Up until he made the decision to get the ink removed from an astounding 95% of his body, he was the most tattooed guy in Brazil.
In an effort to get rid of more than two decades’ worth of tattoos, Leandro de Souza has already had two laser sessions; the first was when he was just a young adolescent.
The 35-year-old photographer, who was converted to evangelicalism and now resides in the Brazilian border city of Bagé, close to Uruguay, decided to remove more than 170 tattoos.
“I did the first one when I was 13,” de Souza told Brazilian online news outlet G1. “The first ones were very much about the idolatry of the time.”
Favorite rock bands of the time, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, and Metallica, served as inspiration for the tattoos.
After divorcing his wife ten years ago, De Souza’s life took a turn for the worst.
He experimented with cocaine for the first time and then mixed ecstasy, LSD, and alcohol for nine years after his separation from the mother of his ten-year-old kid.
“I couldn’t stand the life I was living anymore,” he said. “I was an attraction at (events I attended), and it felt like a circus animal.”
When De Souza went to a shelter and was exposed to evangelism, he had a fresh perspective on life.
“The first step in everything in life is to accept that you can’t do it alone, that you are an addict, that you are a drug addict,” de Souza said.
“And I managed to do that, I entered the municipal shelter in Bagé. Within a week, there was a lady who referred me and started to evangelize me.”
Two years ago, De Souza preached to “parents and children in homes that are in prisons” in an attempt to change the religion.
A Franco da Rocha, São Paulo tattoo parlor, learned of de Souza’s life-changing event on April 14, which also happened to be his birthday and one year without using drugs or cigarettes. He hasn’t had an alcoholic beverage in more than three years.
Six additional sessions, lasting thirty to forty minutes each, are still required of De Souza. These are arranged every three months.
“It hurts a lot more than doing it,” he said. “It hurts three times more than doing it. Even with anesthesia, the process is very painful.”