In Search Of Heroes Spreads Good News About Everyday, Real-Life Heroes Who Deserve Recognition For Their Good Works

Ralph Zuranski: Really.

Willie Crawford: I was a functional walking drunk. I would go to work and do my job and drive back and forth, and I could function perfectly normal but my body had said you completely overwhelm me, I’m tired and I’m lying on the floor of a shower with the water flowing and the room is going dark.

And it was my wife’s yelling and screaming don’t you leave me, don’t you do this to me. That I guess pulled me out of it enough to where she helped me out of the shower, and I sat down on the toilet lid and got dressed and they took me to the hospital where they sent me into treatment for alcohol addiction at the time.

A third of my blood was alcohol.

Ralph Zuranski: Really.

Willie Crawford: It was in excess of .35 I think it was.

Ralph Zuranski: Oh man.

Willie Crawford: It should have poisoned my brain enough where my brain should have stopped working you know. But and so they sent me to a 28 day treatment program, and that was the low point of my life. It was the weeks leading up to that I had done a number of crazy things.

I spent three years in Alaska where I was assigned as a soldier and when you go out fishing, or in the wilderness in Alaska you can look behind you and see a bear or a wolf or a badger or some other creature that wants to hurt you.

And so I carried a 44 Magnum pistol with bare rounds and these rounds were powerful enough, where somebody can drive at you with a car and you can shoot through the radiator into the engine block of a car with a 44 Magnum and stop that car.

Ralph Zuranski: Wow.

Willie Crawford: That is how powerful that pistol was. I went from Alaska to Florida with the military, I brought my pistol along, and at my lowest point I actually considered suicide. And I can remember being out drunk and thinking I’ve lost control. I’m a control freak.

A lightening told myself, my life, everything and I thought to myself I’ve lost control. And I thought ah I’m going to end it all. And I actually stuck my gun to my head and cocked it and then I thought I don’t want to die alone I want somebody to hold me in their arms as I die. That is what stopped me from shooting myself.

I just didn’t want to be out by myself in the middle of nowhere with no one appreciating the fact that I was killing myself.

Ralph Zuranski: Wow.

Willie Crawford: I wanted to be touched by another human being as I died. That was the lowest part probably in my life you know.

And many people go through that and it’s important for those people to realize that it’s ok to be that way. But you need to reach out to others and let them know that you’re struggling because there’s people who are there to help you.

And people helped me. And you know I turned around. But that was a low point in my life. I was on the verge of taking my own life at one point. I collapsed in the shower and was on the verge of my body just saying ok we give up. You’ve abused me too much and I came back and at that point I was making over $100,000.00 a year on the internet.

You know things have turned around enough now where its seven figures and it happened and when the momentum kicks in it’s just amazing. Just totally amazing. It’s mind boggling.

Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, boy that is amazing to get to that point where you’re ready to take your own life. I know I was at that same point and even though I had money and sex and drugs there was just no happiness there.

Willie Crawford: Yeah, yeah. For me it’s all about serenity. It’s all about being at peace and at ease and comfortable with your role in the world. And if you’re not happy with where you are and with who you are, then you know something is out of kilter, but you need to find that balance because otherwise life is just not worth living to you.

And serenity is very important to me. Peace and happiness is very important to me. I mean I live in northwest Florida where I can get up any day and just go out go fishing whatever, and as long as there is no hurricanes, I can just go out and go fishing I can be out in the middle of the ocean.

The ocean is the most peaceful place in the world. I mean it puts me in touch with my tiny place in the world, because I am just one little tiny speck in, you know a dot in the universe.

And you can go out and look down in the ocean and see a school of a million fish and you realize how vast things are. And if you look on your depth finder and you see the ocean that… spots like five miles deep you know which is incredible.

You realize that if you fell overboard you would never reach the bottom, because the water the pressure and the things change you would sink slower and slower and slower and you’d never reach the bottom. That’s just incredible.

But you know I’m all about serenity, I’m all about being happy with what I do and I when I was in the military I’d wake up everyday I’d look at the television and there was the news on and everyday there’s a conflict in the world. Theirs like 35 wars going on in the world right now whether most people think about it or not. I mean Korea has been at war since the 50’s.

They are still technically at war. You know the north against the south. And there is about 35 wars going on in the world. And as a soldier I would look on the television and say where am I going to be tonight. And as an aircrew member who delivered special forces and soldiers that did ??? and things like that and things like that behind the lines.

I didn’t know and there came a point where I just said I’m tired of this and I want to experience some of my children’s birthdays and just be more in control of where I am at the end of the day.

And that is when I decided I was going to leave the military and when I decided I was going to go ahead and build my own business and make it a success, you see failure was never an option for me.

It was; you will build a successful business and you will make over a million dollars a year from your successful business. It was never an option that I could do anything other than that.