weird even saying this, but it's just the nature of my life right now. As soon as we met, I immediately realized that this girl was dramatically different than the girl everyone thought they knew. She had been married for the previous two years and out of the porn game for the past three.

What I found in Amara is one of the most gentle, kind, supportive people that I've probably ever come across in my life. And more than anything, she's calmed me down. She's kept me away from the Hollywood parties and all of the evils that come along with them. She's forced me to grow up just a little bit, which is something I drastically needed. But let's be honest, I'm still a kid and always will be.

James: Did you find writing your story to be therapeutic for you?

Mike: Writing this book was extremely therapeutic. The majority of time I spent on this book was spent typing on a keyboard covered in my own tears. It was painful at times, it made me smile at times, but more than anything, it was a wall that I knew I needed to climb. No matter how hard it got for me, there was never a point where I thought that giving up was a viable option.

James: Do the memories from your past still haunt you?

Mike: I've come to terms with a lot of my regrets and a lot of my trauma and a lot of the things that I've done wrong to myself and other people, but subconsciously I'm sure that pain will never go away completely. But I'm doing what I can to be at peace with it.

James: What do you hope readers get from your book?

Mike: HOPE. The unflinching and decisive belief that if you keep putting one foot in front of another through the darkest of days, you can not only survive, but you can thrive. And look no further than the man on the cover of this book for the proof of that.

James: What advice do you have for people who are struggling with addiction and trying to control their inner demons?

Mike: There are so many micro gems that I'd give the current addict. Just a few are: to have patience in your early recovery for good things to start coming your way, accountability, taking responsibility for your actions (both the good and bad), and self-forgiveness. There's a ton more that I could give, but I've never claimed to have the playbook for the solution to this problem.

More than anything, I just want people to know that success stories are out there, and getting clean doesn't mean having to settle for a mediocre life. Getting clean is the first step toward having everything you ever wanted in life. My biggest piece of advice to the struggling addict is: get fucking clean! Nothing else can happen before you conquer that first step.

James: What can we expect next from you? Will The Fifth Vital become a movie?

Mike: It's already in talks to become a movie. There's a reason why this story made a good book, and that book will equally make an incredible film. Trauma and struggle in life are more than just an American problem; it's a problem that everyone in the world knows dearly. This book is a visceral story of near annihilation and then a comeback to the apex of success and happiness. Of course, it should be a movie!

But while that all happens in the background, there's more digital content in the making, more content on The Night Shift, more podcasts on the Impaulsive show, and more of me doing what I can to inspire people to keep going.