Sean Kushner has one of the craziest and inspiring stories in the Vintage community. Growing up in completely different environments, facing insane adversities, and overcoming personal demons, Sean overcame it all and channels it into his artwork and Vintage collection. We are honored to tell just a part of Sean’s story in hopes that it sheds light on the hope that is possible even when struggling with addiction.

What was your childhood like?

Sean grew up in south florida. As a youth, he describes himself as “crazy”.

“I switched schools a lot, I was disruptive in class, I was a maniac. And then they put me on pharmaceuticals like Ritalin and Prozac, which made me suicidal… I was in a private school until 8th grade but when I was 11 we moved to South Floria and my dad started his business over.” 

Sean would start experimenting with drugs in high school.

“By the time i was a senior in high school I was selling Xanax, weed, blacking out all the time. My parents were part of that 70’s Miami scene, lots of drugs, lots of ups and downs. I grew up in privilege one day and broke as fuck the next day- I had a chaotic childhood. I grew up in a place where we were broke, and a place where we were making a lot of money.” 

How did the drug use affect you? 

Sean started having seizures at 19 or 20 and he started having a lot of hospital visits.

“When I was 19, my friend was beat to death in front of me. 2 years later I was homeless and selling drugs and I remember a friend was sleeping on a mattress in his parents garage, and I was sleeping on the floor. I remember saying to him “why are you in a garage in your parents house” and he said, “I just got out of jail, I killed a dude”… I robbed him after he told me that and I took off.” Sean was just 21 when this happened. 

At this point, I was just living with my dad and  getting high. It got bad and my dad took me to get me off the streets. I did a detox period and I had a sponsor. I stopped getting fucked up. I started contemplating life around me- how did I get stuck around these awful people. Ive been spiritual all my life, and Ive always had this connection with the world around me.

When I was 9 months sober I thought I could still smoke weed, and drink from time to time. Within a few months i relapsed hard and started getting loaded with a friend. I lost my mind during this period and I called my parents and said I gotta get outta here. My parents set me up to come to California. The whole first month I was out here the FBI was trying to extradite me out of California and into Florida for a murder case that my friends mother was involved in. I was losing my mind at rehab because I was kicking so hard- I didn’t sleep for 12 days straight.

I left the rehab center to go to my moms 50th birthday and I went to an AA meeting and right when I headed to it 5 undercover cops pulled me over because they were trying to pin charges on me. Luckily, there was video of me going to smoke some weed at a friends house and it actually cleared me.

After that I went to my first sponsor and he was running a phone room (telemarketing). He opened pill mills which were places where you can go and get easy prescriptions- people would pickup these pills, take them to their home states and sell. I went to the back office one day and saw a million dollars in cash. 

He told me he wanted me to be a partner. I told him I didn’t want any part of it because of my addiction. People close to me were pushing me to get involved because a financial opportunity like that is rare. So I got sober at 25, and at 26, I got my own pill mill. It was a few month period where I was really involved in it and it was really the wild west.

It was crazy because I was trying to still get sober, meanwhile I was surrounded with all these people addicted. I ended up having a moment of clarity and I said I’m going to relapse watching these people get high or Im going to kill myself for doing this.

I hit up my LA connection again that helped me get to rehab over there initially. His name was Sarge. He told me my partner (and my first sponsor), Richard McMillan, that his drug of choice went from hard drugs to money and strippers. Sarge said that he was going to get arrested soon because the Feds were going to start cracking down on pill mills. Sarge told me I need to get back to LA. He told me if I get you a job in LA you have to come tomorrow. I had to leave Florida, and I told Richard I don’t want any money and I want my name off of everything. He said thats fine.”

What happened when you got to LA?

“Within 4 weeks of being in LA, all the pill mill owners got arrested. Richard was arrested, even his accountant got 4.5 years. Everyone got time. But my name wasn’t on anything. Richard got 35 years in prison.”

I was taking acting classes in LA , and working security at the Roxy. And then at one point I was working all these odd jobs. I went from rich in Florida to making maybe $100 a day in LA. I remember working Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday as a table cleaner for the party. At 5 am we were finally leaving and this lady was walking and she was looking at me and was luring me to this back of the hotel–> I walked in and there was an orgy with a lot of the FB staff.

I got a phone call one day saying: are you willing to be a sober living sponsor (basically a 24/7 sponsor). I went to live with them for 3 months. I was working these sober companion jobs from the time I was 30 up until now and it was driving me a bit crazy. I was working with all these mental cases and I was kind of going insane myself.

One day my roommate was painting and I literally just asked myself “fuck why did I stop painting” (I was 34 years old then). I decided to start painting again. And I was doing these pieces as an outlet for the insanity and the drugs I saw. This was escapism for me.

I did the painting for myself. I was talking to some dude randomly and he mentioned he had a gallery. He told me he was going to throw a show for me. I started painting on canvases, and after the show my stuff sold for a ton.

At this point I started getting back into vintage and pharmaceutical merchandise. Then COVID hit and I started painting old pharma merchandise.

I spoke to @escapedremains and he was sending me tees and shirts to paint on. It came full circle. I got obsessed with the pharma stuff because it was an intersection with vintage. The idea that they were toys, and stuff for kids, was a commentary on them trying to “fix” me. Rather than them telling me to exercise, they were always trying to fix what they thought was wrong with me. For me personally, I needed to find a healthy outlet for my issues- and the fact that they were pushing all these drugs on me and on the youth was disturbing. 

Social media, drugs, and fame are at an all time high now. And I wanted to do art showcasing the need for validation happening today. These are all ARTIFICIAL ways of feeling good and function similar to how opioids had me. 

If you, or someone you know is struggling with addiction, feel free to contact Sean Kushner. He has now been sober for 14 years. You can contact Sean on Instagram @seankush, and you can see his art/NFT here.

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