Garrett: What’s up people? I’m Garrett Jonsson and you’re listening to Consider Before Consuming a podcast by Fight the New Drug. Before we jump into this conversation, we want to let you know that this episode contains graphic depictions of abuse, rape, sex trafficking, drug facilitated sexual assault and suicide ideation. Listener discretion is advised. Today’s conversation is with Dr. Brook Parker-Bello, so where do I begin? She’s an amazing individual. She’s a writer, teacher, actor, CEO, justice advocate, author, entrepreneur, yoga instructor, visionary, curriculum developer, mentor, and founder of multiple organizations. She was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was given to her by the 44th president of the United States for her outstanding achievements. She’s a champion survivor of rape, sex trafficking, drug facilitated sexual assault and suicide ideation. Brook is the founder and CEO of the award winning More Too Life Inc. an organization dedicated to ending human trafficking. She is all this and so much more and as you can imagine, she’s a busy individual, but she gave us 30 minutes of her time and so we hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming.

I always look at these things like a type of, I don’t look at it as an interview, more of like a discussion or a conversation.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: As it should be.
Garrett: Yeah. The name of the podcast as you know, is Considered Before Consuming. It’s produced by Fight the New Drug. Um, how did you hear about Fight the New Drug? Have you used some of the materials that we provide?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah, yeah. Um, I heard about it a couple of years ago. I want to say, you know, our board chair, David Arkless, um, and some friends I think Seba up in Cambridge, Boston, um, Kathleen Wynne in Arizona, um, had some of your cards, you know, and I thought that was really cool cause it’s something I’ve been doing for a long time and I thought “That is… Porn Kills Love.” It was like, “Yeah, dude!”

Garrett: That’s what stuck with you? You’re like “Oh, wow. That’s cool.”

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: [laughter] Yeah, that’s an awesome hashtag.

Garrett: Cool. Um, and the first time that I met you was yesterday when you were on the panel. You mentioned some things yesterday, I took some notes during the panel and I was like, well, I want to know a little bit more about that. Um, but before we dive into it, can you give us a little bit update on like, you, I know you’ve done amazing things. Tell us about some of those things.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Some bullets? Well, I received the Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama in the White House on 2016, uh, for this work. Um, Brian Gallagher, uh, CEO United way worldwide, the hero effect, which was seen on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Um, the work is such a profound and intense work and I’m known for the root causes. And one of the causes that has always been my passion, um, as an actor and a survivor and an author is the legacy of fatherhood. Um, and legacy of fatherhood is indicative of and foundational to reducing an ending the demand of human trafficking and pornography, aka porn, um, is a mega part of that. Um, and so I’m one of the individuals who’s been powerful and writing curriculum, court-appointed curriculum and volunteer curriculum. Um, for men to understand how powerful they are and some of the issues, as Shakespeare wrote about centuries ago, that men tend to be falling off the radar, uh, because of the issue of pornography and addiction and, and sex, or thinking sex is what it’s not. Porn does kill love. So the understanding of that is, is crucial in this work.

Garrett: And I think we were on the same page when we came up with that tagline.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: [Clears throat]

Garrett: Yeah. Feel free to clear voice. By the way, what are you drinking? It looks heathy.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. It’s a Green smoothie with kale and bananas. And…

Garrett: you look like a very healthy person.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: I’m from Cali, yeah.

Garrett: There we go. [laughter] All natural.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yep.

Garrett: Are you vegetarian? Vegan?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: I was for seven years now I’m not.

Garrett: Flexitarian? Have you heard of flexitarian? It’s like sometimes you eat meat, sometimes you don’t.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Exactly, I eat meat like once or twice a week.

Garrett: Yeah? Cool. Um, we got sidetracked with your help there.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s cool. [laughter]

Garrett: Um, I actually, we haven’t even mentioned your name, which is the very important.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. My husband would be glad, so would my dad. Uh, my official name is Dr. Brook Parker-Bello. Um, my husband is, is Irish Italian. Uh, my dad’s Parker, so I’m one of those hyphenated girls.

Garrett: Cool.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. Cause I want to honor my dad.

Garrett: I like that.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: And what is the doctors title? What’d you study?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Uh, pastoral, clinical therapy. I’m an actor, but I’m also a woman of faith. Um, but I believe in freedom. So the emphasis is biblical studies and psychology mixed together. So the spiritual side of emotional health.

Garrett: Wow.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: There’s, from what I understand, there’s kind of the general population they’re going to look at health is, there’s six aspects of health, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, financial and physical. Right?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Right.

Garrett: So you kind of focus on the spiritual?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Spiritual, and mental.

Garrett: Mental.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: But then you have behavioral, then you have the connection of IQ, EQ and AQ. IQ is your intelligent quotient. Um, EQ is your emotional quotient and AQ is your adaptability quotient.

Garrett: I like that.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: And something that survivors often have is of her profound A quotient, the ability to adapt to certain environments, but there’s part of it that’s broken or the ability to have an high EQ unless they’re faced with triggers. Um, and sometimes those things affect the IQ being a little bit higher. Um, but you need EQ and AQ to be successful in the world today. I Q alone, uh, is, is not nearly enough. And as a matter of fact, you can be successful with only EQ.

Garrett: Emotional intelligence.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: And people that go through trauma…

Garrett: EQ is emotional intelligence?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s right.

Garrett: Okay.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. Quotient intelligence. And so as your, if you’re a great artist, it doesn’t mean you have a high IQ, but you’re super intelligent because you have a high E Q, you’re creative, you can adapt your hand to your emotions well, you read people well, you know, you can be highly intelligent and can’t run a meeting or can’t communicate…

Garrett: So if you can like look over data and research, that’s IQ.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s right.

Garrett: And then if it’s, you can read people, EQ?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: that’s right.

Garrett: Okay. So you, you mentioned as you were introducing yourself, you said your actress, survivor and activist. Yeah. And author. And I’m the CEO of More Too Life, More Too Life is an anti-trafficking, sexual violence youth crime prevention agency located in Florida. We have offices in four counties, a Miami, Dade. We’re in Hillsborough County, Tampa, st Petersburg and Sarasota where our main headquarters are.

Garrett: Wow. So our podcast Considered Before Consuming, we usually interview, um, people with personal accounts or experts or activists. And it kinda sounds like you’re all three.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Garrett: Interesting. So if you can, and by the way, if I ask a question, and you don’t want to touch on that, feel free. My question is, when you say survivor, what was the sort of, when you, what were your survivor of?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Actually, I, I, I really often say champion and I love your name tag, uh, Garrett that says “Champion Sponsor.” Um, I guess here at the event, I’m a champion survivor. Um, I love boxing. Um, even a film Southpaw, I may, I don’t even care.

Garrett: It just gets you pumped up?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Like, I love, I’m relentless.

Garrett: That’s awesome.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: And I think you have to fight as a pugilist, as a warrior to get past trauma to, to be a woman of, of grace and passion or man. Um, but to pursue pushing a Boulder up a hill in, in today’s world. Right? Cause we get tripped up by many different things. Um,

Garrett: You know, it’s interesting, I had a thought as you were talking, it’s like you mentioned intelligence, emotional intelligence, adaptability.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: And it’s, if you look at boxing, those three things are needed. Right?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Absolutely.

Garrett: Interesting.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Absolutely. And so I like to work with survivors and from that point of view, I love sports.
I am from Cali after all, but um, I, I was raped, uh, at 11, uh, straight a students science buff, uh, athlete come from a good family, but [inaudible] was low cause, uh, domestic violence and fatherlessness in the home. Um, but it was a brutal, kind of a very dark rape. Uh, and I liked boys. I always knew that I liked boys. I always knew that, you know, I’m totally going to get married one day. I’m going to have three kids and dogs, and I want to be a scientist and an actress and a writer, and I’m just going to take over the world.

Garrett: Those are amazing ambitions.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: And, uh, I, uh, kissed a boy once on the cheek in the fifth grade. Uh, and that’s all I knew about romance. I didn’t know about, uh, private parts or as a younger, I didn’t know anything beyond that. And I was very naive. So when I was raped by, um, a friend of my grandfather’s, uh, it leveled me. It shocked me. Um, my family knew this individual. They knew, uh, my mother knew him. He was around, you know, the kids a lot. Um, he beat me up. He, he, you know, pinned me down. And that was that. And I didn’t even know what happened, what he was doing. I, it was sort of like, “Oh, that’s what this is.” And I was crying and I, it was just a profound, horrific experience and my virginity was stolen in that sense. And so, um, from that point I went from like this vivacious kind of girl who was already dealing with my mother being beat up to like second guessing my move. I went from being fearless to fearful, my grades dropped. Um, and I ran away from home, you know, and um, when I ran away, I was kidnapped by traffickers and they kind of let my friend and I to have something to eat.

And then to make a long story short, when I took us back to their place to give us supposedly like a backpack and some clothing, um, to help us cause they “help” kids like us, um, it was like that move the devil’s advocate. They went from being nice and we didn’t know to being like the most horrific, scariest, psycho people on the planet. And, uh, I had like this pure young girl blood. And so to have them give me heroin and drugs in the room is spinning and you’re being raped again. And um, my life was never the same after that. Um, and so this work that we do, um, pornography is a drug. It, it, it is one of the root causes that perpetuates violence, not just against women and children, but against young men in prison, uh, against boys. Uh, it, it is so dark. I always like to say that, you know, sex comes from a Greek word. It means to know and be known. Um, and pornography is sort of like filmed rape and, and, and there’s no real consent because someone’s saying yes when they may know, but, but they don’t know how to say no because their human development has sort of placed them in a situation where they’ve lost or not discovered who they really are.

Garrett: They haven’t even gotten to know themselves.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: No.

Garrett: And the word you said, the word love comes from a greek word?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s where we get the word intercourse from. Intimacy.

Garrett: Do you know the word in Spanish, um, to like familiarize yourself is conocer.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Conocer. Yeah.

Garrett: It’s close.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah, it’s a Greek. So the same, uh, and the idea of that is that’s not what’s happening in pornography or in, in rape or in human trafficking or in prostitution. When someone was, is purchasing someone that they think desires to be there, it’s not sex. It’s something else.

Garrett: Interesting.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Because sex, if it comes from the Greek word for love, it’s love consensual intimacy. It is when two people come together to, to share and to embrace and to discover one another and this isn’t that and it exacerbates violence and it, it changes the concept and the beauty of who we are as human beings. And then men played by centuries by the same old crap. I want to say that Shakespeare in the play or fellow, there’s a line in there where, and I say this because men actually have taught children and women that pornography is okay when it’s been wrong, but Desdemona is about to die. She’s about to be murdered and Lago is this sort of antagonist, right? And Marta is bruh, bruh brushing the hair of Desdemona.

Emilia is Bryson, the hair of Desdemona and, and she knows something, but she can’t really tell her because she’s not fully certain. And she says as she’s brushing hair, “What is it they do when they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is, is it frailty that thus is, is so to and have we not desires for sport and frailty as men have? Then let them use us well or else let them know the ills we do. Their ills instruct us so.” So you see there’s an order to things, Garrett. There is a, and Shakespeare talked about it. And so men are being plagued by the same thing that is taken down Empires. You have sex, you have drugs, not what real sex is, but a false sense of sex, not intimacy. Um, and desire for greed and pornography is the quintessential type of greed.

It is agreed that that’s worse than the greed for money. Uh, it affects the neurotransmitters as you know, like an opiate addicted. Someone who’s about to overdose, but you don’t overdose on it. You see, you can overdose on an opiate. It has the same effect on the neurotransmitters, but the overdose won’t, you won’t die from it, but your life will die. Your community will die. Your family will die. Your business will die. Your frontal lobes, your ability to critically think will die, and our future in this country and around the world will die because the more you go down the rabbit hole, the more you want. “Oh, just a little soft porn.” Okay. “That’s boring now.”

Garrett: So the concept of more and more often and a more hardcore version.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah, different types.

Garrett: More, more often, and a more hardcore version. I heard that…

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: I’m going to let you get a word in, so…

Garrett: No. You’re great. I was just thinking about everything you said. It’s a great information. One thing that sparked in my mind as you were talking was the equation. Have you heard this equation that happiness equals reality minus expectations?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yes.

Garrett: And it’s interesting to me because I think that equation applies to pornography because reality minus expectations well, pornography is not reality, and oftentimes pornography perpetuates false expectations.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s correct.

Garrett: So it’s this complicated…

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Not often times, always. It always does.

Garrett: Yeah. Some more than others. Some types of pornography perpetuate more than others.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: True. But porn in and of itself…

Garrett: Yes. And so it messes up that equation. Like that equation is pretty simple. Happiness equals reality minus expectations.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Right.

Garrett: But it messes that up really significantly.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Right.

Garrett: Tell us a little bit more about the award you got from Barack Obama.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Um, you know, the Lifetime Achievement Award, uh, from him in the White House is because of the work in pretty much being a volunteer, doing things that change society and our in our community for the better. Um, and in terms of writing curriculum, um, onboarding our SOS university for college campuses at sober one-on-one, um, pornography and sexual violence prevention for college campuses and alcohol and drug and partnership with Jim Rushes. Um, all of this stuff related to restorative justice, you know, onboarding that online. All of our Latin digital integrity intelligence, a new product that I have with, uh, the creditors of Call of Duty, uh, my French hands, Glasgow, I’m doing some real cool stuff with them. Um, but we credit this process to work with the youth that are traumatize, that’s all augmented reality and virtual reality and it’s… um….

Garrett: So it’s like there’s AI, which is artificial intelligence. And then ag is augmented…

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: We’re going to be able to go into a virtual reality setting, um, and do things that we’ve never done before. For a systems that have never utilized this stuff to unveil the true heart and foundation of what someone has gone through in a way that is palatable, palpable and something that, uh, breaks down barriers of prejudgments if you will.

Garrett: Wow.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah, and it’s powerful and fun and cool.

Garrett: I feel fortunate to sit across the table from you and have this discussion and your resume. I mean your life experiences are just like, to be honest, very unique and I’m sure you know that about yourself in the sense that a lot of them are unique. And then when it comes to like the rape thing that maybe not so neat, unique, there’s a lot of people who have experienced similar things.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: But it’s always unique because that is too, because we’re also beautifully different and if we don’t recognize, I had, I heard someone say “Typical trafficking situation.”, I almost passed out. There’ll be a “typical porn addiction” situation. Know you have a guy, he goes to a bachelor party, there’s porn there, his dad expose it to him earlier on. Then he finds himself addicted. First he’s doing soft porn, and then he goes down the rabbit ho and he’s at work and he, he, he, he, he’s passionate about it. He can’t shake it. His wife leaves. He can’t see his children. Maybe he loses his job over it. Um, so what’s typical about any type of, and, and so it’s all unique to our lives. Someone might think that pornography is not harmful.

Garrett: Right.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Okay. And they might think that, “Oh, well my doctor told me to do this because…”, but, and I, and it’s okay to have different opinions and not to judge how we feel.

But the important thing, Garrett with the podcast is to learn and to converse and to, so that people really understand. And for this particular issue, uh, it does, it is a health crisis. Pornography is a health crisis. Um, kids are becoming addicted and so they’re losing the ability to be kids. Um, and so the trajectory of our nation, if you imagine our world in 50 years, what would it be like if people are addicted and we don’t understand or see or appreciate connectedness and intimacy and love.

Garrett: We need to act now, right?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yes.

Garrett: We need to have conversations now.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: We do, because human development is in the balance. We forget the fragility of human nature and the urgency of allowing kids to be just that and the exposure of violent images. I love the internet. I love technology, but the iterations of it, my friends in Silicon Valley and the Google Next Gen policy leader. So I was chosen by Google as a Google Next Gen policy leader, right? The end of 2017. So I am one 2018 and I was chosen, you know, I’m still one all of 2000 2019. So I have a opportunity to go to Google headquarters in different parts of the country and learn about how technology can solve the world’s problems and its connection to policy. And I love it. And that’s under the leadership of Chanel Hardy. And, um, it’s so powerful because the iterations of tech are so fast. We weren’t really prepared for the exposure of things about it that aren’t positive, so that we can get ahead of it and create prevention mechanisms and time restraints and save songs in the home and all these things that can reduce a hypersexualized culture, which is sort of killing our ability, I call it the erosion of empathy, pornography pushes and rids of empathy. So the erosion of empathy in our world is in the balance. And that’s the propensity for me to have any type of compassion and understanding. Empathy for my neighbor. For the one next to me, I might have sympathy, but with sympathy I can look down on you. “Oh my God, that’s, Oh, I feel sorry for them. That’s so gross.”

Garrett: Empathy is above, I mean, it’s the desired thing above sympathy.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: You’re going to get in the ring and help win the fight together.

Garrett: It’s altruism, it, it puts, it puts people into action, right?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: That’s right. And it causes you to, to love without judgment. Right?

Garrett: Yeah.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: I, I resonate with your pain and because I resonate, I’m not going to judge you.

Garrett: Empathy is almost like a state of catharsis.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: I’m going to walk alongside you and we’re going to fight this thing together. We’re going to be activists together. We’re going to win together.

Garrett: Yeah. I love that.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: Our podcast, we always try to open up and shed a light on the harmful effects of pornography and its links to sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. And that can be a heavy topic. I mean, as you mentioned, like your experience with rape, it’s like it’s a heavy topic and even just I’m talking to you about it gives me a little bit of like a secondary trauma almost. I’m like, “I can’t believe you had to deal with this.”, you know, and, but also a part of our podcast is hope and love and perpetuating health and healthy activities and healthy behaviors and healthy a healthy culture. One of the things that we run into, and I’m sure you run into this as well, is you have all these resources. You’re an author, you’re working with all this. You’re, you’re utilizing technology and healthy ways to perpetuate good information. But how, what if, what if people are like, “I don’t want to talk to my kids about this stuff cause I’m nervous.” to all the caregivers out there. What if I’m sitting here, I am a parent, we have three kids. And it’s like, what am I do you have to me if I’m like, “I don’t, I don’t want to talk to my kids about these important things because I don’t want to get them curious.”

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: You actually don’t really have to talk to your kids about it. You have to allow them to talk to you. Um, and you have to listen to them. All you have to do is ask them vague questions and they’ll give you straight answers because they already are seeing all of it. Um, from the ages of seven and up. If they’re online ever, if they have a smart device at all, if they go to a public school or private school or charter school, they’re exposed. And so all you need to teach them as you listen and ask them questions,…

Garrett: So listen more.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: … is how to understand what they are seeing so they have the right definition and the right response.

Garrett: Interesting. Good advice. It’s been 30 minutes and you’ve been great.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Thanks, Garrett.

Garrett: You know what I want is, um, I just want to ask you one last question if that’s okay.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: And because a lot of people who out there right now, they’re dealing with sexual harassment or sexual assault or rape, a lot of our listeners are having to deal with that or have dealt with that and are dealing with that. I just wanted to ask you, looking back on your experience, did you ever think that you’d be where you are today helping so many people?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: So here’s my answer to that. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Okay? I’m a suicide survivor. My Dad died last year on Father’s Day, the night before Father’s Day. And um, my Father was my best friend. Um, we didn’t grow up together, but uh, we connected he could say “Baby, those some pretty shoes you have” where he could say anything. And…

Garrett: You’d just eat it up.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: “Dad. Oh my dad.” And a lot of victims, boy or girl. There’s this longing for Fatherhood and, and for men to be cleared, truly born to be regardless of their sexual orientation. Yeah? And I want to encourage victims and survivors who have had men repeatedly rape you, exploit you and use you to see and to know that there is, there are the most beautiful men in the world. And your story gives the credence and the understanding that they need to know how beautiful they are and then we need to forgive. We have to forgive them and then forgive ourselves.

Garrett: Do you think they’re victims as well? The men? The perpetrators?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Well, 30% of the men who go through our course actually were violated by men.

Garrett: So they were victims.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Actual victims on one side. On the other side. I think that our culture has allowed and sensitivity to human development. And I think Tony Porter, his organization speaks about it that the hyper-sexualized culture that men are exposed to, that they support one another and, and men aren’t always strong enough to stand out of the crowd. And to stand up for what they believe in. My, my husband loves films like Braveheart or transformers or 300 and, and so I love those films. I have three brothers, so you know, I’m a tomboy anyway. And I’m like, I one day I was like, “Honey, why do you, you know, love those films so much?” And you know, there’s this thing in men that they’re heroic innately. They, they want to kick butt, they want to take care of, you know, and, and, uh, and so if they’re not doing that Garret, and they’re being addicted to porn and, and other violences, then they’re going to die. It’s the antithesis of who they were created to be.

Garrett: Do you believe that women also want to kick butt too?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Oh, big time. Come. C’mon. I’m all about it. [laughter]

Garrett: Exactly.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: But we learn innately from men, even the way women dress. Um, a lot of things we do is for the one we love regardless of our sexual orientation, that’s how we’re all kind of created, right? And we do things for the packs we run in, you know, and allies affect all of our lives. And so, um, I think that if there is a man that listens to this, who’s looking at pictures online, who’s thinking that it’s cool that it’s okay, it’s not. And if you’re doing that, you’re hurting your own power. You’re dying to the power of who you were born to be and you’re effecting your entire family, whether you’ve developed them or not, and your community and you’re part of the problem that’s changing the trajectory of our world in a negative way.

Because ultimately you believe in love, you do believe in love and desire love. So go get you some of that. Go, go get some love.

Garrett: Not it’s hollow counter fair.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. I want it to finally say we are going to be doing these conferences called the legacy of fatherhood starting in 2021 and I’m hoping, and it’s their male conferences and I’m looking forward to men engaging with men and women.

Garrett: That’s cool. Where’d the conferences at?

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: The first one will be in Orlando.

Garrett: Cool.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: So when you go to our website the more to life and just start looking, you know, the end of this year and you’ll see, you’ll see it.

Garrett: Okay.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: Well thanks for the invite and thanks for being here. We know that you’re busy, but you brought your, uh, your health shake and you brought your smile. [laughter]

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah. Come on now. Thank you.

Garrett: I just wanted to sincerely say that because you mentioned like the suicide ideation and um, all this stuff you’ve been through. Like I just want to say thank you for all you’re doing and um, the fact that you are pressing forward, you’re helping a lot of people.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Yeah.

Garrett: And so keep going.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello: Thank you Garrett.

Garrett: Thanks.

Garrett: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Consider Before Consuming, Considered Before Consuming is brought to you by Fight the New Drug. Fight the New Drug is a non-religious and non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising awareness on its harmful effects using only science facts and personal accounts. If you’d like to learn more about today’s guest and the conversation we had, you can check out the links in the episode notes. One thing that we’ve learned today is that Brook is a champion survivor of sex trafficking. If you want to learn more about how pornography fuels sex trafficking and how sex trafficking fuels pornography, check out our free documentary at brainheartworld.org, our documentary is split up into three segments that are about 30 minutes each, and you can watch a free at brain heart, world.org it has been said that the average person makes about 35,000 decisions every day. That’s a lot of decision making and we appreciate that. One of your decisions today was to listen to this episode. As you go about your day, we invite you to increase your self awareness. Look both ways, check your blind spots and consider before consuming.