Jeff Grant Got A Second Chance | Rich Roll Podcast

[Music] so just to illustrate the strange magical mystical ways that the universe works we've been going back and forth for a little while trying to schedule this podcast we met in Nantucket we did in September as part of the Nantucket project and and on the day of our appointed interview actually the day before I get a text from Tom Scott the founder of the Nantucket project who also has happened to be on this podcast in the past he said I'm in town I want to meet can we meet on this day the same day that you're coming over here you as somebody who's presented at Nantucket project and asked yeah tomorrow I have Nadia Bowles whoever coming over to do the show if somebody I've been trying to schedule for ever as well who I met at Nantucket project I don't know how that happens how does the universe its convergence and your experience in all things Devine how do you account for that and explain that I'm not sure I'm better anyone else but it was nice to see Tom today and say hello to Nadia for me too I will yeah yeah what an amazing person yes so I'm going back to back with all of these people who are steeped in in all things spiritual and in matters and matters divine so it's cool to have you here today I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time you have an amazing story so let's just start at the beginning hmm paint the picture for me baller baller lawyer bowler lawyer New York super successful why you know normal standards in this country I guess and a big staff and real estate clients of note and working 16 hours a day and I was a normal kid you know yeah I grew up with my share of droppin in like the suburbs of New York City I did yeah Long Island you know and I was I was a normal kid there partyer uh-huh you know and tried to stop didn't stop tried to stop and I made it through high school in college in law school and kind of ran that all up did you do the big law firm thing for a while before he started your own no no no I was uh always know I'm always gonna be your own boss yeah well I was a I was a marketer from way back I actually sold shoes on Madison Avenue to put myself through law school so definitely you got it you you you know how to put the hustle on a little bit oh yeah oh yeah you know they buy the shoes and you stick the shoe trees in and you up charge them before they they get to the register either you know oh yeah are you learning things oh yeah you make 10% on the shoe trees but only 2% on the shoes so you have to know that yeah so work your way through law school went to law school in Manhattan him and him and did you start your Pratt I know that you ultimately you're up in like Mamaroneck right where you have your practice but did you start in start in Manhattan and after about 10 years there moved it up to Westchester County and right away I was a big fish in a small pond you know as opposed to being lost in Manhattan but like a transactional lawyer right real estate deal mostly real estate deals and in business deals and and I kind of found myself up there there were a lot of lifestyle changes I needed needed to happen and I was flirting with them and at that point had been sober probably about five years on your own on my own and I was in therapy but I wasn't committed to it I didn't really know what it was just like I should probably dial back the partying maybe stop drinking it was it just was it alcohol or was it was it something else at that point there was something else it was everything actually yeah it was pretty much everything uh-huh what's your favorite well if ludes were still around I'm not sure I'd be sober today yeah that's what the way of the dodo unfortunately oh yeah you know so how was your main thing well it was for that until you couldn't find him anymore that would that decade okay yeah I kind of like rolled through by decade uh-huh so what did this like early 90s what are we talking about um and I moved up to Mamaroneck in 90 mmm-hmm and opened my practice up there and my biggest client was a big real estate client I had tens of thousands of units and I was their general counsel and then the head of his one of the divisions and asked me if I wanted to go across the street and play basketball in the elementary school that was kind of across from the headquarters right and top of the key crossover move ruptured my Achilles tendon went right down and called the north Peter friend of mine and said you're not touching me unless he'd give me a prescription for Demerol uh-huh and I hadn't done I hadn't done anything in almost five years but it was instantaneous and my head went right to that to Demerol right I'd like it in not morphine not like why dumb had you done Demerol before probably yeah I like how you're the one who's prescribing the pain medication to yourself oh yeah making the demand oh yeah I made me the man I am so uh so they did the surgery and I had the a headed trip because I had some complications and I had a drip and so the drip is going for the morphine and I had hidden the vial of Demerol under the bedsheets and they didn't know about it and I always I was high yeah and that's it I was I was back on the horse man and that was uh that lasted ten years I didn't realize that you had taken a stab at getting sober prior to John Achilles incident yeah but without a 12-step or anything like that it's kind of like your own therapy white-knuckle do-it-yourself version well I went to a therapist in the city who was very helpful didn't lead me to a a or a psychiatry at that point but he was I learned a lot from him and and I stayed clean for quite a while and I thought I would always be clean yeah I didn't you know I didn't no idea how but then this injury it's the perfect opportunity for no one's gonna say anything oh yeah it was a lawyer you know you can get what you need it was a lawyer's dream you know except I was the one who went down right and walk me through how you know that initial fix with Demerol ends up snowballing into basically a full-time habit well I had friends who were doctors and you know I was it was a kind of a professional Club and none of them probably knew at first that they were contributing to something that was more dangerous although every one of them kind of said the same thing to me you know just be careful or and I guess they didn't want me to stop breathing on their watch yeah but meanwhile still writing the script mm every two or three did you have to I mean I've I've heard crazy stories from lots of friends of mine who you know have navigated this world and the links to which they would go I got doctor friends you know get hooked on fentanyl and things like that and like they just tell the most elaborate stories about how they're able to whether they're stealing scrip pads or you know even doctors who are falsifying their own scripts yeah how they would rotate which pharmacies they would go to and they knew the shifts of who's gonna be behind the counter at a certain time like all this shenanigans to make sure that they would be able to cop there was a little bit of that but mostly they they just wanted free legal work right and so so that that was it yeah there was quid pro quo there for sure Wow you know and and the other thing I found out is that I possessed all their secrets I was all their lawyer I was a lawyer uh-huh so you know the they had a vested interest in keeping me right well that's a very interesting devil's bargain well I didn't know that I didn't even realize how manipulative I was being you know I I wasn't interested I just wanted the drugs right I didn't really understand any of that at the time and was it always Demerol or did that morph into oxy another thing well after or six or seven years or so and the change was pretty imperceptible from a day-to-day basis you know there was it was hard to be able to fit there's no way I could have figured it out but you know if you had looked at me kind of in a a kind of time of two years or three years you would have seen massive changes of personality and of weight and I blown up to 200 and maybe five pounds at one point and you know just kind of like the the pores open of someone who was continually going through withdrawal yeah and then and instead of that clammy power oh yeah yeah I look like Luca Brasi well the other interesting thing and I think it's important to point this out just to be completely you know kind of intellectually honest about the whole thing is that in the first phase of this your your law practice blossoms right because you become kind of this unqualified eed like you're able to aggressively pursue these deals without fear like it kind of masks all of these things that hold us back in certain respects and I think you know that's what initially hooks the drug addict in because it works for a while until it stops working well it was a disinhibitor for sure and I was willing to take on a lot of risk and and so things were flying I mean it was it was it was a go go go and it was the run-up to the dot-com boom and some of my clients were offering me pieces of their companies in exchange for legal services and you know other kind of cycle I had you know uh-huh and and and then at some point I stopped being able to show up yeah and it was getting it was getting pretty tense and I had a client who had hurt himself and badly him maybe and he had neck surgery and it was it was ugly and he walked into my office one day and you know he suspected what was going on with me a little bit and he just dumped a handful of oxycontin on my on my desk and he had a limitless supply and because he could back then and that was it I mean there was a tipping point where there was no there was no return from no wow so that guy was like the ultimate enabler he knew he knew you were doing this and he knew you had a problem and he's like here's your unlimited supply why he wanted a friend uh-huh and he wanted someone there was no question you know and and four days I you know I didn't go to work I sat in his den and we watched the Golf Channel and right and in the zoo doubt you know it was it was on so no one showing up to work well I wasn't showing up where the people who worked for me they were concerned but I didn't understand that and and I and what I've learned since hell how much undiagnosed bipolar disorder you know that I had back then and and how I was really self-medicating and and it had been bad my whole life I just didn't really know because I had been medicated in one way or another who out just in your own way through partying trying to yeah trying to quiet yeah mostly maddening have you had so you've had manic episodes oh yeah what does that feel like um just great yeah you know that's that's why people that have bipolar don't want to be medicated right yeah I mean I've always since I was diagnosed in and that that had certainly was a concurrent with my fall I've been hyper vigilant but I I would go through phases kind of where I was semi normal mm-hmm and then I would get super smart and be able to solve see connections other people couldn't see and solve all kinds of problems and then slide into megalomania uh-huh and so I would have a doctor for example clients who wanted a way to put his business together and then in the same conversation ten minutes later I'm talking to him about opening up ten offices instead of one and he look at me like I'm crazy like you know we're having enough problem with one you know like what's this about and then inevitably the the the crash would happen yeah and I'd fall into depression it's almost like cocaine talk yeah right oh yeah very much is it the most the most accurate representation that I've ever seen in media like in narrative media is is the character in homeland did you watch that oh yeah oh yeah cuz her episode seemed to be from what I understand of the disease to be the most kind of naturalistic and realistic compared to what it's actually like when I saw some of her manic episodes and it refreshed my my recollection of some of the things I did and people are right people around me knew I mean I had of course yeah but I didn't know and I'm not my staff wouldn't line up at my office store and which would be closed and my my assistant was outside and they would be checking in with her like where I was on the on the sine curve and psych her and and if I was in and if I was being smart or I was being crazy right and you know they they know but I I didn't huh yeah well we have a chalkboard here you want to start writing equations down and pinning our pictures yeah how many does it does it work like that where you're you're up all night like brainstorming solving the universe's problems it did yeah it did no not not anymore yeah but it took a lot of years of medication trials and things like that to figure it out but what's it like when you pour Demerol or oxycontin on top of that was that mixture translated well I mean that you know that was pretty sober if ik you know so that that kind of brought me down out of my mania for the most part but you know the the bouncing up and down was was the worst thing that could possibly happen yeah as was the stress of being in that kind of a law firm too so I I didn't know what's going on at home with your wife I don't know I don't know I mean she claims that you know my this my ex-wife she you know she claims that she didn't know and I believe her because I was just this big gregarious you know personality you know back-slapping personality and we and people you know made a lot of you know because the money was there and the personality was there people made a lot of company a lot big wide swath but I'm sure behind my Jeff will take care of it don't worry about it I was a I was a guy back then a thick I was a fixer mm-hm but I'm not sure that that's a good term anymore but back then not like in the Michael Clint Clayton myself latex are not the Michael Cohen fixer right yeah I guess but you know Michael clay I mean he's you know hitting the poker games and doing a lot of kind of underground stuff too yeah is that part of your lifestyle also well you know I might have thought I was like George Clooney but probably not really so the wheels are progressively falling off the wagon but really the the life changer is a couple lines that you crossed yeah you can't really ever take back no no so walk me up to those points well I mean the firm started to decay and I didn't really know it and the day came when we ran out of cash and it wasn't a large amount really and there's a lot of things I could have done with a phone call button Ted instead I told my office manager to move some money out of the client escrow account and into the operating account and she looked at me like I was crazy I mean I remember the conversation you know like is this you sure this is something you want to do and I said yeah to do it and you know it was just a couple clicks on Sebring was open and problem solved for the day and I had no idea that that was the beginning of the end yeah ya know but unsung you knew it was a no-no oh yeah you knew yeah yeah yeah but you know so water so were the drugs you know I mean it was just part of that pathology was just playing out the decision-making yeah yeah yeah is not so good at this point no I was I was you know I can't blame it on anything other than I don't blame it on the drugs you know but I certainly I wasn't fully aware of what the consequences were going to be so life altering and so permanent well part and parcel of being an addict is an inability to ask for help right so are you trying to solve this prophetic that has to do with being a lawyer then raise my hand and say hey look I have a problem here like I can't meet payroll can somebody help me out okay me too admit weakness and that's for whatever reason very difficult for somebody who's in the throes of addiction yeah well I also I wasn't gonna get caught I mean there was you know this was something right right this oh these girls oh yeah oh yeah you're sure oh yeah and and I can I'll put it back tomorrow which I did and then the day after tomorrow came and I did it again and it became a wallet it became for our for our firm right once you do it once then it becomes easy to do it again yeah there's no question again yeah and where does this all catch up to you um started there was an investigation that started through the ethics committee the grievance committee and over something small and I had a higher ethics lawyers and I was being investigated and there were a lot of interviews and and I thought I was doing well and I thought that maybe I was going to slide through it because I'm sure that was denial but I had no point that I think that my career was over and I was taking in new clients and then 9/11 happened and I just felt everything fall out from under me just there was like my every sense of safety or structure or just went in that moment and I became a madman and clients started just clients started to shrivel up and within a couple of months there was a there were ads on the radio and on TV for businesses that businesses that had been adversely affected by 9/11 and in truth I didn't know if it was the drugs or 9/11 or what but I was sitting there with a shattered firm and I called up the SBA Small Business Administration that was advertising for of businesses to get in touch with them and I asked them I told my story and they told me I would qualify and they sent me an application and I filled it out and I just couldn't help myself but to embellish that application and claim I had a office that was a block away from Ground Zero mm-hmm and and I didn't need to do it so you write up this application that you have a Manhattan office exactly down in the Wall Street area exact action Trump's building at 4100 you were that specific oh yeah oh yeah oh no you had to be specific and in truth and so easily verified but enjoy and truth I had a conference room relationship with a law firm there and so that address was on my letterhead oh I see so there is okay all right but but there was no economic and you were never really going there right I'd never been there uh-huh and there was it and there was no economic effect of having lost that off to sunlight on me or my firm and and and and I I embellished that I actually had right so you get this loan it's like 200 grand yeah 247 247 thousand dollars yeah which alleviates your need to dip into the client trust account I would imagine that's also drying up because the clients are running for the hills because you're a lunatic oh yeah yeah yeah and your staff is down to a skeleton crew at this point huh at some point I I figured out that this was not going in a good direction and I made arrangements for all my staff and all my files and everything to to go to another law firm and so for the last three or four months before before I hit my bottom I was pretty much alone in that office uh-huh what's interesting is you hit your bottom and you get you get sober before the chickens come home to roost well before on the loan thing right what what precipitates your bottom well what happened was I am a business associate of mine that I had treated badly in the couple of years before he wound up preparing an affidavit or a letter lengthy one detailing everything I had done wrong had done to him including my my opioid abuse and things like that and all kinds of other things and my ethics attorney became aware of it sent me a copy and I read it and I called him up and I said is this it I mean are we done and he said yeah you're pretty much done there's just nothing we Kiwi can do from here so I said not in terms of being trihard yeah exactly trying to defend my law license yeah so I said to him all right why don't you just resign my law license for me and I went to my doctor friend and I got a prescription of Demerol you know 40 tabs and went home and after my wife and ex-wife and kids went to sleep I I took the whole vial it's like 40 tabs yeah yeah and yeah I knew what I was doing and I was trying to kill myself was it a was it a real suicide attempt or was it a desperate call for help I mean 40 seems like enough but your tolerance must have been insane my tolerance was insane but I don't think I thought 40 would be enough that was the point I thought 40 would be enough and and I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out whether or not it was a real attempt or cry for help but I wanted the noise in my head to stop there was like no way and and and just what you know what the what the price to pay I didn't understand it you know I just knew that everything that I had and this this this life in this house and the cars and the and the prestige and and at that point I was on the local school board and I owned health clubs and I owned real and I owned real estate and it was all like a restaurant owned a restaurant huh yeah I was you know I was one of those guys yeah and I knew it was all gonna tumble down it was gonna tumble down anyway yeah you know buddy whoa but uh but I knew it was gonna tumble then so uh I took it and it's interesting that that I mean I can see that it was a real attempt in the sense that you kind of calmly relinquished all of it like you're like just like let go of might like you just let it all go rather than fight it yeah there was a there's a giving up in that where it's like it's it's done I'm it's done it was actually the least dramatic part of the of those 10 years probably it was just it was the feather on the on the scale you just landed and that was it just go do what I gotta do and that was it with addicts there's also there also tends to be a narcissism in these attempts looks like now I'm gonna you know I'm this is how I'm gonna go out and people are gonna say oh poor Jeff you know like there's was a part of that thinking oh I definitely was I definitely was you know wanted to know how many people were gonna show up at my funeral right you know that kind of thinking yeah you know no but I'd been thinking that for a long time uh there was though you know I I didn't I didn't know if I I didn't know what if there was anything of myself left at that point did you have a conscious awareness of how you would then be been the architect of your own destruction what were you in a victim mentality of everyone's out to get you and you're just doing what you need to do to survive and why is this happening to me it was like I had clarity at that point yeah because I it wasn't like I was I was clear clear and then took that vial of drugs I was probably stoned already right so it was a it was probably a victim mentality and they're sure you know like you know everything was my parents fault kind of thing uh-huh and so how do you not die after taking 40 Demerol by yeah I think you hit it I had a huge tolerance but I woke up in the floor and in the morning and I vomited all over myself and you know I didn't go kind of the Jimi Hendrix way you woke up on your own or did your why no no I woke up on my own I was it was pretty early and and I knew we're in the kitchen we had some more we would have had some more things I could take and I kind of crawled to the kitchen I remember wasting myself up to try to get it and I realized I had taken them too I mean and and so then there was the there was a trip to the you know a couple of days later I actually I actually detox I didn't go to the hospital but a few days later I I called the silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan and I wanted to go there I knew to go there because clients of mine who had the okie he'd went there they went so you made a decision like I'm done and and you did your own self-styled detox at home well he done it on versed I had done it a hundred times before so it wasn't as if I was ignorant of what a withdrawal would be like this was just the super one this is the biggest one I've ever been through and certainly the first one I overtly tried to kill myself opiate withdrawal is gnarly it was bad it was bad and how long did it go on for three or four days probably it was bad so you waited until you've weathered that before you checked yourself into treatment oh yeah III because I was I knew better than anybody I was you didn't want to you didn't want to look like going to treatment oh no no I mean yeah oh but you know what happens with people who have a lot of experience in these things you become kind of like a med professor of drugs you know you know I was like I had a mercs manual and a and a PDR there and you know so I knew my drugs and were you doing it total cold turkey or we're all turning yourself out yeah no I was not that was the problem right you know I was I was going through all the physical manifestations it was bad but then not and but I knew that that was it ended so you had a sense that this as somebody who tried to get sober many times on your own yeah you know what it's like it's like okay this time I'm never gonna do it again but kind of in the back your head you're like you're not really sold on the idea but this was qualitatively different you know well every other time it was two hours or uh-huh two days later I was back at it but something was different here this was well I didn't have a life to go back to I knew that you know I knew everything was gone I didn't I didn't really understand it all at that point the gift of a hard bottom you know that's something I learned later but everything was gone and and so going to rehab going was yeah it was a blessing and you were in rehab for like seven weeks or something like that yeah I mean I yeah yeah I'm I I remember I was about first day I go to the acute care unit where they put people who were danger to themselves or who could OD or and could die from detox or whatever and then five days later I got moved to a step-down facility and clear of all those opiates I've been taking I started to have amazing awarenesses of what I had done and all this victim ization that I had been going through my whole life and and I started to see things this the first little pieces of of clarity started coming through well that could also provoke quite a bit of anxiety without your medication to buffer the impact of that truth landing on you like wow my whole life is decimated well they had already started me on bipolar med to the point I mean they I'm I got diagnosed pretty fast and so there was a whole different kind of haze I was in for a while I was adjusting a Thorazine shuffle a little bit yeah one cooked one flew over the cuckoo's never told this before but I have but I um I wandered into the creek at the rehab and they found me just walking through the creek in the water and you know like like a guy in his bathrobe in the creek right that kind of image gonna get Michael clean he wanted off the reservation you know so I had a in his bathrobe yeah yeah yeah and and in a few weeks before I hit my bottom of course I had to go out and at least the brand-new BMW 7-series yeah of course because you know I was that insane so I driven that car up to the rehab so it's sitting there like as a you know it's a testimony in my old life and I barely look at it and and and so there's a whole story how I got rid of that car which is amazing too but but I knew that I just couldn't go back there that for sure so how do you begin to piece your life back together in the aftermath of all of this well certainly through recovery I mean seven weeks in rehab and they brought recovery meetings in and I kind of took to them and more I think to the structure then to anything I was I was too out of it to learn anything I was gone and on the first day out of rehab I did what I was I was told to do I showed up at the meeting and I raised my hand and I said I'm Jeff and I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict than I needed temporary sponsor mm-hmm and I gave you know like three seconds on on my drug of choice or I can't remember right now but at the end of the meeting the the leader who had been leading the meeting and I thought it was the the boss right I didn't know I was my first meeting I didn't know and he came up to me and he said you know this is for alcoholics and you've done drugs and you're in the wrong meeting and how dare that guy say that yeah I've never heard anybody say anything like that well you're a West Coast guy yeah that's interesting Wow and this other guy came up to me who was standing right there and he was the spitting image of Freddie Mercury I am telling you this guy I thought it was Freddie Mercury in my haze and he said to me um don't don't mind that don't mind that guy I'll be your temporary sponsor and Brian T was my my sponsor and he gave me very clear instructions you know like you know what to do and for 30 60 days I went to a noon meeting every day and I fell asleep and with my head against the wall because I couldn't even focus but you showed up I showed on took direction yep made yourself known yep and again to take accountability did all that stuff that seems completely unrelated to staying sober like yeah I was just lucky bold numbers make coffee Lyle I keep coming back yeah exactly and but we had to get rid of the house and we had and of course I did what every you have no income at this point no income at this point yeah and a little you know some savings but no income and I did what every sane guy does when they lose their house in their career and their reputation I moved to Greenwich the one of the wealthiest communities in one giant why would you do that um because I had started going to a a meetings there the recovery meetings there and I those meetings were so important to me that I had to be there and also it was only six miles from our home and although the the state line is is huge in terms of media and in terms of interconnectivity but my I figured my kids would still be able to maintain relationships with their friends mm-hmm and that that was true that had that happen but there we were in Greenwich and for the next 20 months or so I was living in an apartment and Greenwich and going to meetings and I went three times a day four times a day sometimes and I was a lock step you know in recovery that did that was my life and this saves your life saved my life yeah absolutely it's interesting to me I'm always encouraged when I hear stories like yours of people who whose lives have been spared as a result of the 12 steps because in our fast-paced modern culture it seems like every year there's some new hot take on what sobriety is should be and now we know more about addiction and alcoholism than we ever have before and all these other ideas are antiquated and you know maybe there's truth in that maybe there's not but I know that 12-step and Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life it's saved it's saved a lot of so many people that I know and it works you know if your yeah I never know I have no opinion on how people get so yeah they find other ways of doing that more power to them I just know that this is what has worked for me and continues to work for me and me and and remains my number one priority well it's a big world and I assume there's people getting sober other way yes parts for me it worked mm-hmm and it gave me a home you know family people who I weren't judging me and and I had abandoned all my people places and things because nobody would talk to me I was a pariah and so I didn't have the places I didn't have the things and I didn't have the people so that hard bottom was a blessing yeah and it had to you know forced you to right-size your ego and take stock in the inventory of how you were living and figure out a new approach to how you were going to get through the day yeah inch by inch you know big thoughts like that probably didn't happen for a while you know I was just trying to survive but little little did you know that you had another bottom waiting waiting for you it was the Lord danced right so I was sober about 20 months and I got a koala on my cell phone from two investigators from the government I remember them as FBI agents but in retrospect they were probably from an another government division and they told me that I had a there was a warrant out for my arrest in connection with that that that loan and I I had no idea I mean I tell you I was complete denial I mean I had done my I'd done my ninth step I'm at my eighth step my nice step and I wrote down everyone who I had harmed and what my wrongs were and there were 136 names on that list and not the government huh had you made payments on that loan or repaid it no no so you you even eat setting aside the fact that it was a it was a fraudulent loan you had defaulted on it as well oh yeah sure but it still didn't make your nine-nine step I had no idea that's a big blind spot yeah well I that's as it turns out that's it's not uncommon yeah no no I'm not listening I'm not no I've done you know I've done analogous things so the man I thought I was you know on the on the mend here well it had a 30-year repayment schedule so I thought I had in some crazy I died 30 years to repay or something I don't really know what bid it was I'm noting flip about it I'm just I got this I had no idea what's right so you're like wait what that loan and I mean where they like get in the back of the suburban or no no I mean I was certainly conscious enough in that conversation to ask them I asked them well you know what do you want me to do yeah you want to come get me over to you and want to give me some time to come down I've been a lawyer for a long time and they said by two weeks you know I said I'll go hire a lawyer I'll come down and I did and so two weeks later I had to appear at the u.s. courthouse at the 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan and I hadn't been down there since 9/11 so when I got down there it was still look like a war zone and with the barricades in the checkpoints and and and military with with machine guns and things in front of in front of buildings and I was going into this situation and I couldn't have felt worse it was you know it's like and and I knew that my my crime was you know having taken advantage of an economic benefit relating to 9/11 and it was searing you know it was just it was it was there was nothing I could do you know I I wanted I wanted to get high but there was no way I was gonna ever go back and so was the first time I was ever handcuffed and put in a Cell and to my arraignment and and did you plead guilty or did you try to fight this um no I don't remember what happened at my arraignment to be honest I just know that I was released without a bond and I had a I would be sentenced at some point in the in the future and were you released on your own recognizance so you could go home before I went to sentencing and I got ya and then it took two years to get sentenced oh really oh my god so you have to live with the looming inevitability that you might be going to jail for two years and where that reality and in the hope that I wouldn't and in the and the reason I went to jail probably oh the reason I went to prison was no judge was not no judge is gonna give a an on confining sentence to someone who is crime was somehow related to 9/11 not in that climate there was it just couldn't have right taking advantage of sign 11 for your own personal gain exactly is there anything more reprehensible in a civil yeah and and and he said that from during the sentencing he said that you know that at the same time because I had been in recovery and had and had done a lot of service and had spawn season and had 50 letters of recommendation and everyone and the room was packed with people from Greenwich recovery he'd get down his character witnesses yeah he downward he downward departed me so I had a a lower a lesser sentence than I otherwise would have had yeah so what was the sentence 18 months 15 months no what what did you what was the sentence short of short of all of those character witnesses showing up what do you think he would have hit you with um it could have been anywhere from 21 to 28 as I recall something like that yeah so um I was once I was happy with the 18 months I mean I was expecting something but there was a huge sense of relief that went along with the with a fear like this phase is over I don't it could have been delayed and delayed and my family was in just because now you know what you're contending with yeah yeah and so three or four three or four months later no maybe two months later I had a report to prison Allenwood low-security prison out in Pennsylvania and I had been told that I was gonna go to you know Club fed yeah to a camp where where white-collar guys go and I had a security level of zero I read a lot of books play some tennis yeah sure of course okay and and I had read at that point I had read a lot of books on on confinement and I had read Mandela and Bonhoeffer and and men search for meeting Viktor Frankl and a lot of things that kind of put me in that headspace where I know what I'm wearing for this yeah and and because at that point I'd been sober almost four years there's no doubt that was the biggest influence on me in terms of making it part of my recovery but I found out that I was designated to a low-security prison with bars and controlled movements and and you know walls and dogs and fences and razor wire what happened like no vacancy at the Country Club it's exactly what it was on the day I was designated shits that you could call in and I tried from the Michael Clayton days I know I tried it I tried act actually I like I know a guy there's the guy you call no I hired a prison consultant who took money from me there's guys that I didn't even know that there was such a thing of course yeah it's a sub industry for everything yeah and he took money from me and and then did nothing he's supposed to broker this machole that a change of designation yes as it turns out like five years or six years later there was a a special on Dateline or 20/20 one of their shows and he was the subject of of one of those episodes where he was wanted for murder oh so it was that's dark all right it's a Michael Clayton you got I mean like this guy's probably you know I'm a speed dial of a lot of hedge fund managers and guys like that who are in the crosshairs of the feds oh there's a whole story yeah but you know I I hadn't heard a word about the guy in all those years I like pointed at the TV and I didn't do anything and I and um and I don't know if I was remarried at that point but I said tool in my I said to live my wife I said that's the guy that's the guy you know so no Country Club for you know but still minimum security but was it filled with like more violent offenders or were they all like some white-collar financial no offenders there were there were 1500 inmates on that compound and there were five former stockbrokers two former doctors one former lawyer that was me and the other 1500 were drug dealers and violent criminals and that's just the way it was that's gotta make for an interesting social dynamic yeah I mean it was nothing I knew about and back then it wasn't like it is now where there's a lot of information out there and on the internet and there's a lot of resources to be able to pull from and we were alone I was I had no information going in huh and and I walked in the door and I was handcuffed and strip searched and and as again another divine moment my sentencing judge had made a mistake on my report date so I reported on Easter Sunday and when we got up there there was no intake people I mean it was Easter Sunday so I was actually I was actually admitted by the the head lieutenant of the entire compound and he was standing there was a cut with a clipboard and looking pretty fierce and I was naked and he said to me so you're the lawyer and I said no I used to be and I didn't know that was exactly the right answer huh you know I was I was there was the riots a test like is this guy gonna cause problems for me well yeah he wanted to know if I was if I was gonna be making money off other inmates and if I was had a hustle going and I have things I knew nothing about you know I just I was you know I was just showing up and trying to tell the truth and what's the day-to-day reality in a place like that versus what we might know only from movies or television well if you take oranged is the new black for example there's an example of a pretty low security prison and you take everything that happens there in one episode if you spread that out over a year - uh-huh that's pretty much what happens in a prison everything happens it just happens on a different timeline a more expansive mostly it's people sitting around reading doing very little you go to work you work for three or four hours you come back there's not that much drama you don't have to form alliances for protection you know maybe if I was younger at the time I was 48 years old and maybe if I was a young buck and part of the pecking order or if I was a gang guy or something it might have been different but mostly I was left alone but just like if you worked in any you know if anybody who works in a sea of cubicles in a foursome company you know it's the humdrum existence I imagine you know I never I never did that but you show up and you do your work but when something exciting happens something exciting happens in prison when something exciting happens it's it's dangerous yeah yeah it's dangerous and I saw some things I never I would see like the shanks and the lockdowns and my only point of reference is what I see on the tube yeah well I I mean I I saw I saw a couple of people get killed hmm and it was really really frightening and it was surreal you know I I couldn't really believe what I was seeing like I'd never seen people behave that way and and it was fast and very very fast and it's very violent and you stay sober I stayed sober was there a and there was a a there was na and there were classes I had to take because for substance abuse classes and the a a was remarkable in there because it was mostly inner-city guys and when I first got there because I had four years of sobriety on the street when I got to the a a meeting there was there were guys who who we went around the room and they and they introduced themselves in their day count or their year count and there were guys who were reporting that they had three four or five years of sobriety but their sentences were longer than that so they were getting stoned in prison yeah and not one person in that room had ever spent one day clean on the street and and they were fascinated you know buddy so that makes you that gives you some stature I guess right like as somebody who has an experience that they don't have well it was certainly a trade going on I mean the trade going on was that you know they taught me how to stay sober in prison and the the greatest fear they had was going back out on the street and being tempted quickly by women drugs whatever yeah cause you're no longer in a controlled environment right oh yeah well this is the first sense of community that most of them have ever had in their lives you know you don't realize even if how much isolation people live in and this was that I mean people don't really know what it's like in a prison I mean there's a there's a it's a family in a way of the white-collar criminals that were in this prison how many of them were there in some way related directly or indirectly to drugs and alcohol like how were their offenses kind of intertwined with drinking and using um I think that a hundred percent of them but yeah I don't I don't know that they were drug crimes but you know but but just massive part here judge oh yo yeah oh yeah for sure yeah yeah for sure and you do the whole 18 months I did thirteen and a half months and then I came out to a halfway house and then to a home confinement and I lived with a friend in Connecticut for a few months until my sentence was over and then I started three years of federal probation and the first wife when does she split I was kicked out I you I was kicked out when did that happen that was right right that was prison there that was right after I got um I got arrested up so that was back in 2004 and she for good reason she was wrong you know she was right yeah what's your relationship with her now you talk to her at all yeah it's it's it's civil um it's civil you know I I hurt her I hurt her I hurt my children it took a lot of years to reform relationships with my children how old are your kids now um thirty four and thirty and I have three grandchildren and one on the way and I didn't know if I would ever see them I didn't but things are better now so you get out of prison you're in halfway houses sober living mm-hmm trying to figure out how you're gonna make your way in the world without being able to do the one thing you know how to do to make a living yeah apart from it yeah and but I had a drug and alcohol caster I was also also in my sentence I had to go to one year of drug and alcohol counseling after and it just so happens he was a ex priest who became a ex Catholic priest who became a drug and alcohol counselor and he asked me what are you gonna do and I was a product of recovery so I said well I'm gonna go to recovery and I'm gonna have spawn seized and I'm gonna do my thing and he said my job is they yeah my job as a a and he said to me well maybe it's a good idea to do some things that you can put on a resume and that was like a aha moment huh and so like oh yeah resume I never really had a brezin made before so I called up silver Hill and I told him my story that I've been to prison and I want to come volunteer there and they told me to come right over because I happened to be in the area and I went over there and I sat down with him and we talked for a while and they told me that they wanted me to become a volunteer and they made me feel out of an application and they were gonna do a background check and I wasn't quite sure what the background check was about cuz I told them everything that yeah but of course that's their per that a process and I left there thinking if I can't get a volunteer job in my own rehab how am I ever gonna be able to do anything but I got a call from them two hours later and they and they said told me I could start mm-hmm and and I I collated paper I did stapling I did whatever I did whatever and worked my way through to more and more responsibility there and where does Divinity School enter the picture well um I was I was volunteering in a couple different places for a couple of years and it became clear that I wanted to be in in a helping profession and the kind of like when I first started wanted to be a lawyer I thought it was a helping profession I didn't realize you know how much the money would would subsume all that and and I didn't know what I wanted to do so I went to see a pastor at the church and I was Jewish it didn't time I do I don't think we said that again I was I was I was gonna get to that how does this Jewish guy and uh you know becoming a reverend well you know there's a transformation that happens you know not just in recovery you know you know that I mean you know you kind of find God or at least many people do I did but in prison there's no question that I I was embracing a different form of theology that I really understood and but I hadn't converted I hadn't been baptized at that point and so I went to the pastor in the church that Lynn and I were going to and I told him that I want to do something I want to do something meaningful and he said why don't you consider going to seminary and I had no idea what that I mean I mean I really I'm a nice Jewish kid from Long Island yeah and I but I thought summer is where monks walked around the hoods and all and he said no it's a it's a progressive seminary and you know it was a place where you learned about social justice and that resonated with me so I applied and I had to write down my to tell my story for the from you know really for the first time in writing and I had no illusions that I was going to get admitted to the seminary on but a little while didn't take that long and I got admitted and so Union Theological Seminary and it's in Morningside Heights up it's it's a part of the Columbia right University family yeah when you were practicing law and using and just you know doing you live in the Michael Clayton life what was your relationship to spirituality then I was a I was a cultural Jew not certainly not a religious or an observant one but my thing you know my daughter's had been bat Mitzvahed and we showed up to show lon hi holy days but you know I'd abandoned all of that I mean there's no question that once I got into into drugs that any any shred of spirituality had it was it was gone so then when you find yourself in treatment and in 12-step you have to you know reconnect with that aspect yeah who you are and one of the things that that you know people who are struggling or who are suffering find difficult is is this concept of of God that's kind of packed into 12-step yeah alienating for a lot of people they're like look I know I need to get sober I got to stop drinking or using like this whole God business like it's just not for me so I'm just gonna find another way yeah yeah well for me it was you know it wasn't quite a guy with a white beard but there's no I was connecting to the god of my childhood for sure you know some omnipotent omnipresent being you know there's an anthropomorphic aspect to it but certainly I II I was praying I was on my knees praying to something and and it was forming you know it was forming as I as I kind of went through the next few years and how did that evolve like what does that look for it look like for you now um well now I myself a double belong er you know since that man I mean I'm Jewish and I'm a Christian uh-huh and that was a phrase coined by Paul knitter who was one of my professors at Union Theological who um who was a Christian and Buddhist and do that yeah that you know word there's no rules and and and in truth you know so much of it is about how we live and how we behave and living in right thinking and right action and right intent and you know these are our Buddhist ideological tenets within the you know within the the Eightfold Path and all of that you know and I didn't know that at the time really I just knew that there was some kind of commonality but I definitely needed a theology of looking forward of transformation and of rebirth and I found that in in Christianity when you're in Divinity School are you exposed to these different modalities or is a very Christian oriented no this is the most liberal progressive seminary in the world I mean this is I got introduced to all kinds of things I had never been around and and I was the you know I was the minority there because it was the it was um feminist and womanist and gay and transgender and and the beautiful people all of mostly who came out of some kind of suffering and and we're finding themselves in in religion and faith and service and it was it was the school of Bonhoeffer and the Niebuhr and so it had a and James cone and black liberation theology so it had a very it was steeped in social justice and but I was the oddball out I mean it was then they were it was Occupy Wall Street and I was one of the one-percenters you know I mean I yes you're like twice as old as everyone yeah I'm more than twice as all of the youth mentioned before we were recorded that you lived in the door for a while fair enough for a while I was coming down from Greenwich every day and taking metro-north down into 125th Street yeah for a little while we took a place in the dorm um mostly because I couldn't keep up with the work I hadn't been I'd been out of law school for almost 30 years at that point and I just couldn't do the reading it was massive much I found it much harder than what much Wow and are you employed at the rehab at this point like do you have any income or yeah yeah well I'm up in grow well in that first year it was probably was a little tough yeah but then I was up in Bridgeport and and I was doing re-entry work and so living in Greenwich and going to school in Manhattan and taking the train up to Bridgeport and and and trying to work my way through the issues of why I was in seminary to begin with because that wasn't abundantly clear and for a while I hid my background from everyone because I didn't want to be known as the prison guy I didn't want that moniker on me but at some point I I knew I was having an inauthentic experience if I wasn't actually being honest about what my background was what was informing my work and informing my papers and things like that and once I did that then everything just broke open was there where he blocked out of fear of being judged or what was the impediment to you just owning that aspect of why you were there I think that was that and and also that I was so busy that I I was going to very few AAA meetings very and so I was sliding backwards you know into into kind of a more selfish I was in seminary ironically but feeling self more selfish and and and the awareness came to me at some point there that it's not about what I get from it it's what I put into it which I had known from right from AAA but for some reason they don't daily reminder exactly and what's that have you're not a charge yourself well needs to be sublimated yes so the polarity changed in and I got through it and and it was a beaut all day when we when I graduated and you know and where does shame enter into all of this like what is your relationship to that how have you you know weathered that aspect of your past um it's better now mostly but on any given day I could wake up in and and the specter is there you know just everything it could be overwhelming and certainly service has changed all that you know being helpful to others and and seeing my and identify denting with their stories and and and little by little I was able to move through and you know shame you know shame is guilt is about what you did and shame is about who you are and I was able to navigate that at some point but it probably took a decade yeah I was it was hard yeah I find that were harder on ourselves then then others are and our community is more willing to forgive us than we are willing to forgive ourselves oh that's true it makes sense yeah and I could see the change manifesting and my friends and the people around me but I'm but I couldn't see the change in their trust slowly my answer would help with your community yeah yeah yeah but was that part of not wanting to share your story with your peers and in in Divinity School I think so you know I think so and I was so powerful you know it's I mean everybody loves a redemption story you know as part of why you're sitting here you know we we love somebody who's coming back you know and and the ability to kind of own that past and shine a light on it is the ultimate way to you know kind of drain it of all its shame power well I was in the middle of it that yeah so it wasn't like I was you know I understood it as a story arc you know I was I was in the midst of it and and on any given day it was just overwhelming right and was just putting one foot in front of the other harder than law school much harder than you asked was interesting yeah well so you get out and you find yourself at a church right I become a pastor or a reverend like how how does all that I don't understand well there was a I had been working in Bridgeport for a while and I developed a relationship with a pastor in an all-black Church black Baptist Church and I knew I needed an excitable on Baptist fire and brimstone a wire like the whole thing not Southern Baptist but their own brand and I I went to him and I said I asked him if he if there was a place for me and I knew him pretty well at that point and he made a place for me and Lynne and I were the only white people in the church and it was beautiful beautiful people and but waning you know like a lot of those urban churches are you know it was a a sanctuary that could fit 600 people probably and none any given Sunday there were 40 mm-hmm 50 maybe and so it was uh it was an awakening as to church polity in church what are ways to work in a church and to actually be pastor role and I was developing a prison ministry at that point and I was on the preaching rotation and doing all the worship that you know that I'd experienced some of in Divinity School but certainly now it was on the ground then it was happening and and when I would preach land my wife she would she would go outside under the overpass and we speak to the homeless people in estimate they wanted to come in to church and they would make the she would negotiate with them because they wanted things like a blanket you know or jacket they were called and she said come into church and we'll get will get you that stuff and and she brought them into the church and are all sitting in the back row when she came up to me cuz I was I was preaching that day and she told me that she had you know bartered with them she was making and she needed blankets and coats and I said to her where we're gonna get that this church is poor this church has nothing but we lived in Greenwich mm-hmm so that's when we started making the rounds of the churches in Greenwich and and getting resources for the people in Bridgeport well it's beautiful yeah and so how long did how long did you do that for two years mm-hmm and at the same time I was doing that I had been asked to join the board of of a criminal justice nonprofit which was an amazing experience because you know this was I I knew that I was yeah I felt accepted and so I was a I was a formerly incarcerated person on a board of directors of a major nonprofit in and I was helping guys in Greenwich through AAA who were on their way to prison or coming home from prison and and that's where I was kind of known as the prime guy and there were I would say over the 10 years I did that I don't know maybe a hundred guys I had helped and these were captains of industry I mean these were you know some of them you read about this is where I feel like you really find your your your your calling right you become the go-to guy for her so please Greenwich who got in trouble who's headed to prison or somebody who recently got out of prison and it's trying to figure out how they're gonna live in the world again and you're the man with experience so a lot of you know people knocking on your door for for advice and this becomes not just a calling but you sort of institutionalize this you start this progressive prison ministries company that's now really the focus of what you do trying to be a helping hand to people who have found themselves in your predicament well I got a call from a reporter at a hedge fund magazine and he and he asked me if I was the minister was I the minister to hedge funders uh-huh yeah I said that um the truth I said while ministering in Bridgeport and I'm working in recovery with hedge funders and yeah in Greenwich but those two concepts have never merged and he said one is ones more interesting to the press than the other one one's a little more click Beatty are they love the white collars yeah yeah and it's really interesting what you've done in this world and we should say like at the outset there's definitely a sympathy issue here you're a guy and Greenwich there's lots of big-time money dudes hedge fund guy private equity investment bankers you know all those kinds of people they get into trouble they're looking at jail time you know it's hard it's it's like you know okay so what do we you know cry me a river for these guys yeah but I've learned a lot researching you and hearing you speak about the realities of what happens not just to these individuals but all the people that are in the wake of these offences yeah so walk me through that so we can better understand this whole dynamic um well just at that point I I didn't really know what we were gonna do I didn't understand it other than I knew that there was a a constituency of people out there who weren't being served at all because I hadn't been served and I knew from my experience in working with them in a so we uh so we went to the biggest church in Greenwich and who we knew the pastor there we knew the rector and we said listen we had this crazy idea to become a white-collar ministry and it's never been done before and we don't even know if we could work we have no idea and he said to us well it's intriguing and and and I and explain to him I believe that there's there everywhere especially in a place like Greenwich or dairy an or New Canaan or and they're living in isolation and they're living behind closed blinds and their families are affected in there and and we knew at that point that they were being asked to leave not just social clubs and and and and country clubs and things like that but they were asked being asked to leave their churches and their temples and the synagogues and their kids were being ostracized and parents wouldn't let their their kids play with the children of these families as if they were infected and I explained that and what what the rector said to me was listen why don't you go do your research go take this on the road and see what's out there and come back to me because I need an institutional support for this to happen and for the next year year and a half we hit the road and we preached then hit conferences and and it was amazing the response and the big turning point moment was at the Nantucket project so that's why my heart is there you got asked to speak I got asked to speak your story yeah and so it was the first time out of the a room that I would have ever actually told the whole story right in a public forum and I was scared to death I was scared to death and and but you'd shared your story a million times and closed groups right you think it would help you think it would be the same but it wasn't it wasn't at all the same and also I mean you know that you developed kind of a an a banter kind of a way of communicating you know it's and and when I got up on the stage I got brought to my knees I mean I was it was an experience like I'd never had like a lightning bolt there was none of the banter there was none of the pithy myths there was none of the making people laugh a little bit it was raw it was raw I was shaking like a leaf and I spoke there well you spoke there this this past year but this is what it was like two years ago when you were when you've not no this is 2013 oh well and and I couldn't hear a pin drop no I mean the audience was was there was not one there was no feedback whatsoever and I became aware of that and I was scared and at the end of it where had finally gotten through the whole story there was a standing ovation which I don't remember I only the only way I knew was from the from the tape afterwards and then here was the the pivotal moment because now there's I was on the first night I was in between Steve Case and a blind boy who sang Christian songs in perfect pitch so it was like I was between them of one of five speakers the first night and the next three days we walked around and and rich I'm telling you a hundred people came up and hugged us and thanked us and told us they're a a day counts and told us about their relatives and their children who rehab in and that's and and we went back to our hotel room and Lynn and I looked each other and said what's going on like the conversation that people want to have is no one's having it and somehow we gave them permission to talk about their the frailty and talk about their issues in a you know in a way outside of you know outside of anything we've it and never experienced other than in a room well true emotional vulnerability is the ultimate connective tissue yeah that's true you know and I think when you get up there and you allow yourself to be that raw and on and honest people know that you know and and it resonates with people and and it becomes that thing that you're so scared of that ultimately becomes your greatest strength and asset oh it was Liberty yeah yeah and and but I I it was a turning point you know was a moment that I knew that I had to do this this was this information oh yeah for sure yeah yeah so you start helping not only you know the underprivileged community in Bridgeport but also the well-heeled in Greenwich it's this bizarre dichotomy oh my god and we talked when we talked last you were kind of sharing with me you know some some aspects of of what that's like and and I read something also that kind of filled in that colored between the lines for me on this which is in the underprivileged community when a member of that community is arrested for let's say a drug offense or something like that the community congeals around that individual and that family and shows up to support them before during and after in the white collar well-heeled context it's quite the opposite it's immediate oestrus as that otra ostracization how do you say that and like you just said everyone flees no one wants anyone to anything to do with these people and you're left with families that are you know a shell of what they used to be with spouses who are unable to pay the bills you know have to go on Food Stamp like all these things that you don't really think about or consider without any community support yeah whatsoever so as much as it's easy to you know not be sympathetic to offenders of this nature there is real damaging consequences that extend beyond that individuals bad behavior well also because we've been influenced by the media to paint everyone with this very broad brush an overwhelming majority of people who are prosecuted for white-collar crimes are are not the big name sensationalized the story is that you that you read about in in the paper or you see on on CNBC I mean they're kind of just normal people who've were desperate or or or addicted or have mental health problems or something went wrong and they found themselves at that tipping point and I would say the great commonality of the great commonality is that it's mostly guys so I'll just talk about it as a male thing that they they didn't have the the core character or ego strength to walk into the bedroom and say to their wives look I'm not the man I thought I was or I'm not capable of doing the things that we thought I was so what we should do is we should simplify you know sell the house sell the cars simplify and the reason they they don't do it and this is reported by maybe 95 percent of the guys I've worked with a huge number um it's because they were afraid their wives we're gonna leave them and and mostly because they spent a long time lying and not being a partner and and being emotionally distant you know oh yeah you know overworking and being emotionally distant and they were afraid that their wives without the money that there was nothing left there and their wives were gonna leave them and what we found out as we progressed in this in this ministry was that most of the wives would have liked nothing better than to have the husband who they married 10 years before to have apologized and just said you know this I've been on this this train that that that left the station and and I can't do it anymore yeah it's heartbreaking it is harder than that yeah or it's a context in which the water just it's brought to a boil at such a slow rate that it's imperceptible what's happening until it's too late I had to death but I mean like I asked you if you knew Tom Hardin timber axe and you're like of course I was like really the four longtime listeners of this podcast you'll remember that he came on the show it must be four or five years ago at this point infamously known as the most prolific FBI informant in securities fraud history here a guy who crossed the line made some trades he shouldn't have made got a tap on the shoulder said getting the back of the suburban and was faced with the prospect of prison or becoming a dutiful informant for the government which he was more than happy to do he fulfilled that role and his work culminated in the arrest and prosecution of like a litany of them big-time high rollers hmm but he suffered the consequences of being you know when he was sentenced everybody knew there was tipper accident when you knew who that was when he was sentenced his name became publicly known and that ostracization took place you know swiftly in his family and I was able to get him on and share his story for the first time really in a long-form public format and while he was in the midst of grappling with what he was going to do with his life and if you go back and listen to that I'll share on the show notes that you know a link to that episode and it's one of my most favorite episode because he's so raw and honest yeah and you can hear the desperation in his voice and the confusion because he hadn't he was not figured out at that point what he was gonna do no he was very unclear he was new he was he was a new be brand new yeah and I shared this story with you and I'm gonna do it here just because I I don't know that I've ever publicly said this about I think it was a year ago I was in New York I was giving a talk at a big investment bank that had brought me out to give a speech and they assure me into this theater amphitheater and they said oh the people that are you know there's a little panel going on right now they're almost done and then you'll go up and I open the door and I looked at the panel and it was Tom Hardin on stage sharing his story of what he went through with a group of traders private equity people investment bankers in the hopes of sparing them the pain that he had suffered and the transgressions and I just thought what a beautiful incredible full-circle moment to be able to bear witness to that after the experience that I had had with him initially and I think his experience perfectly in captures the kind of characters that you're you know of service to but also a success story and that he's found a way to take this shame and everything that he's gone through and channel it for the betterment of other people yeah the the times definitely involved in the cautionary tale aspect of it and trying to prevent things from happening or people from behaving in ways that are ultimately self-destructive because all of this is really about self sabotage you know just trying to relieve ourselves of some inner demons somehow and people just blow the orange you know that's so out of check yeah just I can't fathom that you'll ever be caught that your experience is gonna be different yeah yeah exactly and so what's it like when you're dealing with these families and these individuals um you know what I've learned what I've learned through this mostly is that when I was in AAA I was I did a lot of 12-step work a lot of service work and what I've learned is that the Maya a concept of service has really changed because it's not so much me trying to help anyone what it is is radically sharing my journey with them and inviting them into the the emergence of my own authenticity and hopefully that gives them the the the license and the permission the agency to do that for themselves and so there's very little filter right now between what I go through and what I experience and what I'm willing to share with anybody who's going through it and and that could be um difficult for them because I'm telling them the truth and but there's something it's really about the healing it's there and because until someone you know this until someone practices acceptance is surrender and that kind of that kind of honesty they're just not there those lives just aren't going to get better but to be told from the outset with compassion and empathy and kindness that that your life has value and that this isn't the end but what we're gonna do here is we're gonna we're gonna we're going to get real we're going to get real and that's been and I do that by finding real mm-hmm right by just being an example of that mostly provides a space and gives permission for that person to follow in suit as opposed to look here's what you need to do here are the five things like doesn't work right now but the power and just sharing your experience and owning it a hundred percent mmm get people a sense of hope that if they can do that then they can have a transformative experience as well and that I mean that's what we're talking about the work that you do with you know the underprivileged community and Bridgehampton and also this bridge port bridge portage Hampton yeah that's even more high - yeah yeah that was it there we go they're very different communities and Greenwich right so but these are lessons and principles applicable to anybody the young would counsel through hardship and and that's happened because the there's no question i that that we came to the realization that everybody everybody is going through some kind of difficult life-altering experience whether it be a death of a child or cancer or or a divorce or or career death or whatever it is and that these principles are are universal and and that we can help a lot of people through and so there's a few things that we got to figure out along the way and that that the things that we were most afraid of were really probably the things that were best for us and that this transformative moment is kind of in the middle you know it's a it's a liminal place where we're guys coming home from prison for basically a refugee status yeah it's not the it's not the the end it's the it's the beginning really yeah but there's got to be a time period there where you're practicing acceptance and surrender and hopefully no longer mourning the past or anticipating the future but this is about my my my yet my development my my healing right now and where does forgiveness live in this liminal space that's a hard one you know because there's forgiveness and then there's self forgiveness and I had to overcome a lot of denial to really start to parse out forgiveness and because I'd heard a lot of people and I only became aware of the level of people that I heard by working with so many other men and it became obvious to me about them that they had hurt people but all of this work is self-reflective so I started to understand that I I hurt I hurt my ex-wife I hurt my wife I hurt my kids I hurt my community I hurt everybody and with that level of acceptance and certainly being involved in a faith community that is about forgiveness I started to forgive myself and and felt forgiven that's a big deal is there a difference between acceptance and self forgiveness um like they're pretty close they're pretty close yeah they're pretty close I mean I'm excited for me it's acceptance of the reality so the reality was where I was living at that in in that moment I mean it was there was the fantasy had been broken right but to move to probably higher orders of acceptance and compassion and empathy those moves took a long time it took a long time what do you think is the hardest part of this arc of healing that hamstrings the most people that you work with that there we are prisoners of our own making you know it's it's a strange thing you know we're not what I when I started this the world was very different politically and economically and and then the criminal justice conversation has developed in the last ten years to the point where it's a it's a it's dinner table conversation but we've gotten to the point now where where companies and and institutions will accept people who've been to prison and maybe it's driven by I don't know under 4% unemployment and they need the help I don't know if there's a lot of factors but the biggest single problem that that we have in matching people who come home to prison and then end the jobs for example is that people come home from prison including white-collar don't have the ability to emerge they're there they're there in these tight prison cocoons and they're and they're trapped and so can't even get to job interviews don't have the self-awareness of I mean the imagine the amount of capacity that is lost of tens of thousands of people who have advanced degrees and have so much experience and and they're driving uber over there they're working in construction and and so much of that it's about the their own making and can you find the opportunity in the dismantling I mean obviously you know I would imagine you look back and you have some gratitude for these experiences that were you know on paper quite tragic and challenging and difficult to navigate but you now live a life that I would presume is much more fulfilling than the life you were living before yeah I'm right I didn't know way of know so to be able to kind of navigate that treacherous landscape from there to here is really the goal and you know when I when I kind of canvas when you when you scale up and look at it from 10,000 feet it's as much a social problem as anything else like we're in a time right now where you know we Harold the billionaire like we never have before we put a purported one in office and and this is the ideal the manifestation of the American Dream and so we've created institutions that funnel young people into systems that lead them to believe the billionaire dream is possible for them they become perhaps worn out by those systems and then cut corners because they're still adhering to this idea that they could be that person and end up on the wrong side of the law with that but what's driving all of this you know it's ego it's greed it's our consumerist culture it's the it's a it's a crisis of values and ethics that is fomenting what's beneath all of this right and as somebody who now lives in a spiritual place how do you think about cultural mores and and how we can raise the collective consciousness of society and culture at large to you know be a prophylactic against this kind of thing even happening to begin with well that's the big idea and there's no question that it can't be just about being on the road and telling cautionary tales to business school students and and prospective lawyers and hoping that 1% of that information will get through you know the there's there's got to be a radical shift but the things we honor are really is strange because you know we might think that we honor the billionaire for example or we honor the rich and famous but underneath it all this is a deep sense of schadenfreude you know where we're waiting for them to fail we want them to fail and and so there's this you know the you know the devil is not far from the door you know the there's a sickness involved in it and and so you know we so do we do we do we really love Justin Bieber or do we love the fact that you know he's in the back of a squad car having been arrested and and and I'm involved in you know in the various stages of that with people it's one of the reasons why we've lost well for us at first it's the it's the reason why um I accepted the job at family ran tree you know um you know about three years ago or so I was on the board of directors there and they asked me to become the executive director and CEO of that organization and which ended about three weeks ago but I would I was the first person who had been incarcerated for white-collar crime in the country to be made the head of a major criminal justice organization so that's not the first person has been to prison that's the first white-collar criminal and that was a that was a big move I mean it was a bold move for the board of directors but I accepted the job because I wanted to I wanted to be able to say that you know the we can be trusted that we can be in positions of respect and authority and and that we don't have to live in shame and thinks that was the theory yeah and whether or not I've helped them move the needle even one degree I don't know I mean that the proof will be in the pudding for that but the conversation out there has certainly shifted and there was a time when I couldn't get invited to any parties and Greenwich for example I mean I was a pariah and and then there was a time where I was a I was a you know a an interesting story you know or you know I was a you know I was the way where do you hear what Jeff has to say or I was the you know I I was I was already trapped here the token party trainer for sure yeah but I don't feel that way anymore you know and and and I'm certainly invited now to things that I wouldn't have been been divided to in the past and and I'm walking erect and with my head held high and so a lot of okay so it's Tom hardened you know there's a perfect example yeah and and because we don't have to live in it and and what does this mean more broadly in terms of trying to change our culture well I mean a work culture that at one point in our history I believe held basic character issues in high regard certainly ethics and and and morality were at the center of our university system I mean the first colleges in the country were seminaries and somewhere in the middle of the last century we abdicated that kind of training to professional schools and then for example the business schools created something called business ethics I don't even know what that means so how do we find our way back um I think it's happening I think it's happening I think that do you think it's happening as a reaction oh yeah yeah oh yeah for sure I mean I think that people are much more aware and and I think that there's a few things going on at once I think there is a call back into character and and values and used to see it even in people's lives I mean the 20 years ago dads weren't coming home to play soccer you know to the coach soccer but now you see a whole a whole backlash I think back there's probably the wrong word but you see new a new generation of people who are reinvested in their families in a different way and it's certainly one of the reasons why what we've taken on kind of a what we'll call a epical rehab approach and so it's it's for people if they're prevention and education or or in kind of the redemptive process or then in the reunification of families and the restoration of people's into whatever their new norm is going to be but we're providing kind of the the services that people would having a drug and alcohol rehab but specifically oriented towards ethical issues so I'm an example is you know Tiger Woods he he has set the collapses of his own sort right he gets chased down the driveway by his by his wife with the pitching wedge of the 9-iron and he goes to his lawyer's office and and his life is over and the lawyer says to him well you know go to rehab and and for he did for 90 days and when he came out he was he'd someone who'd evidence a willingness to go through some kind of transformative experience and I'm not at all interested in what his lawyer has to say or anyone's lawyer has to say I'm interested in the person I I want to help people actually change and I would love to do it before there's some kind of precipitating event but the reality is is that that these guys and women when they're when they've been tapped on the shoulder by the FBI or someone else they are they're in survival mode yeah it creates a heightened reality that precipitates a willingness that otherwise would not be found yeah and and and and they don't even know what kind of some game they're in at that point you know they don't know but yeah I think you know look rehab can be this perfunctory stop on the PR rehabilitation trail there are people that find themselves in the crosshairs of some crisis of their own making but every once in a while it works you know we saw it with with with Michael Phelps sure you know it's it's effective for certain people some people they're just doing it to check the box so that you know they'll be ingratiated back into society again only time will tell whether that's real and the only way to know is to pay attention to people's behavior well you know at the end of many AAA meetings there's a line of people with little white sheets that go up and I know is one of those guys I used to I used to fraudulently write those signatures on there for the judge yeah well so so for people who don't know basically yet you have to you have to document your going to meetings so you can tell the judge yeah and and you know for the rest of us anything that gets you in the room is fine I mean there's a lot of different motives to get in the room we want to help you get well and and so so we've taken this to a step that's non substance abuse related and it has all kinds of co-occurring thing is this mental illness and there's drug and alcohol and we're working with different groups and people and that this will evolve it's in its infancy but I think that I think that what we need is a commitment to that you know to character and to ethics and and I certainly search continually to become that person I was at 12 years old before I found my you know my first joint yeah yeah that's beautifully put you know and I think it's needed now more than ever given that we have on the one hand this massive and ever-expanding opioid crisis and we have incredible problems with our prison industrial complex and these two things are colliding with each other to really just exacerbate the problem making it worse and you're somebody who you know basically was at the intersection of both of these things so when we look at the opioid crisis I mean do you know are you familiar in criminal justice reform like what are those numbers right now and staggering yet what are we doing about this and how can we do better well like anything else the the resources weren't there until it became a a finding there was a financial incentive or a political incentive to do it and now there's a lot of resources being thrown at at the opioid crisis the so-called opioid crisis because not that there isn't one but it's really no different than the crack academic that there was it just is touching a different strata of society so it's it's it's a shame that we will you know we we criminalize behavior that affects the inner-city people but we show such such empathy and compassion for a the same kind of problem but it's affecting people in the more affluent communities but you know anywhere we can get any we can get the resources I'll take their I'll take I mean it is but it's also I mean you know look they call oxy hillbilly heroin like it's you know very deleterious and a lot of yeah you know underprivileged communities throughout the south particularly you know in areas like that like it's it's touching all different demographics yearning from the guy on like yourself the Park Avenue guy who gets the surgery and gets what's the Demerol down to you know smashing up the oxy pills and you know being stuck in your basement for six months I last year I became the volunteer chaplain to the fire department in the town I live in Wow in Connecticut uh-huh and so I had to go through a certain amount of orientation and so they're talking about the different kinds of calls they go on they go on fire calls to go on cat up a tree calls they go on all kinds of different calls and one of the calls that go on are exploding meth labs and I'm in this bucolic right you're like to having Connecticut like you know Litchfield Hills beautiful exploding that happens here but you know in front of the church on the on the hill or our crosses with the names of all the kids from the high school who died that year yeah so it's it's real and what about our prison system we're like right in the wake of this prison isn't in the Bronx that like lost its heat during the dog Brooklyn Brooklyn right the heat went out and the polar vortex yeah we got problems here what's going on there well it's it's subhuman conditions I mean there was subhuman conditions before the heat went out and it was just exacerbated and it's terrible and I know a lot of but I do I wasn't there but I know a lot of people who were there who and it's terrible and it's the warehousing of people and it doesn't make a difference what your what your economic background is it's it is making money on the backs of other people and so we live in a culture where criminal justice basically make fifty thousand dollars roughly per year per person and so just do the math if we have to point something million people behind bars that's the size of the that's the size of consumer and and someone's going to make money on it yeah I mean is there any way out of this privatization scenario that we find ourselves in like can short of changing campaign finance laws and and how lobbyists work and all of that I don't see this changing too much money's being made you know my my personal theology's is not to it was to be positive and I do believe that there's a lot of awareness going on but I believe that I also know that this is a conversation that's been going on for centuries yes maybe for millennia and and that the advocates will advocate and the people in power it's truth to power and the people in power will probably grant little wins to people so that their placated to appease to appease and they'll find other ways to make the money we have to wind this down but I want to leave people with a place to go and something to think about particularly people that are listening who who are suffering continue to suffer or know somebody who suffers from a drug a substance abuse problem as somebody with a long-term sobriety who's kind of steeped in the traditions what do you have to say what can you what kind of lifeline can you throw to someone who maybe is wrestling with this privately and has yet to really come to terms with the reality of their situation I I don't mean it all for it to sound hokey or trite but this hope and I'm I'm not special I'm probably sure you don't view yourself as special we've we've been granted grace somehow and all we had to do is show up every day and do the work and live one day at a time and then some higher power decide to what our fate was so if it could work for us it could work for anybody and I don't take it for granted for a day because the us is today tomorrow it's going to have its own you know its own issues and I trust I'll be sober tomorrow but maybe not you know maybe not but if there's anyone out there who who thinks that it's impossible or thinks they're so desperately in the throes of their addiction or their problems or whatever and the answer is just like when I sat at my desk and I had a stack of files or a stack of paper how do you get through it and the answer is start at the top mm-hmm and that's what this is about just turning myself over hurting anyone turning themselves over to things that they don't know about and that's okay as dark as the prison of your own design may appear or feel to you I assure you and I promise you that there is oh just like you said that there is a light available to you and I say that you know not to be trite as you mentioned but only because I've seen this transpire and thousands of people men over the years people coming from circumstances and situations so dire that it's actually mind-blowing the extent to which they've been able to turn their lives around yeah so I implore anybody out there who's listening who has a sense that they may have a problem please reach out for help there is help available to you if you do not want to drink or use again you do not have to but you've got to raise your hand you've got to make your voice known seek out help in your area there are plenty of resources I'll link some of my preferred resources in the show notes to this episode and please take advantage of them because you're worth it and the world needs you to be the best version of who you are which is sober and conscious amen to that right on yeah thank you I really I appreciate the work that you do it's beautiful actually and your story of transformation really is quite wonderful and amazing so I wish you the best this is yours by the way well maybe I still need to go to Divinity School I don't know my mother would be happy if people are desiring to connect with you where's the best place for them to go online to do that at prison Astorga so like what minister feminist prison is org and all the informations there and you know we have a lot of resources a lot of content that's valuable you do like a radio show too yeah we do real show yeah yeah usually I have the I have the headphones on yeah next time yeah cool um thank you thank you Rick come back again sometime thank you bless you god bless you peace [Music]

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Views: 12,839

Rating: 4.878788 out of 5

Keywords: AA, addiction, athlete, bipolar, demerol, drugs, faith, forgery, grace, guilt, Jeff Grant, meditation, mindfullness, opioids, oxycontin, pastor, plantpower, plant-based, podcast, prescription drugs, prison, prisonist, recovery, redemption, religion, reverend, Reverend Jeff Gant, rich roll, self-help, seminary, shame, spirituality, suicide, theology, vegan, christianity, minister, divinity, alcoholism, alcoholics anonymous, white collar crime, criminal, felon, felony, prison industrial complex, sobriety

Id: anln-8bBm7M

Length: 116min 6sec (6966 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2019