Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Cop — This Is What Broke Me | Kevin Donaldson

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Kevin Donaldson, a retired New Jersey police officer, opens up about his traumatic upbringing, what drew him to law enforcement, and the career-defining call that ultimately broke him after responding to a domestic shooting incident — a moment that changed his life and led to his retirement in 2014. Kevin shares raw stories from the job that taught him about danger, mental strain, and resilience while battling post-traumatic stress, and he reveals how he turned his pain into purpose by becoming a mental health advocate, author, and motivational speaker dedicated to destigmatizing trauma and helping others find strength through struggle. _____________________________________________ #TrueCrime #LawEnforcement #PoliceStories #RealStories #JusticeSystem #BehindTheBadge #YouTubePodcast #crimedocumentary _____________________________________________ Thank you to FACTOR & PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: FACTOR: Head to https://factormeals.com/lockedin50off and use code lockedin50off to get 50% off your first Factor box PLUS free breakfast for 1 year. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. PRIZEPICKS: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! _____________________________________________ Connect with Kevin Doladson: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realkevindonaldson/?hl=en Website: https://www.realkevindonaldson.com/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Policing Reality Check & Life on the Job 03:00 Kevin Donaldson’s Background & Why He Became a Cop 10:00 Growing Up in South Jersey & Early Struggles 16:00 Childhood Trauma, Turbulent Home Life & Lasting Impact 23:00 Breaking Family Ties & Destructive Coping Mechanisms 29:00 At a Crossroads: Trouble, College & Reinventing Himself 40:00 Early Adulthood: Teaching, Uncertainty & Searching for Purpose 47:00 Finding Structure and Identity Through Policing 53:00 Experiencing 9/11 as a Police Officer 56:00 Police Work Explained: The Good, the Bad & the Surreal 01:02:00 The Emotional Toll of Policing & Suppressed Trauma 01:09:00 The Officer-Involved Shooting That Changed Everything 01:17:00 Panic Attacks, Mental Health Collapse & Burnout 01:24:00 Losing His Identity & Hitting Rock Bottom 01:31:00 Therapy, Group Support & the Long Road to Healing 01:38:00 Life After Policing: Finding Purpose in Helping Others 01:45:00 Losing a Friend, Regret & Hard-Learned Lessons 01:55:00 Rebuilding Life & Transforming Trauma Into Growth 02:02:00 Healing, Justice Reform & Advocacy Work 02:12:00 Hope, Reflection & Final Takeaways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Own the dream. A police officer will see upward in a 20-year career. We'll see upwards between 6 and 800 critical incidents. Pretty much what an average citizen would consider the worst day of their life. What do you think that moment was in your childhood that caused you to not go down the path that would lead to say prison? We had a two-year-old who got locked in a toy box, suffocated, and die playing hide and go seek with his grandmother.

I clear from that call, write my report, clear from that call, medics take them, and then I have to go to some break-in. The car got broken into. I just saw a kid that was like turquoise. And now I have to go and do my job. And when I show up, I got this woman screaming and yelling at me, how come you took so long? Do you remember that first time you experienced that steal-your-soul moment?

The day my soul broke from police work was... In this episode, retired New Jersey cop, Kevin Donaldson walks through his life from the beginning, a traumatic upbringing, why he chose law enforcement, and the realities of the job that most people never see. He shares powerful stories from the street, the call that ultimately broke him and ended his career, and how he fought his way back by turning trauma into purpose. Kevin, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming out today. Bad weather, no matter what you still got here, two days in a row it snowed in Connecticut. Last year, it didn't snow at all.

You know, through rain, sleet, or snow, I guess today I'm going to take on the role of a mailman, you know. But, you know, it's part of who I am, right? So I told you I was going to be here. I have a truck. I got four-wheel drive. It's not that, wasn't that bad, you know, and it was actually a pleasurable drive because there wasn't too many people on the road. So the weather doesn't scare me. And it's pretty, this area.

Yeah, this is nice up here. I like it. And big thanks to Keith for connecting us today. Yeah, my little Lebanese friend. little short Lebanon baloney friend. He texts me a week ago and he's like, hey, I know you got Kevin coming up. Make sure you ask him this. And he sent me a reminder text today.

So Keith, first thing I said when I met him, what's up with the Lebanese baloney? Yeah, well, you know, but Keith's been a great person to know. And he's been a really, really good friend. He's been very constant. You know, I try to keep people in my life who are really consistent and Keith is ultra consistent. There's not many of them out there like him. He does what he says and he says what he does.

You know, how many people, you, you're in this realm here, how many people say, yeah, we'll do it here. And then the showtime starts approaching. They're like, oh, can we reschedule? Oh, can we do this? And you're like, come on, man, this is like, this is a job. This is a profession. Oh, you don't know how many people cancel last minute or say they're coming even a day before. And then the next an hour before, they're like, I couldn't get a ride or anything like that.

To me, what that does to me is it tells you how, it tells me how important I am. You know, because I take what I do, I take what I do very, very important, just like you do. You take it ultra important. I can tell by your, you know, your layout around here. And for people who are disrespectful like that, and I understand there's things that come up, I get it, I understand that. But most of the time, I'm going to say most of the time, it's bullshit. And they, you know, when somebody shows you who they are, you better believe. Definitely. Well, tell everyone about the book, the coffee you gave us, which smells insane, like in a good way. So strong. So the coffee, when my partner was alive, which I'll talk about later, when my partner was alive, and we just started the suffering podcast, we always wanted to have our own coffee brand. I've been sober for 12 years, over 12 years. Okay, so I can't, you can get, we're looking for advertisers for our show and you can get tons of alcohol advertisers, but alcohol.

I don't promote anything that I'm not willing to do myself, but I do drink a lot of coffee. And the reason I drink a lot of coffee is in the first responder world, that's a way to bond. That's a way to sit down and decompress and just forget all the horrors you just saw over a cup of coffee. So we always wanted to have our own coffee company. And the guys over at Freedom Bear Coffee, Damien, he reached out. And next thing you know is he's like, hey, how about your own signature brand? And the good thing about it is all the proceeds, 100% of the proceeds go to my nonprofit, Denton Development Project, which helps first responders in their families just get through

like some sticky spots, some incidental stuff, maybe some groceries or just something to get over the hump because they're dealing with so much. You know, when somebody dies by suicide or something like that, you know, they're not thinking about going to get groceries. They've got family usually. They're not thinking about, you know, the electricity bill's got to get paid. So it's just to help out with some incidentals. So not only is it a, it's a fantastic cup of coffee. And I'm not saying that. I'm telling you right now, I tell everybody if you like it, tell me, if you don't like it, keep that shit to yourself. But it's a fantastic cup of coffee. And I'm so proud of it. And I just had some on the way up here. So, you know, it's like,

it's kind of like a dream come true with that. I literally could smell it from here. And I'm a curig guy, but I'm going to be using this, the fresh stuff. I had to go out and get the reusable curigs. And it also comes in expresso as well. But I got 50 bags of it when it first launched. And I had it in my garage, my whole garage smelled like coffee. It was wonderful. Oh, there's reusable curigs. Like I could pour this in? Yeah, that's exactly what you. You get the, they're reusable, they're washable. You put it in the curig and you're off to the races. Awesome. I'm going to order that on Amazon then. It's pretty good. And the book, tell everyone about that too. So the book, kind of chronicles my path of law enforcement. And what we initially wanted, I wrote this with a

gentleman named Christopher Anderson. Christopher Anderson, you've seen him on first 48, you've seen one reasonable doubt. I got connected with him and we became fast friends. He was a Birmingham homicide detective, Birmingham, Alabama. And as we started to talk, we realized that even though he's in another part of the country, some of the same mental challenges in the world of police, we shared. So we got together. We started, we, a publicist or a publisher reached out to us and said, hey, why don't you guys write this book? We wrote this book. And we really want to try to make it like a mental health guideline. As a matter of fact, man, you are crazy, just got picked up by a guy named Dr. Kishon Hickman, who's a retired NYPD detective. He's now a professor at Seton Hall University.

that is required reading for a graduate program in executive police leadership. I hope I have that right. And, Doc, please, if I didn't get it right, don't hold me. But it's now required reading. So the funny part of that is the irony is when I was a police officer, administration did not like me. They did not like me at all because I was the guy that stood up for the rank and file because I was a union guy and I always read my contracts letter to letter. and now I have the opportunity to teach to them. As a matter of fact, I'm lecturing there on February 24th of this year.

I'm looking forward to it because I'm just a, I'm just a patrolman. These guys are high-end executives. And Dr. Hickman, I met him when I was doing some training with the New Jersey, the New York Attorney General's office. And I handed him my book. He read my book, which was surprising. and he invited me out here. So it's been, it's, it's, it's come full circle. You know, before when the police administration might not have listened to you, give it time. Give it time and these things

have a way of working themselves out. You also have a podcast too, right? I do. I, I've been doing a suffering podcast. It's all about overcoming adversity. How you overcome adversity is not the same way I overcome adversity. So somebody might listen to me how I overcame the difficulties in my life and get something out of it, hey, let me try that and it might work. So if I were to have someone like you on, maybe something that you've overcame in your life might be somebody's going to grab a little nugget out of there. So then what happens is when they get through their suffering, and this is what we highlight, when they get through their suffering and they repurpose their suffering. So when I was, I retired from the police department when I was 39 years old on an accidental disability because

I was in a shooting. I was so embassed. embarrassed because I thought I was the weakest human being alive. I couldn't even take, I couldn't take this stuff like I completely crumbled. So thinking that you're weak, you just at 39 years old, you don't tell anybody you're a retired police officer because what's the follow-up question? Follow-up question is, wow, you retired early. You must got on real young. Yeah, I must have got on when I was 12. No, I was in a shooting and it really messed me up. That's not what you want to tell everybody. So I would tell everybody I was a landscaper. I grew my beard out, grew my hair longer.

I didn't want to tell anybody what I did. I was embarrassed. But now, if you let your suffering out and you tell me how you got through it, well, guess what happens? Now, of a sudden, you lead with it. So I'm 51 years old, so it's a little different. I'm of the retirement age. But I'll say, yeah, I retired early because I was in a shooting with no fear. But that comes over time.

My shooting was 14 years, 13 years ago. And I think that's relatable to a little bit of a shooting. lot of guys that are just getting out of prison that, I mean, for three years, I didn't own my situation and didn't talk to anyone about prison when I got out and now look here, where we are now, this all came from talking about prison. It's amazing how when you start opening up your vulnerabilities, how the world just seems to expand in front of you. Because, you know, a great man told me this. His name's Adam Burt. He's my pastor at Every Nation's New Jersey Church. Retired professional hockey player, tough

guy, gym guy. He was in an auditorium with Rick Warren. If you don't know who Rick Warren is, Rick Warren is like the all-star of pastors. He wrote a purpose-driven life. Okay. And Rick Warren starts talking about, hey, my book sold 50 million copies. My church has 30,000 members. And he's going on all these accolades that he has. And then he says, do you feel that? There's no, you feel how far away we are right now? Now, what if I told you that my son took his own life? And as soon as he said that, the auditorium went silent. And he goes, now you feel that? You feel that connection? So the bottom line to that is, is you can impress people with your success, you know, and men are real good at this. They'll one-up each other constantly. And they'll say, hey, listen, I did this. I go into the gym, you know,

hey, I bench 300. Well, I bench 315. Well, I bench 3-50. And it's just a constant game of one-ups. because nobody, nobody gives a shit. But when you tell somebody your vulnerabilities and you're willing to open that stuff up, especially somebody who's a man, and that's a hard thing to do as a man, that's where real connection is. So you impress people with your success, but you connect to them through your vulnerabilities. Where do you grow up, Kevin? So I grew up in the Atlantic City area in South Jersey.

I grew up in the late 70s, early 80s, mob rule, went to a Catholic high school. went to school with all the mobsters kids. We knew them as fathers. Like, we knew they were serious. Like, kids, so kids had this innate ability to figure out what is, who's important. You know, they, they don't, might not know why they're important or strong people, but they knew. And we knew these people were, were pretty important. All the, Nicky Scarfo Sr.

just ruled Atlantic City. He was, by the time I was a freshman, he was. under indictment with Phil Leonetti. Phil's son, who Phil was the underboss. Phil's son, Phil Jr. And I went to school together. We were friends.

And then Phil turned state's evidence against Nikki. Next thing you know, I don't see my friend anymore. He just disappears. Like one day he's there and one day he's gone. But one of my earliest memories is, in high school anyway, is I'm on the second floor.

I guess we were in home room or something like that. And some kind of beef was going on. and Joey Merlino and a couple guys show up. Joey's sister, Joey went there, Joey's sister went there. And their father was Chuckie Merlino, who was the underboss until he tried to bribe a Margate Cup. So he, I see him in a parking lot, and he's approaching somebody. Somebody did something to one of his friends,

and the priests are out there, and everybody's out there. And I'm like, huh, it was like the first time it really dawned on me. You're like, yeah, these guys are dangerous. But see, mob guys, I had no fear of mob guys. I still, to this day, I got a lot of friends who were retired mobsters. I got no fear of them because you can see him coming a mile away. I also have no fear of them because, you know, the person I went home to at night was a freaking nightmare. I mean, just the household that I lived in and my family in general, like my, even my extended family, they were just, just wasn't, it was a very toxic place.

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So it was just me and my brother. We grew up poor, like real poor. That's why I know how to do everything. Like, I know how to fix everything, because if you don't fix it yourself, it's not getting fixed. So I just sort of figured everything out. Yeah, they, it's one of those portions of my life that I, don't really talk about all that much because it growing up all I wanted to do is get out and when

you're a kid and you don't know what's going on or what's normal uh you just know that this is not where I want to end up it kind of breaks your personality down um whether you know my father came in and you know there's a lot of physical violence there's a lot of um there was there was sexual violence there was emotional violence. And by far, the sexual and the emotional violence was 10 times worse than the physical violence. I could take a punch. You know, but when you're told from an early age that you're the laziest white man alive,

and you don't know what the hell that means, I grew up in a very racist household. Okay. When you don't know what that means, you're like, all you hear is lazy. That's all you hear. You totally cut out the white man part of it. So it sort of breaks down your personality. and you're kind of left with no identity and you try to reinvent your identity.

You have no good foundation in order to build anything on. So that's what I did, right? I tried to, whatever would stop the abuse at home. That's all I wanted to do is just let me stop the abuse at home. Let me, you know, you start doing trial and error. Okay, well, maybe if I'm good, maybe I'm getting the shit kicked out of me because I'm not doing good academically.

So you try that for a while, and guess what happens? Do you think the abuse stops? Not even close. So, well, screw that. Well, maybe if I'm good at athletics. Maybe if I, so you buckle down, you work really hard, you do good at athletics. Do you think it stops? Of course not.

Then you start to become exactly what you're told, that you're worthless, that you're lazy. Okay. Well, if I'm going to do that, it drove me to do a couple bad behaviors early on, say between 10 and 13. I was an incredible bully. I took my anger out on so many different people that didn't deserve it. They didn't do anything. And I also became a thief.

I was a good thief. I stole everything that wasn't nailed down. And stuff that I didn't even need. Like, I have this, when I was 12 years old, I had a collection of condoms that, rivaled most single 20-year-old men. Like, what the hell is I doing with them? You can only put so many on to see if they fit. And of course, I'm 12 years old.

They don't fit. They might not even fit now. But I had lambskin, rib for her pleasure, spermacidal. And my friends would come out. I'm like, what do you want? What do you want? So it was stupid.

But the bully part, you know, I felt less than. And if kids ever got this, if kids ever got this one concept in school, somebody who's bullying them, If they ever realized that a bully is so jacked up at home, it would take away all their power and you would see that power shift. There was one kid in particular,

and I can say his name because it's actually a cool, full story, a full circle moment. His name was Jesus Aponte, Puerto Rican kid. I never met anybody named Jesus, right? He was different. He was poorer than me. I was poor, but he was really poor. His clothes didn't fit.

He was a little bit overweight. wait. So he was the target of my anger. We used to do something called, everybody called him Jay. We used to do something called the Jay game where it was one, I'm not painting myself as a very nice person, but if you punched him, it was a point. If you kicked him, it was two points. If you had knocked him down, it was three points. And this poor kid had to endure this stuff.

And Jay was a nice guy. Like, I'm like, why? So he left school, he left to go to another school after eighth grade. And I always felt bad about it. And it kind of changed a lot of the trajectory of how I treated people. And the post script to that is when in the advent of social media in the early 2000s, I'm like, I want to find this guy. I want to try to make amends.

I want to try to do something. But do you have any idea how many Jesus Apontes there are in a world? Oh my God. There's like four million. But I was committed to doing it. So I think it was on Facebook. I would look it up. I would do five a day and off.

And one time I get a hit. This just happened. It was probably 44, 45 years old. And I get a hit. So I was like, I get on the phone with them. And I said, look, Jay, I was really horrible to you when I was a kid. And I just want to apologize. I don't want to let you know that there was reasons for it and had nothing to do with you.

because my home life was really bad. And this son of a bitch, man, this son of a bitch, he goes, hey, Kev, I forgive you, man, we're just kids. I'm like, you motherfucker. Can't you just call me an asshole? Like, that would feel better. I wasn't looking for that forgiveness. I wasn't ready for that forgiveness.

Turns out Jay is a police officer. And Jay and I are really good friends to this day. And I love that story because it shows number one what a big asshole I was. Okay, I wasted a 30-year friendship with this guy. But it's never too late to make amends for something that you did wrong. And second, it's that I caused this guy so much pain. For what? Because I was getting the shit knocked out of me at home because I was getting sexually assaulted.

No. It's just, it's a sad life. And, you know, now I coach you sports. Right? So I watch kids' behavior. And I watch a kid that might not be acting appropriately. And I'll always, you know, when I see it, I'll always grab it. And I'll always say, okay, what's going on? What's going on in their world? Maybe their parents are getting a divorce or maybe something's going on at home. So it's given me some power in order to identify things in other kids. And it's made me a pretty valuable coach. Do you think you ever felt love or received love as a kid? Conditional.

Love should not be conditional, right? And the love in my house was conditional. If I didn't perform it, if I struck out in Little League, I'd get yelled at. I'd get hit. If I got in trouble in school, I would get hit. All that stuff was taken away. There were times when, you know, that's a tough question because I don't think anybody's ever asked me that. I can't remember one time my father ever once said he was proud of me or anything like that.

And I'm not trying to do a what was me type of thing. But what it taught me is it taught me how to read a room. You know, I read, I can read energy. And it starts from my stomach. I'm not a mystic or anything like that. But I know when somebody is leery of me, I know when somebody's angry, I know when somebody's off. I can read that room and I can feel that energy coming in. So there was some value to it, although you can't see it at the time.

And, you know, listen, love looks different when you're getting abused. I'll give you an example. If I saw you every single day of my life, since we were five years old, you and I were friends. And every single day, I walked up to you and I punched you in the arm. Say, hey, Ian, how you don't? Boom. And then one day, I don't do it. Even though that might cause pain and, you know, listen, you get hit on the same spot every single day it starts to hurt.

Let's say one day I don't do it. Well, that's how you know our relationship. So you're going to think, hey, Kiv, what's wrong? What, you don't like me no more? What's going on? So love looks different when it comes to that stuff. When I left my house at 17 years old, I had to relearn what love is. I still don't know what love is.

You know, my wife will tell you that all the day long, but I still don't know what love is. I don't know what unconditional love is. Everything in my life has been conditional. It also taught me growing up in that household, taught me not to trust anybody. I have huge trust issues. I tried to open up

and it somehow seems to bite me in the ass a lot. You know, you trust people, you expect them to have the same work ethic as you, and when they don't, you become disappointed, but that all stems from childhood. So that's what I learned growing up. I didn't know. I still don't know.

I'm learning, but it's, you know, it's taken a long time. Did you put blame on your mom? I do not talk to my mother. I do not talk to my brother. I haven't talked to them in, I haven't talked to my mother in, I don't know, four or five years. I haven't talked to my brother in like 12 years, 13 years maybe. Yeah.

because you're looking for a savior. You know, and my mother did maybe the worst job ever of protecting me. Because, you know, she knew. She knew the stuff that was going on. She, how could you not know? You know, you have all these flashbacks. And with my childhood trauma,

I know it didn't start hitting me until I was about 42 or 43 years old. would have these flashes, these memories. And at first, you dismiss these memories because you think, God, it can't be real. That's just too awful. There's just no way that that's real. And then when you start remembering very specific details, you're like, hmm, and you just sort of keep it inside, and you don't tell nobody, and you get angry, you're having nightmares. And I had just gone through all that stuff after my shooting, going through the nightmares and all that stuff, which I knew was real. But through therapy and EMDR and all these great things.

that I was doing, it just sort of bubbled up. And, you know, the thing about, because when I left home, I abandoned all that stuff. I buried it so deep. All right, Kevin, we're never talking about this shit again. You're going to present as normal. Everything is going to be good. The problem is, is that only works until it doesn't work. And when it doesn't work and it starts coming out, now, all of a sudden, you have some serious problems. And I was developing some serious problems. You know, it's a, it's a, but it made me a great cop because, again, it taught me how to read a room. It taught me not to trust anybody. It taught me hypervigilance.

All these things that make a great cop. It makes a really shitty husband and sometimes a really bad father. But nevertheless, it, you know, it served me. Did you ever find out why your dad became the person he became? You know, I have been asked that before. okay it doesn't matter okay being being a child of abuse i can tell you with full honesty i have never done anything to my kids i have never even raised a hand to my kids i can give my kids a look and say hey calm the fuck down but i've never once laid a hand on my kids and i can't do it anymore my 16 year

old patrick is bigger than me he's he's like two inches taller than me and and he's he's he's he's a giant. But, you know, I've never done that because guess what? It didn't work for me. So it's a common misconception that children of abuse abuse. It's usually something people use when they get locked up that in order to lighten their sentences. It's not reality. It's, I forget the statistics, but I think it's like somewhere around 8% of people who are abused end up abusing. So that's so low. And that's another portion. Coaching kids sports. If you find out you're a child of abuse, your parents, that's the first thing they're going to think about. They're going to think about, hey, well, he's abused. He's going to abuse my kids. Well, no,

it's not exactly true. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why it happened. It doesn't matter how it happened. I look back and I have to say my father was lazy. He wasn't ready to do the work. you know so i'm i'm left trying to pick up the pieces and i'm fine with that you know i've come to peace with it i've come to peace with everything that's happened to me i used to think i was just bad at eating healthy but the truth is i don't have three extra hours every night to shop cook and clean that's where factor changed everything for me they don't ask you to meal prep or follow recipes they just take the entire problem off your plate two minutes real food done there was a stretch where my schedule was nonstop, and I knew cooking healthy meals consistently just wasn't happening.

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with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with factor. What do you think that moment was in your childhood that caused you to not go down the path that would lead to say prison? You know, given someone in your situation at the time, so many guests on our show with similar childhoods, they go down that path and they end up in prison. You know, I was telling you before that I stole everything, right? So I remember when I was 17 years old. And I was, some of my friends, the friends I hung around with, they were bad kids and they were starting to get locked up.

They were starting to get into real trouble. There was one incident where we broke into a pre-construction house, you know, just the walls were up. We go in there and there's a hot tub in there. I'm 17 years old. We break this hot tub. It was already plumbed. We break the plumbing on it.

We, like, three people moving a hot tub. tub out of walls and stuff. It was ridiculous. Put it in the back of my truck. I'm going down in the street and in the, there's a Bay Area with some reeds. We dump it off in there. We're going to come get it in the morning. I go back in the morning and somebody had stolen my hot tub. I was really pissed. But I think one of my friends, one of my friends got popped for auto theft. And I'm like, if I stay here, I'm going to jail. Because I would do all the risky behavior. You know, I spent the better portion of my life, both adolescent and a job. adult passively trying to kill myself. I was that kid who, you know the Garden State Parkway,

really big highway. Well, I was the kid riding a motorcycle doing a wheelie doing 70 miles an hour. I didn't care. You know, if I were to die become road pizza or something like that, all right, really, nobody's going to really miss me. It's not that big of a deal. I would, anything risky, I've jumped out of seven or eight airplanes. Anything risky, anything that had major heavy-duty consequences? Sure, no problem. I was that guy, he's like, hey, what do you think about doing this? All right, let's do it. Let's do it. When I was early 20s, I would get so drunk I'd wake up in different countries and not care. I've done it several times where I was making decent money and I'd just get on a plane and go somewhere. It didn't matter. So I wasn't afraid of anything. And,

but I watched my friends starting to get in some real trouble and I was like, all right, I was intelligent enough to go to college. I was okay enough in sports, even though I was lazy and I was a scam artist. I was okay. I could go play football in college. But I was a scam artist. I always knew how to work the system.

You know, I had a biology teacher, Sister Mary Dominic. She's since passed so I can say her name. I hated biology, but I love Notre Dame football, and so did she. So when I went home, Instead of doing my biology work, I watch Notre Dame football. And I'd come in on Monday morning, hey, sister, you watch that Notre Dame game.

It was great pass, you know, great run, whatever it is. I didn't do shit in that class. And I still ended up getting a night. So I always knew how to work the system. But I also knew that if I were to stay where I was, I would have gone to jail. Turns out I went right back into my bad behavior in college. But, you know, because you try to reinvent yourself. I go to college, I reinvent myself.

I was like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to be the academic guy. I'm two and a half hours away. I, nobody knows me here. Nobody has, nobody knows anything about my past. I can reinvent myself and it's exactly what I did. I dove into athletics. I got myself into shape because I graduated high school. I was a fat bastard.

That's 325 pounds. I was just disgusting. But when I went to college, all I wanted to do was play football and just have this new life. and that's exactly what I did. But there's some downsides to that. When you completely change your life, I developed a lot of obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

To this day, I still have obsessive-compulsive behaviors. When I put things away, everything, the label has to be out. I'm not like Howard Hughes where I wash my hands 50 times. But it's a hard person to live with. Everything has to be straightened up. My dorm room, I was like the anti-freshman.

My dorm room, you could see, It was like the Mason Dixon line between my roommate and me, um, where you could just see that delineated line. My bed was made every day. My towels were folded perfectly. My underwear was folded. And it takes up a lot of your time and a lot of your energy in order to keep that up.

So that's what I did. You know, and I played football and it was great and everything. And I thought, hey, listen, I got it. I got this. I got this stuff beat, you know. And then I ripped, I was having a lot of injuries. I ripped my groin muscle. And if you ever want to humble yourself,

have five Jamaican nurses working on your nethers where they have to shave you and you can't understand what they're saying. Meanwhile, I'm laying on this table going, listen, it's cold in here, I'm really sorry, it's usually bigger. So it's a real humbling experience in order to have that happen,

but I couldn't play football anymore. And I got to tell you, it was a relief because by that time, Football will become a job. I've been playing seven years old. I don't want to do it anymore. I just was done. And I look back on that and it was like, man, you're a big asshole because that was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.

I loved playing football. I love watching my kids play football, you know, what I wouldn't do to be able to step back on the field one more time. But it took 20 years to get to that point. So when I stopped playing football, I fell right back into my old behavior. I would steal, I'd break into the buildings. I'd steal things. I'd steal things from, from other kids in the dorms. I started getting in a little bit of trouble.

I was drinking more. There was, we went to a party. I don't think I've ever told this story. We went to a party and, you know, college kids, they just want girls. So we were sold this bill of goods. It's an off-campus party at a house. There's plenty of girls there. Well, there's like three girls.

there and I don't think any of them weighed less than me. They were big girls. Um, so I just, okay, well, I'm going to start drinking. And I drank. And I, and before you know it, I started talking to one of the girls because I can't see right. And my, my friends are trying to pull me away from her. And we, they pull me out of the party and we're driving home and my friend had a, it was a chivet. It was like the, the crappiest of economy car. It's January and I'm hot and I can't roll down the window because we had crank windows and it was broken. I punched a window out. Meanwhile, everybody in the car is freezing now and I'm, my head's out the window like Ace Ventura because I just don't care.

So we get back to my college and I walk up a snowbank and over top of a car and security sees me. I go running. And as I'm running into my dorm, I know he's behind me. I'm taking off clothes. By the time I get in my dorm, I'm naked. And my clothes, I throw my clothes in a corner. All of a sudden, I hear to knock on the door, come to the door completely naked. It's everything hanging out.

And he's like, did you see anybody run in here? I'm like, I've been in here sleeping all night. I just, I'm sleeping it off. And that was it, you know, and I knew how to work the system. But what got me kicked off campus, I eventually did get kicked off campus. Did you ever see on the side of the road these big spools? of these big wooden spools where they run cables. Yeah.

Okay. I went to college on top of a mountain. And they're running cables all throughout the campus. And I thought, hey, let me see if I can roll one of these down the hill. Now, meanwhile, this is in Florham Park, New Jersey. The Jets facility is directly across the street, and there's a major highway. So there's a lot of trees, but there's a major highway. So I pick this thing up and I roll it.

Now, I don't know whether I'm just unlucky or just unlucky or just, you know, stupid, maybe a little of both. So I roll this thing and it's picking up speed and I'm with two or three people. It's picking up speed. And as it starts to go down the hill, it's getting faster and faster. And then I see it. At a corner of my eye, I see a security Jeep just going along this little back road. And I'm like, oh, no, I know how this is going to end. I already know how it's going to end. Sure enough, that big, heavy spool, boom, hits the security Jeep right in the side. I'm like, fuck. So I go off running and my friends who I were with that night obviously don't know that

Snitches get stitches because they got caught and they ratted me out. So I had to go in front of this, you know, this, this, this board. I'm like, all right, well, you're kicked off campus. Turns out that that was one of the best things for me. I got kicked off campus in an order for me, they didn't kick me out of college, just kicked me off campus. I got an apartment and I was able to at least finish my schooling. But yeah, I paid for that one.

I did a lot of community service on that one. What were you in school for? So I originally went to school for theological studies. I was very tied into my faith. And then I took a class, and I was a literature student as well. So I was doing a double major. I had a class by a guy named Dr. John Becker, who was an ex-Jesuit priest. He married a nun, so he left the old.

order and we're reading the Bible as literature. And we're reading Samuel's one and two. And in there, there's a story, and I'm a big king, I was a big fan of King David. I love King David for several different reasons, basically because he's a normal guy who did some really great things. But he also screwed up a lot. So in there, Saul is trying to get David killed. He realizes David is ascending to the throne and he wants to get him killed. So he sends him out and he asks David to go out and kill 100 Philistines personally. And the reason how he's going to produce proof is to bring back their foreskins. So foreskin is a little turtleneck on your penis when you're born. And I'm looking, I'm reading this. I'm like, well, David's just not going to hack all four skins. He's

going to chop all the wieners off. Like, he's going to chop everything. I'm like, God, this is a violent book. And in that moment, my fate disappeared. I was like, I can't get behind a religion like this that's so violent. So I completely lost my faith. I finished my undergrad and graduate degrees for English. Because I loved English. I love being able to tell stories that helped me escape from the way I grew up. You know, I could be my own director in my head and, you know, make things up.

It was a wonderful escape. So I always fell into books and I did a concentration in Shakespeare. which always surprises people. And I love William Shakespeare, but I got to try to understand, people got to understand that, you know, if you read a book like Coriolanus, Coriolanus was a Roman general.

And he's like the biggest badass you ever seen in your life. He went into the city, right? They're going to attack the city. And the minute he walks in the door because he led from the front, they closed the doors behind him, and he just wrecks shop in the entire city

and kills everybody. That's a bad thing. Bad ass. He don't need anybody else. And I'm like, yeah, that's the guy. That's the one I want to be. And, you know, I taught high school for a year once I graduated and I realized I love working with kids. I fucking hate other teachers. The way they spoke about kids. So let me put it to you this way. When I wanted, the reason I wanted to be a teacher is maybe I could be that person that I needed the most when I was a kid. you know how come a teacher didn't identify the my behavioral problems as something going on at home they never once said anything i did more time in detention than anything else so maybe i could be that person and i also thought that maybe um maybe i could impart some sort of experience on them

knowing that they can't get away with anything because i've already done all this stuff that they're going to do. And so I was getting very disheartened by the way the other teachers were talking about the kids. I didn't like it. They were very vicious. And they tell you when you're going through all your certifications, like stay out of the teacher's lounge. I didn't. And they were just, it was brutal. I'm like, that's awful. But I learned some really good lessons when I was a teacher. I taught freshman and senior English. First lesson I taught is make sure when you give directions, you give those directions full force and you make sure that you,

because anything that can get messed up will get messed up. I was teaching the marriage of heaven and hell by William Blake. And I'm a young, idealistic teacher and I'm thinking, they're gonna get it. They're gonna get it the same way I do. Well, no.

So in there, there's something called the Proverbs of Hell. And this is a text that was written 400 years ago. And it's like the cutworm forgives the plow, the busy bee has no time for sorrow, all these nice little pieces of universe, advice that are that were true 400 years ago and they're true today. So being this young

idealistic teacher, I put this out to a bunch of 17 year olds and I said, what piece of advice would you give to somebody 400 years in a future that you think would still be applicable? Most of them did a good job. I didn't realize what a daunting task it was, but I had two kids. One kid said, and they're not wrong. He said if you shake more than twice, you're playing with yourself, and if you play with it, you'll go blind. There were the two answers from these kids. Now, they weren't wrong, but I didn't give specific instructions. So while I had to have them redo it, yes, technically what they did was right.

I'm 22 years old. I thought it was funnier than them. So I left teaching. I woke up one day, I looked in a mirror, and I said, I can't do this for 35 years. So all that schooling, threw it away, and I restarted. So if you look at the pattern, I reinvented myself in college to be this athletic academic guy. Once the athletics ended, I dedicated myself to being a teacher. That's who I am.

Well, guess what? That ended again as well. So no foundation. It doesn't matter what you build. It's going to come crumbling. Because each time I thought I found it. And then I just jumped around from job to job. until 2001 when I'm in the gym one day,

guy comes up to me and he goes, you ever thought about being a police officer? I said, well, my brother had been taking tests after test, and he couldn't get on. New Jersey is very competitive when it comes to police officers because the salaries are so good. I said, no, I think I took one test, or I applied to take the New Jersey State Police test in 99,

and they were having some diversity issues. Now, mind you, I've done a lot of bad stuff, but I've never been caught for anything. I don't even have a parking ticket. So they came back with a letter that's, they didn't even let me take the test. Now, a guy with two master's degrees, who has nothing on his record, they didn't even let me take the test. I'm like, eh, okay, but it wasn't a big deal. I didn't care. So this guy approaches me and said, you know, why don't you come in and take tests?

I think you'd be a good fit. Take the test, I get hired. It was a simple IQ test. It was easy. And on June 19th, 2001, I got... USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%.

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Before starting, Ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebglis.com or call 1-800-Lilly RX or 1-800-545-9. Born in the Roseland Police Department in New Jersey. How old are you in 2001? to 26, yeah, 26. And where were you at in your personal life? You had left your parents. Were you married at all yet?

No, I wasn't married. I was, I was, I left home at 17. I left home to go to college, I never went back, all right? But because I didn't really remember anything, I would say occasionally, I would talk to them occasionally. I was just this, listen, I was living a life of a 20-something-year-old. Because prior to that, the job I was making, I was making, I was making, I was making, 80 or 90,000 dollars a year. As a single man, I could do anything I wanted to do.

You know, I had no money. I had zero money in the bank. I spent everything. But it's very reckless life. Were you considered young at 26 to be a police officer? Or were there people younger at the time? I think that's about the median age. Between, say, 25 and 29 is usually about the age.

You know, now it's a little different. Well, no, when I got hired, you had to do 25 years minimum in order to get your pension. Now it's up to 30 because they changed the rules. They changed the tier system and the pensions. But that's about the age. You know, very rarely do you hear somebody getting on when they're 19, maybe sometimes in the inner cities because they're hurting for people. But very rarely do people get on before 25 because there's a mental maturity level. You know, and I was just about the median age of,

being a police officer. And I had no idea what being a police officer was. You know, the way it was sold to me, it's like, hey, you're going to get a pension, your benefits are going to be paid for. You're going to make decent money. You're not going to be rich, but you're not going to be poor either. You're going to be able to support a family. And I always wanted to have a family. So that's, I'm like, all right, cool. I think my first question I asked him, is like, you ever have anybody dying a line of duty? and that question, damn near got me excluded from the hiring process. Because it's an offensive question. I didn't know this.

Like, I didn't even know how to use courtesy cards, like the PBA cards. I had no idea. I asked a lieutenant. I'm like, what do you do when you get one of these cards? So that's how ignorant I was. And then there was a lot of resentment from my brother because he had been trying to get on and I take a test and I get on. But I will tell you this, when I went into the police,

Police Academy August 1st, 2001, man, I fit like a round peg and a round hole. The discipline was exactly what I needed. The structure was exactly what I needed. I absolutely loved it. I loved the regiment. I love what I was learning. I became that person. I just dove right into it. I became the police officer that everybody wants to see. I made sure that, that I knew the academia. I made sure I was physically fit enough. I had some really, really good instructors that sort of guided me along the way

until one day, on Tuesday morning, you know, and we're sitting in class. We just finished PT. It's about 9 o'clock-ish, 8.50 something. And I'm going to paint a picture of the captain. So he's still in his PT gear, white hair, big white, furry, bushy mustache, grape smuggler shorts.

I mean, I can see his whole shit. Knee socks with the stripes. He looked like he was a cast member for Hill Street Blues. He comes in and he says, a plane just hit the World Trade Center. And I go around the country and I tell this particular story.

And I don't realize how ignorant, I don't say ignorant in a bad way, how ignorant the, the rest of the country is when it comes to, like, especially New York City, planes hit those buildings all the time. So when he came in there instead of plane hit the World Trade Center, it was, it was bad, but it wasn't that bad. Like, no, there was no cause of alarm.

But right next to me, there was a transit cop, and I saw this look of concern on her face. And I realized later her father worked in the World Trade Center, worked for Canter Fitzgerald. So we go back to getting ready for the daily instruction, and then he comes in again and says, 20 minutes later, second plane just hit the World Trade Center. Now all of a sudden things get serious.

You see the atmosphere in the room completely change. And now I'm this guy who just took a job. You know, this nice little safe suburban town, this job that I think, you know, I'm just going to do my 25 and just cruise. Now all of a sudden you see everything change. And I'm like, what the hell just happened? So our departments recall us.

and on my way back to my department, I drove right past there was a place called Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange. And you can see the New York City skyline. I look over there and you can see the towers burning. And I'm like, oh my God. I get back and just to speak to the chaos, I don't even know how old you are, Ian. I'm 30 now.

You're 30, so do you remember any of it? The big game is almost here. And there's no better way to cash in during America's biggest sporting event. then prize picks, where it always feels good to be right. And since the big game is right around the corner, that also means it's your last chance to get into the football action before next season. So close the season outright with prize picks by getting $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5.

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And my dad was in the city that day, too. He tells us stories about, like, the traffic. And he used to be a teacher before he got into catering and just the traffic and that whole disaster. But I barely have any memories just from what I hear through law enforcement on the show. You're very, very, very fortunate because nobody knew what was going on. You know, we heard my police academy was in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. We heard the jets scrambling over us. You could hear them.

You're like, holy shit, we're at war. This is nothing like this has happened since Pearl Harbor, you know, in 1941, December 7th. So nobody knows what to do. This is foreign to everybody. And let me give you an idea of how chaotic everything was. I am a month into the police academy. I get recalled to my department. My lieutenant takes me up to the armory.

I haven't qualified with a weapon. He hands me my gun. It was a Smith & Wess and SW 40. It was a Glock knockoff. Hands me my weapon. hands me my rounds, hands me my magazine, and he says, don't shoot anybody, kid, hands me my gun. In my holster, it goes. Locked and loaded, one in the right, one in the pipe.

And I'm like, damn, okay, you know, game on. But what happened to this job that I took? This job, this little safe job where I was going to get a pension and medical benefits and, you know, and make decent money. No, it all changed. And I had to go out and stand post because there's, in Roseland, there's a lot of, there was a lot of high value targets because we didn't know what was coming next. They were tracking the plane over Pennsylvania. I think the plane from the Pentagon had already hit.

So I went out there and stood post and I had people, it was the day I realized what police work was. I had people coming up and asking me, like, what's going on? What's happening? And you sort of just got to be, you got to fake it until you make it because police work in general is people don't call you because their kids graduate in college. People don't call you because their son got married

or got good grades or, you know, they just bought a house. They call you on their worst days. They come to you because they don't know what else to do. And that's what I saw them. But what they didn't realize is we didn't know anything. We had no idea what was going on. As a matter of fact, they probably knew more about what was going on than we did because they're watching TV.

We didn't have that benefit. So I'm standing there and I'm like, no, we haven't heard anything. you know, because they had friends in the towers or whatever it was. And, you know, the whole day was just chaos. And I remember a couple days after that, I spoke to my uncle, my uncle Duke. His name's George, but everybody called him Duke. He joined the army right after Pearl Harbor. And then he was captured and he was prisoner of war for 27 months in Germany.

And I remember asking him, I said, Uncle Duke, I don't know where we go here. And he was a tough bad. Like he reenlisted after that for Korea. I was like, I don't know where we go from here. And he goes, you can't be afraid. Because if you're afraid, they win. And I'll never forget that lesson. That's exactly, the terrorists succeeded on a lot of things,

but they failed in that. But boy, I got to tell you, it was a great day to be a cop on September 12th, 2001. I don't think any of us could pay for a cup of coffee, even if we wanted to. Everybody loved us. Everybody was happy to see us around. Things are a little different now, but nevertheless, that was a great day to be a cop.

Do you think that gave you inspiration for the rest of your career? 100%. Because I realized, you know, some people got to wait three, four, five years before they really figure out what the job is. I knew what the job was. The job was being the person, you're almost like a superhero because when all hell's breaking loose and the world's going to shit, well, you call the cops. You call the cops, they'll figure it out.

They got the answers. We don't, but we have an authority to say and take command of the scene and say, hey, listen, I might not know what's going on, but I'm going to figure it out. Okay, I'll call resources. I'll call somebody to figure it out. And that's what police work is. You know, when people don't know what to do. And, you know, working where I worked, I worked about 10 minutes away from Newark, New Jersey. Not the nicest area in the world.

high crime, but there's nothing left to steal in Newark. So people come to Roseland, which was an affluent, well-to-do town. So there's a lot of high-octane stuff. There's chases, there's break-ins. There's a lot of cool stuff to do, which is great, but I couldn't, I can't remember any of it. Outside of my first police chase, I can't remember any of it. What I remember is those times when I showed up when someone needed me. At times when I'm doing CPR on the ground with somebody who died and their wife is there inconsolable and you're trying to give them a little bit peace.

Even though you know that guy's dead, he's stiff as a board, but you go to work on him because if you go to work on him, she still has hope. And that's what I loved about that job. It was such a great job for that reason and that reason alone. And then there's the other things where it was fun. I laughed more as a cop than I can tell you. Just stuff that... One of my favorite things that ever happened was, is like 6.30 in the morning.

I'm working at midnight, and we get a call for a baby squirrel in a woman's house. And we go up there, and the one thing about me is, I love animals. I don't like bats. Bats freak me out. They make my skin crawl. I don't know why.

they just do. And me and the bats, we've always had a good relationship. We're like, hey, you stay on your side, I'll stay on my side, and we just won't tangle. So we go up to this, this bedroom, and have you ever seen a flying squirrel? No, but I've heard about them. I've never seen a flying squirrel. It looks like a chipmunk and a squirrel and a bat had a menageratua, and that's what was produced. So I see this little thing, and it looks like a baby chipmunk with a long, bushy tail. And every time we go near it, the thing jumps and spreads its wings and all I could see was a bat. And you see two grown men at 6.30 in the morning in this bedroom like Clark Griswold when he puts a Christmas tree and they're like, get it off me, get it off me.

It's on my back. It's on my back. We're freaked out. So what we did is they had a central vac and we plugged the central vac in and had a long tube on it and I go up to this squirrel and every time I go up, you see it's starting to getting ready to jump and I clunk it over the head real quick. It's like pop it over the head and the thing takes two steps and falls. over. I suck it up on the end of the vacuum. I hold it out the window. I'm like, all right, turn it off.

Turn it off and the thing falls. We didn't kill it. We didn't kill the thing, but we laughed about that one forever. And that's the things. Like, you laugh and you, you develop this, this sense of gallows humor, you know, where you, you say certain things that just, if the public heard you, you they would think you really fucked up because you know I was a fatal motor vehicle accident investigator that was I love the math of it you know it was just it was like a puzzle and I remember I'm first on scene to elderly couple hits a tree and the guy is in a spot like this it was a it was a 91 accurate this is how well I remember so it was 91 accurate and they had those automatic seatbelts They did away with those automatic seat belts, basically because nobody put the lap belt on,

and that didn't do anything. He hits this giant oak tree, dead square in a license plate. He's in a spot this big, and his elderly wife, they're both 83 years old, in the seat next to him, and she's obviously dead. So I break the window, and one of the newer officer comes up, and he says, God, and he's looking at the scene, and he just, he's trying to process what's going on. And he's like, God, I wonder what the last thing was going through her mind was. I said, I know exactly what was going through her mind.

He's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, the dashboard went through her mind. Horrible thing to say. But what I'm trying to do when I do that is I'm trying to rationalize in my head seeing horror. You know, a police officer, a police officer will see upward, in a 20-year career, we'll see upwards between six and 800 critical incidents. Pretty much what an average citizen would consider the worst day. their life. An average citizen sees between two and four. And then the average citizen, when they

see that critical incident, will go home, they'll decompress, maybe take a couple days off, trying to process what happened. Police officer has to go back to work. So for somebody thinking about what a police officer goes through on a daily basis, take your worst day and multiply it by four, 100. Right? So we become really good at burying all this stuff. And just like I did, did when I was a kid, you know, just burying all this stuff. And then what happens is we're so good at doing it at work that we take it home. And you'll come home and your wife, girlfriend, whoever's at home will say, how's your day? It's fine.

It's good. Okay. Those three words, fine, good, okay. And like, they didn't sign up for this. So how can I let this on them? And so you start suppressing your emotions at home. Then all of a sudden you just become numb to everything. And that is the most completely unhealthy thing.

For instance, we had a two-year-old who got locked in a toy box, suffocated and died, playing hide-and-go-seek with his grandmother. I clear from that call, write my report, clear from that call, medics take them, and then I have to go to some break-in, car got broken into. I just saw a kid that was like turquoise. And now I have to go and do my job. And when I show up, I got this woman screaming and yelling at me. How come you took so long?

How come this is happening? And there was a part of me that wanted to say, why don't you go fuck yourself? You know, I just saw a blue baby. Did you think about that? I didn't. What I said was, sorry, ma'am, we're a little busy today. How could I help you? So you have to shut down that emotion and just move on.

You cannot show what's inside, even though your heart starts to hurt. I always say police work will steal your soul. It'll steal your soul if you allow it. And it happens, I mean, police officers have more of a chance of dying by suicide than accidents. Then, then... This episode is brought to you by Perfect Bistro Cat Food. Cats, this ad is for you. Has your human ever called you picky, persnickety, choosy?

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Shop now at palmolive.com. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a reason. Like this commercial break, did you need 15 seconds away from music? Or 15 seconds to eat or Reese's. Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a recesses. True doubts.

More of a chance to die by suicide. There's something wrong there. Do you remember that first time you experienced that steal-your-soul moment? I don't remember the first time I remember the time that it broke me. The first, it's a slow progression. It's not an event. You know, you just see so much, you become hardened. And you think you're a big tough guy.

You know, there's a lot of deer in town, and, you know, you shoot deer if they get by a car and stuff like that. I don't like killing animals, but you become very hard into it, and I'm really good at it. I figured I'm putting them out of my misery. Well, something happened in the department where they took her shotguns away. Somebody left a round in the chamber or something like that. So we used to have to shoot them with their handgun.

I'm like, well, the deer is going to suffer. So a friend of mine who was a hunter told me, he goes, no, you cut their throat. So I think I'm a big tough guy, right? And we used to take knives off of people all the time. And I had 50 knives sitting in my duty bag. And I remember going into this deer. And I put my, plunged a knife in and I pull it, you rip it out. So you cut their jugular.

I remember that to this day, I can still, it haunts my dreams, the noise that this deer made. And that was the last time I ever did that. But I still went back and, you know, I still went back and when I had to do it, I always had to do it. But the day my soul broke from police work was July 10, 2013. That was the day. You know, police work is, it's this ebb and flow. I actually wrote this in my book. It's the first line because it is the most accurate description of being a police officer.

And it was by Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond. And he says, it's moments. of sheer bored of mind numbing boredom interrupted by brief moments of horror and that's what it is so you'll be you know everything will be calm water will be still and the worst word for any cop to say is the cue word do you know what that is no quiet don't ever every cop that's listening to your show right now just went don't say it don't say it don't say it if you're a cop and you say the word it's quiet or say the phrase it's quiet, you should be fired, suspended, brought up on charges because inevitably what will happen afterwards will haunt your dreams. And that's kind of what happened. So it's a, it's a Wednesday night.

Now, there's a lot of budget cuts in New Jersey, so they're laying off dispatchers, and our officers were, we're covering a desk. We're working what's called a Pittman schedule, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and I was about ready to go in on the desk at 11 o'clock. I would cover it until three. And then I'd get off the desk. And I pull up next to my partner in what they call the car 69, window to window, drinking our coffee. And your job during the week in a small suburban town is pretty much just put the town to bed.

You know, we go and tug on business doors, making sure that they're locked up. And I go, God, it's so quiet. I just hope I get an alarm. Just something. Get me out of the car because it's exhausting. And then I pull off and I go into one of the plazas to start tugging on doors before I have to go in. And at 1045, crack of a radio, everything changed. We had an address in town that had ongoing domestic issues.

And the ex-boyfriend of the resident recently sent her a picture. of himself with a Glock 9 millimeter to his head. So there was something called tracks messages, and they would put out to all the departments. So we knew what was going on there. And the officer on the desk clicks over, start heading to this address, unknown emergency, 911, open line.

So in New Jersey, when the 911 calls came in, it doesn't matter if it was a mistyel, you had to go. But we knew this address. We knew something was happening. So I turn around real quick. And my partner who had looped around was pretty close behind me. We're doing about 70 miles an hour.

No lights, no sirens. And we're heading straight towards this address. And we're going car to car on our radios, trying to come up with some sort of plan. We pull in front of the residents, and I'm very complacent. I'm, what am I, 12 years into being a police officer, 13 years of being a police officer. I'm very complacent. I pull right up. I left my cell phone in my duty bag.

I left the car running. And we go up to the front door. A lieutenant had showed up, who I will affectionately refer to hereafter as male nipples because he's about as worthless as male nipples. Lieutenant shows up

and we can hear on the other side of the door arguing. So what do we do? We pound on the door and all we hear is don't come in here. Don't come in here. somebody's a male voice is yelling. So like, all right, well, we are going to come in there. It's a 911 call. I go to my car. I get my Halligan bar, which is like a fireman's crowbar.

And my partner goes around the back. It's a townhouse complex. So there's only three egresses. There's rear sliding door, front door, and garage door. The lieutenant is just a hair behind me. So on a signal, I take the end of the halogen bar and I start pounding the lock. I've had people ask me, well, why didn't you just kick the door in? I said, because it's not 1970 and it's not a closet door. It's a steel door. We only let rookies do that. I get the crow in there after like the third pop, and I hear, pop pop, pop pop, pop drop the drop.

Drop the crow bar. Get down behind cover. It was four gunshots. He's like, what the fuck? This is small suburban town. This is not Roseland. This is what's going on. What had happened is a guy named Anthony Vocatoro.

Drove up from Florida, the ex-boyfriend, and he was going to kill his ex-girlfriend. He was holding her at gunpoint. My partner who can see everything through the back sliding window. He's on the back deck. Sees him. First, he has the gun towards the door, so whoever comes in first is going to get it. That would have been me. And then he turns the gun to the woman.

He's going to shoot her, and that's when they exchange gunfire. Drop the crowbar, retreat from the front porch. And all I'm worried about is my partner. I'm yelling over to radio. Hey, shots fired. Shots fired. I can't get him just yet. Other officers were starting to show up from surrounding towns because we only had three people on the road at night.

And I start running around the back. I find out he's okay. I find out exactly what happened. A sergeant who was working a road job showed up. So he's got a bright yellow shirt on, not the best uniform to wear at that particular time. we make this plan. Male Nipples is standing right behind the privacy deck. It's like a nine-by-nine privacy deck with slat walls.

We come up with this plan that we're going to go up on the deck. We're going to breach the door, throw something through the glass door, and we're going to get to that person. So I go off to the right of this deck and I get behind patio furniture, which is not the best cover. It was the best that we had at that particular time. I can see everything. I can see the victim. She's sitting on sitting up against the wall with her knees up to her chest. And the other two officers are off to the left hand side. They're real

close to the stairs. And on a signal, my partner throws a metal chair through the window. And the only thing I couldn't see at the time, I couldn't see where Anthony vocatorial was. I was assuming wrongly that he went upstairs he didn't as soon as that chair went through the glass glass shatters everywhere i see this incredibly bright flash i feel um feels like somebody threw sand in my face i feel a puff of hot air i feel my left ear wiggle this guy just shot at me and uh the bullet just wiggled my left ear now what was happening was he was he was standing right behind the pillar on the side of the sliding glass door, and he reached his gun around.

Fire. So I hit the ground. I hit the ground hard, but, you know, you always wonder what kind of person you're going to be when this stuff happens. You know, there's a couple different people. There's those that run towards and then there's those that run away. Now that lieutenant I was telling you about, male nipples, he ran so far away because he had to call the chief during an act of gun battle.

The other two officers ran off the deck because they should have. They had to retreat. I couldn't. I had like an eight foot crawl in order to get to the stairs through an open window where he could have just blasted me. So now I know I'm stuck and I'm trapped. And he shot at police officers twice. There's no reason why he wouldn't do it. So I just get calm.

The other two officers, they sort of stay behind. I just, I'm calm. and all these things are going through my mind. Like the level of calm, to speak to the level of calm, we used to take our keys and put them on our antennas of our radios. My keys popped off. And I was like, oh, my keys. I picked my keys up, put them back on my antenna very calmly.

No panic. Nothing. Everything just slowed down. I can hear the officers off the deck yelling if I'm shot. And I said, I don't know if I'm shot. My shoulder hurts. and I can see a lot of blood because there's blood everywhere.

And then, you know, at home, at the time, I had a eight-month-old and I had a three-year-old. And I start thinking of them. I'm pretty much preparing myself to die. Because if he shot twice, he's going to shoot three times, and this is it. This is my final stand. You know, I'm thinking, hey, listen,

my eight-month-old is never going to know who I am. My three-year-old will have memories. My wife, she's going to have to raise these kids all alone. So I'm thinking of everybody. And I'm like, all right, well, make my peace with the Lord. No faith at this time, by the way. Make my peace with the Lord. I'm ready to go.

I get into a prone position. I get in a shooting position. Now, it turns out, just a spoiler alert in case anybody's getting anxious, I was not shot. I landed on all the glass that was on the deck, and it just tore the shit out of my arms. To this day, I still got some glass embedded in my left arm. And I get in a prone position.

I was like, all right, peek your head out. Because if I'm going, you're going to it. You're coming with me. I was ready to go. Now, everybody, so you're thinking maybe, why didn't you try to crawl out? Well, I know I got this swimmer's body, but I don't crawl very fast.

Thankfully, there are some officers who stuck around, and my partner actually grabbed the back of my duty rig. And I was trapped there for maybe a couple minutes, but it felt like 20 years. He grabs the back of my duty rig while the sergeant held cover and got me off the deck. And you do one of those things when you get off, you're like, you check yourself up.

Nope, I'm not shot. Okay, we're good. I can see my arms. I can see everything. I get off the deck. And the thing about trauma is when you think it's over, man, is it just beginning? Like that was the start of it.

But we held perimeter for like two hours waiting for him to, we were basically expecting him to do suicide by cop. But he ran upstairs. We actually see him run upstairs. We saw the victim sort of just like stand up quietly up against a wall and walk out the garage. So now he's upstairs. We have a barricaded suspect. She's free. He could stay up there for 10 years.

I don't give a shit. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do. We did a good job. Like, I remember turning to my partner and we're standing in the back. There was like a stockade fence. And I'm like, holy shit, bro. That was intense. And then the state police teams unit, which is their version of SWAT or cert, they come and they relieve us.

And I'm forced to go to the hospital. I don't want to go to the hospital, but I'm forced. Now, mind you, my car is still running in front. My cell phone's in there. All the wives talk. and I know they all talk, but I got to get in contact with my wife. It's about 12.30 at night.

And so I grabbed the EMT's cell phone. I thought I was doing the right thing. I remember my wife's number is the only number that I know off the top of my head. I dial her number. So imagine this. You're laying in bed. You have two small children

and you get a call from an unknown number, knowing your husband's working. I was afraid who's going to get a text from one of the other wives. Hey, hon. It's me. first thing she says is what's wrong. I said, I was in a shooting.

I'm not shot. I'm okay. I have to go to the hospital to remove some glass from my arm. Click. That's it. You can't call that number back. You know, it's not my number.

Oh, by the way, go back to sleep. Have sweet dreams. You know, I just ruined that woman's night for a job that I took. So I'm still on the fence whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing to do. So I go to the hospital.

They get the glass removed from my arm. I come back. They say, hey, listen, I was supposed to work Thursday night and I was off all weekend. I'm like, cool, this is awesome. I got four-day weekend. This is beautiful. We did a good job.

I was real proud of it. And I go home. You know, in that morning when I went home, I hug my wife a little bit tighter, hug my kids a little bit tighter. I was very overjoyed to be home, but my adrenaline was through the roof. I go walk my dog.

That doesn't work. I go out for a run. That doesn't work just to try to get some sleep. And police, it's like a sewing circle. Everybody wants to know what's going on. I'm going to give your audience the police lie detector test. Okay, you want to know what's going on. Just go up to a police and just say this.

What's going on? They can't help themselves. They got to tell you what's going on. They can't help themselves. They love to tell stories. So I was getting 50 calls. Like, hey, what's going on? Hey, what's going on?

And you try to answer as many as you can, but I think maybe I got a half hour sleep, if any, and I wake up and, you know, 50 missed phone calls. And so that night, you know, my wife's very happy. Then I'm home, obviously. And we decided to have like a date night, sort of like a celebration type of thing. So the devil comes over and watches my mother-in-law comes over and watches the kids. And we go out to dinner and we go out to the movies. We go watch a comedy.

It was called This is the End. It was back when Seth Rogen was funny. Yeah, I remember that movie. Yeah, it used to be funny, believe it or not. And in that movie, if you can remember it, in the beginning, there's like a big flash of light and a big boom and like the people who are going to heaven get sucked up, but the people who are in hell are left here. Well, something about the noise and the flash, my heart, like my chest starts pounding. I can't breathe. I start sweating profusely.

I just can't sit still. I feel all this stuff going on. My wife's right next to me, and I cannot tell her what's going on. And I figure this woman's been through enough. So what do we do? We lie. We don't want to seem unmasculine.

So I say, like, hey, I got to go to a bathroom. What's every guy lie to his wife about? It's like, I got to go. I got to take a shit. Like, that's pretty much what I told her. I go out into the hallway and I have a full blown out panic attack. Like I can't move.

I can't breathe. I can't. Nothing's working right. And I tried to go back in the theater, but I can hear the booms. I can hear the base. I try to go back in the theater and I try to pull the door. And every time I try to pull the door, it feels like it's made out of lead and I can't quite open it. So I just sit down.

Cops, we think our spouses or girlfriends, boyfriends, whatever it may be. We think they're stupid. They're not. She comes out at about 15 minutes later. And she says, what's the matter? I'm like, ah, you know, we just ate something bad. My stomach's hurt. She knew because she says to me, she goes,

this movie sucks, let's go. So we leave. Well, that night, I had about the worst nightmare I could possibly ever have. And subsequently, every single night after that, I just couldn't sleep. I would, if I did get a little bit of sleep, I'd thrash around. I would sweat so profusely at night that I would have to change my clothes or sometimes I woke up not knowing if I pissed myself. And there were stupid, like anxiety-filled dreams. They were like, you know, you pull your gun out and a bang flag comes out, like in the cartoons.

Or your magazine falls out and all your bullets get scattered everywhere and you're just trying to find all your bullets. That's what the, it was just these anxiety-inducing dreams. Sometimes they were really bad, like you might get shot or something like that. But they were bad. They were bad. So I'm not getting any sleep. So that weekend, we decide, you know what, let's just get out of town for a while. We take the kids.

We have them go down and see my parents at my brother's house. We take the kids down there. And my brother, who's a cop at this time, starts asking me about the shooting. And I don't want to talk about it. I really just, I'm not sleeping. I'm trying to process these bad dreams that I'm having. And I think the night before there was a thunder and lightning storm. I remember it's July.

And I just lost my shit during the thunder and lightning storm. Like I had to go hide in a closet because I cover my ears because I couldn't take the booms. So I'm not sleeping and I'm not talking. I'm introspective on the two hour drive down there. When I had enough, I tell my wife, I'm like, all right, I had enough. Let's go. We go back. We start getting the kids in the car, and I put my oldest son, Patrick, into his car seat. And he spills chocolate milk on his car seat. Whatever happened, my switch flipped. And I went from zero to 100 in a millisecond. You would have thought the way I was yelling at this three-year-old, you would have thought he burnt down my house. Now, what's any good mother do? She steps in front. And that's what my wife did. She stepped in front and said, hey, oh, you know, starts getting aggravated. I don't care who I'm yelling at.

So I turn my aggression on her. It's a two-hour drive on the Garden State Parkway up north to where I live currently. My wife was begging me during that ride to pull over on the Garden State Parkway, which in some places is a seven-lane highway, and let her and a three-year-old and an eight-month-old out of the car. I just was lost. I was absolutely lost. Not long after that, there's a picture of my wife and I where we're standing together and there's a look on my face

and it looks, says it all. I'm not there. Something's going on. Something's wrong. Something's broken. I knew after that trip, I knew something was wrong, and I reached out to one of those cop helplines

because I knew something was broken in me. Nightmares are still going on. thrashing. I think one night I tried to grab my wife's wrist and put handcuffs on her. So what I did was something very stupid is I remove myself from the bedroom. I don't want her going through this stuff. This is my cross to bear. I go back for a follow-up visit on my arms because my arms are still bandaged up. And I go into the doctor's office and she picks a couple pieces of glass out there. And I remember the doctor turning to me and saying, are you okay? It's like, yeah, it's just glass. It's no big deal. She goes,

to someone I'm talking about. Are you okay? And however she said that, whatever she said, it broke me. I broke down in complete tears. Like I just, I felt so weak for not being able. I wasn't even shot. I felt so weak. But this is that repression of all those horrible things I've seen throughout my career. And they're all just coming out now. My glass just spilled over. You know, I talk about a glass. And in that glass is the amount of shit that you're allowed to take in your life that you're built for. You don't know how big the glass is and you don't know how full it is. And one little innocuous event, next thing you know, my glass just completely spilled over.

The only thing that got me through a little bit was drinking. And I was a social drinker. You know, I'm 38 years old at the time. When I tied it on, I tied it on. But I'm drinking every day from the time I get up because the doctor had said, you can't go back to work yet. They put me in contact with a therapist. And sometimes they put you in contact with workers' comp therapists, which they're no,

they're absolutely no help. I had a doctor asked me, well, you're a cop. Didn't you expect to get shot at? Well, the real statistic is I think 0.5% of cops getting shootings, 0.1 shoot. So, no, I didn't expect that. I'm not, I didn't join the military. I joined police force to protect and serve, not to get shot at. So he's lucky he didn't get thrown out of a window.

And I'm spiraling. I'm going to these workers' comp therapists, which aren't working. I go back into the police department for what they call a critical incident stress management debriefing. They have it five days later. You're supposed to have it within 48 hours, but my department is a little lax with that stuff. They have it five days later. And I heard through the grapevine that we're getting the shotguns put back in the cars. I'm like, this is fantastic.

Some goods going to come out of this stuff. Then I heard they're only going in supervisor's cars. All right. And I lost my shit again. I start yelling at a lieutenant. I'm looking at it and get fired. Guys pick me up, take me downstairs, and take me outside. And that was the last time I was in police headquarters.

I never went back. My police career, this thing that I invested my life in, was pretty much over. And I'm going down this rabbit hole over and over again. Can't sleep. Having bad nightmares when I do sleep. horrible startle responses, lightning fireworks, whatever's going on, thunder and lightning storms. If I couldn't go anywhere either, and if I went anywhere, my back had to be up against a wall. I couldn't go in large crowds because it felt like my skin was crawling.

So what happened is I started becoming real paranoid. And I never carried my off-duty weapon. But I started carrying it then. It was an ankle holster. I started carrying it then. not to have any plan or anything, but I just didn't know. I don't even know what the hell I was thinking. My son, oh, there was an incident my wife recently talked about.

Remember, I'm OCD and I have the beginnings of what I now know is post-traumatic stress. I open up the pantry where cereal boxes are and something was out of place. I ripped it all out and threw it down the stairs. Serial, food, everywhere. Was it just like that? It was snap of a finger. My son, my son had every toy that I had when I was a kid, nerf guns and stuff like that. So my son was playing, my three-year-old was playing around, and he turns around and he points a

Nerf gun at me. There's a maneuver that police do where guns pointed at them, and you sort of just turn it. It's like a, you do it so much that it becomes autonomous. He does this, and I do that, that move to him, a three-year-old. I don't know if you have kids or not, but when you see your kids really scared, they don't cry. There's just this blank look where the mouth's open and that was the look my son gave me. I don't know who was more scared in that moment, him or I. I saw the look on his face, took the gun, snapped it in two, threw it into garbage, and walked out of my house.

I drove to this area where I parked my car, turned my cell phone off. I have a bottle of water. I throw my cell phone in the glove box and I walk into the woods, a couple miles into the woods. And I just sit there and I sit there for three days with water. That's it. I'm looking around. I'm listening to the trees because I know this is going to sound weird. When it's quiet enough, the trees will actually talk.

And I didn't know what I was going to do. All I knew is I'm declining and I don't really like the person that I'm becoming. coming. I'm just, I'm a monster. I don't like any of this stuff. So after three days, just figuring stuff out, walk back to my truck, get in my truck, go home, come in the door, don't say anything. It's like I never left, like I was going to get some milk. So this continues for a week or two, and I realize that I just, I can't take this anymore. I go into my office, I write a note. I put bank codes on there.

I put a message saying how sorry I am, that I'm just turning into this monster. It's not, it wasn't my plan. And, you know, pretty much you'll be better off without me a letter. And my plan is to take my life. I take my gun out of the safe. It was a Smith & Wesson,

chief special 38, loaded up at hollow points, nickel-plated, lightning grips, beautiful gun. I'm in my office downstairs. I lived in a buy level at the time. And my office is a just a converted bedroom. My kids are upstairs asleep.

It's about 2 a.m. in the morning. And I'm crying and I don't, like, I don't want to do this, but I also feel like I don't have any choice. And I'll hear this sometimes. Like, didn't you think of your kids? Yeah, absolutely I thought of my kids. My kids are going to be so much better off without this monster that's in front of them right now.

I take that gun, turn it around, cocked a hammerback because it's a double-action gun, cocked the hammerback, so it's a lighter trigger pool, put my thumb in the trigger, and I can still feel the ridges on my finger. I put that gun square in my mouth. I can taste the gunpowder on my tongue. I can feel the metal on my mouth. And I'm ready to go, you know, and I'm looking at this wall, and I had this wall in that office, and it had all my diplomas on there, and it had anything I'm ready to go.

I was proud of and any any it's like my wall my own personal wall of fame and I'm looking at this and I'm like God you are you are such a disappointment and I'm just looking for a reason not to do it and about 20 minutes that guns in my mouth and I'm just waiting to hear the bang like when you learn how to shoot for the first time they teach you squeeze the trigger slowly and be surprised by the bang and that's what I was waiting for I was waiting to be surprised by the bang and then it would just be lights out. And something happened after 20 minutes. I'd like this moment of clarity. I was like, what are you doing? Your kids are upstairs. They're going to hear this stuff. They're going to come down and find you with half your head missing. So I take the gun out of my

mouth and I'm holding in my hand and it feels like a lead weight. And it's that gun, and I'm not this smart, but that gun is one pound, nine ounces. The only reason I know that is because I looked it up. So one pound, nine ounces in my hand felt like one of the heaviest objects I ever picked up. And I knew the next morning that I could not be trusted with my weapon. I talked to one person still in the police department. One of the guys who was there that night, his name was Terry. And I said, Terry, listen, I can't be trust. I just said, I can't have my gun in my house. I was praying to God that he would not ask me a follow-up question. And all he said was, all right, put it in a lockbox, meet me here, I'll take it.

And I ship my gun off. But I got to tell you this, there's a lot of different ways to kill yourself. I've tried to, so the doctors put me on the protocol for post-traumatic stress is an anti-anxiety and an antidepressant. So they put me on colonnipin and lexapro. What I found with colonopin, and this is incredibly dangerous, do not do this, it says it right on the label, don't do this, colonopin will allow you to drink half the amount of alcohol and get twice as drunk. So I would take a handful of colonnipin, and tequila was my drink. And I drink tequila and I'd get twice as drunk, and I'd stay drunk throughout the whole day.

So I've tried to take handfuls of colonopin, and my wife called the police or the EMTs because I've woken up several times. my eyes popped open to EMT standing around me and I was able to talk my way out of it. My wife had called before when I took a lot of pills and she sent me actually, actually I had to go to a crisis center. So I got put in the mental, the mental institution of a hospital, but I'm able to talk my way out of it because I'm still a good scam artist, right? I was still a good scam artist. Nah, I wasn't trying to do. I was taking it as prescribed. It's fine.

Well, were you drinking? Yeah, but I only took one. It wasn't an attempt. And those mental institutions, damn. Now you know why cops don't say anything when they're hurting. First of all, it's a six-foot bed. I'm six-foot three. That don't work.

They feed you shit food. You have to get strip-searched. You have to bend over and cough. Make sure you don't hide in anything. You get all dignity taken away. And then I tried to hang myself. I tried to hang myself with this rope that apparently I was heavier than this, than I judged on this rope because I put it over the rafters

and put it around my neck. I start, I fall. It holds for a little bit. So it chokes me out. And then it breaks. And I wake up three hours later on the garage floor with a big knot on my head from where my head hit and a big line around my neck. So now I'm, I'm just dejected. Because not only am I a failure at life, but now I'm a failure at death. I can't get anything right. Like I am the most worthless human being and I'm the weakest human being in the world. My only saving grace was I was involved in group therapy with other officers who had been in shootings. And when I went there, first time I had to tell what happened to me, I just, I was so scared because I'm like, these guys are going to think I'm such a puss.

but they had the same things happen to them. So now all of a sudden, it was the only time I felt normal when I was with these people. And I'm sitting in my therapist's office and he's this old Italian from Newark. Like if you ever watch Many Saints in Newark, that's the time he grew up in.

And he's nuts. Like he's fucking insane. Half the time he'll just look at you. He goes, yeah, you're fucked up. Like that's how he spoke to you. And that's, he is, he names Dr. Eugene Stephanelli. He's a good friend of mine,

but I always say he's the one who saved my life. I remember one day he brings in a Smith and Wes in 45. The ones, I can't remember the name of it, but it was what they would issue the GIs in World War II. And this gum was perfect. It was in mint condition, bakelight handles, the bluing was still on there. And I had been handling firearms since I was a little kid.

Never had any fear of them, but I had fear of them now. And he hands me this. He goes, hey, look, I'm thinking about, selling this let me see what you think about it obviously unloaded but I'm thinking you crazy son of a bitch like what are you doing you you know what's going on with me and you're handing me a gun what he was doing and I didn't find this out until later what he was doing is he was testing me he was seeing if I could ever go back to be a cop I held that thing in my hand and I couldn't get it out of my hand fast enough and I was like oh it's I didn't want to seem like a wimp so I was

like oh it looks that's nice here yeah you get a good price for that later on he told me he goes that moment right there i knew you could never be a cop and when he told me that he finally did tell me that he's like you know you can never go back you got to retire it broke me all that investment i put into being a cop it's gone but i was smart enough to know that i had to get my life together i had to number one i had to stop drinking i was drinking every day all day i had bottles stashed everywhere so uh I drive my, one of the hardest things I ever did was leave my family and go down to rehab. Oddly enough, I'm putting in a room with a guy that my brother arrested.

Again, whether I'm unlucky or whatever it is. Full circle moment. Full circle. He didn't know my last name, thank God. But he remembered my brother's name. And that's how we got to that point. He's like, oh, never forget that motherfucker. Jimmy Donald.

Yeah. So I go to rehab and I realize I'm not good. And again, it's another, all your dignity gets taken away. So, you know, you got to get strip search. You can't have, you can't bring in anything, any shampoos with alcohol and every shampoo has alcohol in it. But I went in there very serious. I went in there sober. I went in there with three notebooks, five books.

And just all I wanted to do, like this is it. I'm going to do this once. I'm not, I'm not doing this. And I went into rehab on November 26, 2013. And I haven't had a drink since. because those four walls scared me so bad. And I'm looking around. I'm like, I'm separated from my family.

My freedom is gone. I'm not doing this anymore. And I became sober. I finally retired from the police department on June 1st, 2014. And now I'm 39 years old. I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. But I have two small children at home and a wife to take care of. Yeah, I got my pension and everything, but it's not enough to live on.

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So that took, I mean, we're still rebuilding. You try to rebuild relationships and, you know, throughout your life. Because when I was in the worst of the worst time, she saw the monster coming out. And surprisingly enough, there were people who reached out to me from the police department. I didn't want to talk to anybody. So I never picked up their phone. And then there were people who you think would reach out that didn't. And I would get mad at them.

But if those people who didn't reach out, they called me, I probably wouldn't pick up the phone anyway. And they don't know what to say. And I don't know what to say to them. There were some people that really stuck by me. There was one gentleman who I worked with. His name was Freddie Mitchell. He's like the black version of me.

Okay? Freddie and I got on at the same time. we just became very connected. And he would show up at my house. He would call me first. He would say, hey, listen, I'm coming over. No, you don't have to. No, don't worry about it.

But then he would just show up. And what I realized now is that's what I needed. I needed somebody just to show up for me, just to sit with me for 20 minutes. You know, Simon Sinoch, I don't know if you know who that is. Simon Sennock, he says this great thing, and he tells this story about how one of his friends tried to take her own life.

And he goes, why didn't you just call me? Why didn't you reach out to me? He asked for help. And she goes, I did. I did. I said, what's going on? And he gets into this whole thing where people in those worst moments, which are brief, but you think they're going to last forever, but they're brief.

They really only need about eight minutes of your time to get through that sticky situation. And then they realize, hey, listen, the sun rises tomorrow. But my wife and I, it was, it was rocky for so many years. She has developed post-traumatic stress from what I went through, which is the last thing I ever wanted. I didn't want any of that. But, you know, she saw me change as a person. She saw me lose my entire purpose. She saw me lose my entire purpose. She saw have to rebuild myself from the from the ground up um but here's the great thing here's the really really great thing as i was born and grew up with with a very very cracked and broken foundation um there's that song by jimmy hendricks called castles made in sand they always come falling down well my

you know i had three or four things in my life where my castle just crumbled to the ground I was at complete rock bottom. When you're at rock bottom, that's a good place to start building your foundation. So one by one, that's what I did. And after I retired, one of the things that gave me purpose and allowed me to move on with my wife and my kids and all this stuff was realized that, okay, well, this stuff's worth fighting for. So I'm going to do what I can do in order to rebuild a different purpose.

And I stayed in group therapy. after I retired, I made sure that while I received some help that I was going to be willing to give that help to other people. And while in about October of 2014, I see this guy walk into group therapy. And it's just I help guys get through their pension system, guys just get over to sticky spots, you know, because I had been there and I've done that. And I'm not out of the darkness, but I'm better than I was. I see him come walking in and I see that look on his face.

It allowed me to identify what that look is. And he comes walking in, and I see the look on his face, and I recognize him. It's a guy I've known for like 25 years. I used to work with his brother before I was a cop. And his name was Mike Felice. And it's like, Mike, what's going on? And he goes, I was in that, he was a Lynnhurst sergeant at the time. He was that shooting in Lynnhurst, that was me.

I was like, oh, man, dude. Talk to him for a little bit. I make sure he has my number and I said, we're going to talk because you're about to go on a wild ride. And there's nothing I can say or do to relieve it. But what I can do is I can be there for you. There's a great story. Guys in a hole, right?

And he can't get out. So he's yelling for help. Hey, somebody, please help me. Well, a lawyer walks by. And he says, Mr. lawyer, please help me. please help me and he goes i need to get out of this hole the lawyer says well i can't get you out of the hole but what i can do is give you some legal advice so maybe you'll be able to get out of the different time does it lawyer moves on then a doctor comes through doctor comes through and he's

doctor doctor i need some help i can't get out of this hole and he goes i can't really help you get out a hole but i can write your prescription and maybe that'll help you get out of hole he writes from prescription he's still stuck in the hole then a priest comes by priest comes by his father father i need you to get me out of his hole, please help me get out of his hole. He goes, I can't get you out of the hole. But I can pray for you. He's, okay, well, he prays for him. You're still stuck in the hole. Then you have somebody like me comes by. And the guy's yelling out, please, Mr. Help me, help me. Please, I can't get out of his hole. So what I do, I'll jump in the hole with him. And they'll look at me inevitably. He's like, oh, that's great. Well, now we're still stuck in the

hole together. And I say, yeah, that's true. But I've been here before and I know the way out. So follow me. So that's what that's what that. whole experience gave me. It gave me the ability to go jump in a hole with somebody who's a little down, a little bit in the darkness. And for them to have them to know that I understand exactly where they are because I've been there. So that's what I want to be for these people. So I stay in group therapy. I help officers. I see my friend come in there and him and I become close. And we stay in group therapy for probably until lockdown. Lockdown and everything ends, which is really such a bad experience.

You know, not locked in, locked down. It's a little different. And so group therapy ends. And now we got all these people that don't know where to go. They got no help. Yeah, it's virtual, but that's not a great, that's not a very great thing for people like myself. So what do I do? I need to, I need to reignite that purpose that I feel because I started feeling really good. My relationship at home started improving. Like everything in my life started

improving. And all I'm doing is reaching out to other people. Any cop I heard that was in a shooting, I would reach out to them clandestinely from their, from their department. I always have a contact some here or here or there. But now we're in lockdown and none of that stuff is happening. And that's where the genesis of the suffering podcast came in. So, so, so, Suffering is such a negative word. And I've had people tell me, why don't you change the name of the podcast? I'm like, no, I can't. No, it's, you don't understand.

Suffering is what we need. You know, it's that friction that starts a fire. You cannot start a fire without friction. Suffering is what's going to take you to the next level. Anything difficult you do in your life requires suffering. You want to get in shape? Well, guess what? You got to go to the gym.

Sometimes going to the gym sucks and it hurts and you're sore. You want to look better? Well, guess what? You better lock down on your diet. Well, I guess not eating donuts every day. That sucks. Donuts are good. You want to change the whole atmosphere of your life and stop drinking, maybe your drugs

or whatever it may be? Well, it's going to hurt for a while. But when you get through it, like I told you in the beginning, suffering, you lead with your suffering once you get. through it. And now you have perspective in order to get somebody else through it. I don't know one person, I would never be able to speak to anybody who hasn't gone through what I've gone through to ask them for help. You have to be able to understand exactly what I went through. So I'm willing to jump in that hole. And I was willing to jump in that hole with Mike. And then lockdown happens and

everything ends. And that was the genesis of the suffering podcast because it's a universal term. You know, C.S. Lewis writes, if suffering is such a great thing and elevates us to the next level, ought it not be sought. I'm not saying go out there and do the shit that I did, but you got to, you got to be willing to enforce some discipline in your life. And that's going to be, that's going to mean denying yourself and some things. So we start this show and on, I started on my own. It's kind of one of my crazy ideas. And on episode nine, I have Mike in. and Mike comes in there and it was just like a vibe, right? You know, there are certain people who you just vibe with and it was never a dull moment.

And I remember listening to that, the way I used to do it, we were on audio only and I would go in my garage and I'd listen to it. And I'm like, wow, this is really good. And I called him right away. I'm like, you've got to listen to this. This is amazing. And then I asked him to come in and be my co-host. So from episode nine, until episode 183, Mike Falaise was my co-host.

We were partners in crime. We traveled. We had lots of adventures together. And while I was on this path of healing, Mike was on a decline. And, you know, I, my faith had become reignited. I started going to church. I started getting involved in church.

Mike did not. Mike never stopped drinking. and I watched him just go down and down. He got a divorce. Kids weren't talking to him. And I'm watching his life implode. And I'm thinking, hey, dude, listen, man, we're doing this. I would talk to him all the time.

I'm like, whenever he was having a bad day, he would call me. And whenever I was having a bad day, we were just two people who could lean on each other. And then he just, he just couldn't handle it no more. So on. after we record, we always record on Wednesday nights. We record episode 183 with Seth Gale. And Mike's off. I just lost my follow on.

My wife's father died who was a cop in West Orange. And I always do an Instagram live beforehand. And the Instagram live topic was loss. I was talking about the loss of my father. And Mike turns to me during that Instagram live. And you can watch it. It's up on my social media. He says, oh, there's going to be a lot of loss.

night. And look, even if you look at it, I'm like, what, what do you? Why? And I sort of just went on. I'm live. I got to go. So I just sort of went on. We do the recording. The guest, oddly enough, parked in the front. So we park in the back. We go, Mike and I go in the back together. And we're standing in a parking stall. And he keeps asking me, where's the funeral? Where's the funeral? I'm like, it's at this funeral home in Nutley, New Jersey. Just look it up, man. I was getting aggravated. And he looks at me. And he goes, hey, Kev, you know I love you. Now, Mike and I always told each other we loved each other.

Because that's the simple rule to a happy life, right? You know, be honest and tell those that you care for that you love them. That's the simplest rule ever to a happy life. Mike and I always did that. But this time, he said it, and it was something different. My father-in-law's funeral was the next day. So he drives off in his silver jeep. I can still see him.

I can still see the taillights. I go to my father's funeral the next day, and he doesn't show up. Now, he was the type of guy that just, like, reveled in telling you, you have these friends where they'll just tell you that somebody died. Like, he used to call me, he would call me up to tell me everybody died. He once called me up to tell me that somebody who owned, who we know that owned a farm, that one of their horses died. I was like, dude, really? Uh, called him Dr. Death. He didn't show up at the funeral.

I'm like, what? Something, something's weird. you know, that night I go out to dinner with my pastor. And oddly enough, I go out to dinner with my pastor and some former professional football players. And we were big football guys. And I'm like, I called him. I'm like, I wanted to tell him because my pastor had told them about my show and they

listened to it and they were talking to me about it. I'm like, you're not going to believe this, man. These guys, one of the guy was up for the Hall of Fame that year. And obviously nothing was picked up. And I'm on the phone with, I have two other friends. I'm on the phone with them and they're friends with him as well. And I'm like, somebody go check on Mike. I haven't seen them on social media all day.

I can't get in touch with them. I wanted, I had all this thing happen. And I'm like a real, I go to bed real early because I wake up super early to work out. And so I go to bed at like 11.30 that night. And I never sleep with my phone in the room. So I wake up at three in the morning. and I wake up, but our plan, so going back, our plan, me and my two friends,

our plan was to actually go to his house on Saturday and kick the shit out of him until he goes to rehab because he was drinking too much. We knew it. But what I should have done is I should have taken him off the show and say, go get yourself clean because I want, this seat will always be here, but I want the clean, clear Mike sitting next to me

because he was a great co-host. I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning to about 50 phone calls and text messages, is call me, call me, call me. So what had happened earlier in a week, he recently broke up with his girlfriend. And right after recording, he goes home, makes a phone call, sends out a text message at 1230 a.m.

On Thursday, March, May 9th, 2024, telling his ex-girlfriend, I'm sorry I ruined your life. And then my friend, my brother, my business partner, Mike Falace, put a gun in his mouth and died from a single gunshot wound, self-inflicted to the head. And he's even so kind to put a pillow over his face, so the cleanup crew wouldn't have too much of a mess to clean up. So I'm standing there in my garage at 3 a.m. in the morning, I get these text message. I call his brother. And he's like, he just keeps saying he's dead. He's dead. He's dead. And I remember opening my mouth like a scream was going to come out.

I fall to my knees and nothing comes out. I was, I called another one of my friends who was still an active detective at the time. And I was like, please tell me this isn't true. This is, this is a dream. Please tell me this isn't true. No, it's true. His girlfriend went over to house, found him. And it's been almost two years and I still think about him every single day.

His life was imploding and here we are helping everybody. and getting these great stories out of how people overcome stress and post-traumatic stress and adversity. And I missed it. I knew his life was imploding. I missed it. And I have that implicit guilt that could have would have should have. But I was too afraid to lose my friend, right?

I knew his show was his last bastion of normalcy. And I'm thinking, hey, listen, if I kick him off the show, number one, he's going to be pissed at me and we're not going to be friends anymore. and this is all he's got. So I can't do that. I just can't do it because I was afraid that if I did it, he was going to take his life and happened anyway.

So I got to live with that for the rest of my life. How did that affect your healing and recovery journey yourself after that incident happened? It definitely set me back. It caused a lot of friction between me and my wife because I went up and told her right away. I was like, Mike killed himself. Mike killed himself.

I had to tell my kids because my kids knew Mike. I was like, Mike's, Mike passed. You know, I didn't tell them what happened, but Mike passed. And here my wife is trying to grieve her father, right? And now I got to grieve this. And now there's two pieces of grief in the house. And that's always going to cause button heads. I can't be there for my wife because I'm hurting so bad.

you start to question everything that you've done, every bit of healing. Like, I'm the type of guy, you have no idea the amount of things that I've done. If somebody thought of an alternative therapy, I would do it. You know, I sat in a harmonic egg. Do you know what that is?

No. It's like a big acoustic guitar. It's an egg. It looks like morgue for morgue. And I know you're too young to understand what that is, but it looks like morgue from ork spaceship. And they put sounds at sound and light therapy. And I did rakey.

I did, God, all sorts of different alternative therapies because I was always of the mindset that if you told me that the path to healing was to stick my head up my own ass, I just started stretching. Like, I was ready to do anything. I was desperate at one point to do whatever is necessary, whatever was going to bring about healing. EMDR was very helpful. And after Mike's death, I went back into EMDR. eye desensitizing, whatever it is.

But it's like, I have a friend of mine that calls it chicken voodoo. So I don't know if you've ever done EMDR. So you're looking at a light, there's many different ways to do it. You're looking at a light bar and you have controllers and the therapist will say something to you and you got to click. And what it does for you is, it'll bring up memories, memories that make you anxious. and after EMDR you walk out of the room and you're like, oh, I guess that didn't work because nothing changes.

But then something will pop in your head that would normally make you anxious and you don't get anxious about it. Because it's like a disc defragmenter for your brain. Years ago, with computers, you used to have to defragment the disks and it would take like two or three hours. And what happened is information would get stored in your computer in the wrong place.

And with defragmenting the disc, what it would do is put it back to where it could be processed. Well, that's kind of what happens with trauma. With trauma, it gets stored in certain portions of your brain because you're in a fight or flight, fawn. You're in different types of modes. It'll just get stored because your body's trying to survive. And with EMDR, it puts it back into a place in your brain that allows you to process it properly. So that helped a lot in processing Mike's death.

I talk about it all the time. So if you don't learn anything from suffering, it's just a completely wasted experience because suffering is the best teacher. Pain is the best teacher of your life. And here's what Mike's death has taught me. And here's why it is accelerated some portions of my healing. Do not hesitate when you see somebody in trouble.

Don't think that there's something's going to happen tomorrow. Don't think you can sit on this and ignore it. Because when you ignore pain and suffering, it never goes. away, it amplifies. I read this book years ago. It's called Surviving Worst Case Scenarios, a little yellow book. I read it when I was going to an airplane before I was a cop. And, you know, back in the days before cell phones, computers and stuff, that's what you did. You read on a plane. And I'm reading how to survive a bear attack, how to survive, you know, living in the

desert and all this stuff. Well, one of them in there was how to survive a prairie fire. I live in New Jersey. There are no prairies in New Jersey. But, But I read it and it said how you survive a prairie fire is counterintuitive to the way human responses are. So human response is to run away from danger. It's your instinct. You know, survive. With a prairie fire, if you run away from that, you see this wall of fire coming at you, you run away from it. What's going to happen is that prairie fire is going to grow and ultimately it's going to consume you because they would move very fast and you're going to die.

How to survive a prairie fire is to bite the bullet, suck it up. and run straight through. To give you an idea, it's like your credit card bill. What happens if you don't pay your credit card bill this month? They cancel it. Not the first month. Oh, they add interest. They had interest and they add late fees.

And then the next month, don't pay it the next month. It grows and grows until you can't even afford the minimum payments anymore. So it doesn't go away. It just amplifies. And that's kind of what trauma does. That's what kind of pain and suffering does. it amplifies. So what it's done for me now, Mike's death, is it's made me run straight towards that prairie

fire to face that pain head on, to not ignore it. Because if you ignore it, it isn't going away. It's just going to get bigger and bigger until it ultimately consumes you. And I've done it with people. You know, I've seen them drinking too much instead of me just saying, hey, that's their own life. let me stay in my lane. I'll call them up. I'm like, bro, what are you doing? What's the matter with you? I don't care if you never talk to me again, as long as you're alive to do it. So that's what I do. That's what it taught me. So it actually, in the beginning, it set me back,

but it's also amplified my healing because I see the damage of suicide. When I was, when I was suicidal, I wasn't thinking about anything. You're in this deep, dark hole and you can't see any light. But there are people with you. It's just so dark you can't see it. But they got night. vision on. And then as you get towards the end, when you see the light, you look around, you're like, hey, where'd you guys come from? So you're not thinking about anything because your peripheral vision just becomes so narrow that you can't see anything on the right or the left of you. And then when you get back to normal, your peripheral vision is about here. With Mike's death, my peripheral vision is here. It's opened up my aperture so wide because I see the effects of

suicide not only personally, I see it from a person who lost somebody they truly care for. Mike had his problems. I'm not going to say Mike was a saint. Mike had his problems, but he was also in a shooting. It took away his purpose and he was just, he just never bought into any of the healing. Only thing I can say is don't ever allow yourself to live with that regret. It is such a bad move and it never goes away. That pain that I feel, where I feel like I dropped the ball, I'm never going to be able to heal that, totally. I'm not going to move on. I'm not going to get over it. Because the other part of that, it's like this compounding thing. Through all the therapy I did, I started remembering all the things in my past, all the ways

that I grew up, all that stuff. So I'm dealing with that stuff. I'm dealing with Mike's death. I'm dealing with all this stuff. And it wasn't until I had this person on my show, her name is Sherry also. Sherry is a survivor of incest from her father. Horrible. Just horrible story. And Sherry's this very nice, well-spoken, intelligent woman. And I connect with her through a friend.

She comes on the show. She flies out from Corpus Christi, Texas, comes on, and she's very naive for all the stuff that she's been in. like she got brought to the studio in an Uber, and the Uber driver gives her a number and says, hey, call me, you know, I'll pick you up. It'll be off the Uber thing. And I go out there and I see her.

I go, no, no, no, absolutely not. So I offer to take her back to her hotel. And while I'm in the car with Sherry on the way back from the show, I tell her about what happened to me as a child. I tell her that I was raped. And I tell her that I was assaulted. But I do it very vanilla. Right. So when you hand somebody a big meatball like that, there has to be some sort of mutually

assured destruction clause in there. I have to know something about you and I have to know what you're going to do with that information that I'm going to give you before I trust you enough to give it to you. Hearing the story that I just heard from Sherry, I knew this was somebody that I could trust. So she's the first person that I opened up to about this stuff. And I tell her a little bit of little bit. I drop her off. And then I'm like, okay, I did that. I'm done. I'm like 44 at the time. No, no, that's not even true. I started remembering when I was 44. I'm 49, 48, something like that. So I start having nightmares again. And I start, it's like, it's like flying in on an airplane through clouds. You know, every once in a while you can see this vast expanse. And then you go through a cloud and you can't

see nothing. Well, that's what my memories are like of my childhood. And then I figured, you know what, after I told her, I'm going to close that box. I'm never opening that box again. But the problem is, is that box, once you open that box, you cannot close it back up. And all this flood of stuff just started coming out. And I call her a couple days later with, like, new memories and new information. And I'm breaking down in tears as I'm telling her. But she was just the kindest, just perfect person to open up to. I can't even tell my wife about what happened to me when I was a kid. She knows stuff happened, but she doesn't know what. But her, for some reason, Sherry, and so Sherry invites me once, she goes out and teaches class called Trauma-informed Training to

police departments. She invites me to Tibado, Louisiana, to LaForge Parish, Sheriff's Department. And it's the first time I actually stepped in front of a class and told what happened to me as a child. And it was rhythmic. And it was just freeing nightmares at night, but a little bit better. And then Sherry asked me, she's like, hey, why don't you come do this with me? And that's what Sherry and I have been doing. We've been all over the country. We've been to Hawaii, Arizona, Georgia, Nashville,

Tennessee, we've been to Tennessee multiple times. We've been to New York. We've done, we did like 25, 30 dates last year of teaching cops on how to deal with sexual assault victims from a, from a survivor's perspective. And, you know, if you have no experience with this stuff, let's say I was a cop and I asked a sexual assault victim or survivor say, hey, like, why don't you just tell me what you were wearing? Well, let's say the girl was out at a club wearing a skirt so short you need two haircuts to wear. Well, she's going to be hesitant to say that because if she tells you she was looking good, women, when they go out, they try to, you know, they dial themselves up. They may think that, well, if I tell you what I was wearing, you're going to think I was asking for it when it's not the right thing to do. So we teach, we teach police departments all over the country on how to deal properly.

Now, what's going to happen from a police perspective, if they get a better way to interview victims and that victim trust them, they're going to get more information. With more information becomes a better investigation. With a better investigation becomes more chance of conviction. Because here's the, here with sexual assault, here's the horrifying statistic. Six, only six out of 1,000 offenders get convicted. some of them don't report it some of them get away from lack of evidence some of them it was too long there's a whole bunch of different things and if you go on native american land it's even worse it's 10 times the national average because one out of four it's like one out of three or four women get

sexually assaulted one out of five or six men get sexually assaulted and the men are actually the hardest people because they're going to they're going to think that they're just going to be judged So that's been another great thing. And I still do the show and I still do a lot of outreach with police officers. So how it's come full circle between my childhood, my stuff in the police department, Mike's death. I used to think of those things as just really bad experiences in my life, but they're actually blessings. They're actually blessings because God has put me exactly where I'm supposed to be. I used to, the guy Anthony Vocatura who shot at me, if I saw him, the first four or five years after my shooting, if I saw him walking down the street, I would have kicked the shit out of him.

I would have probably killed him. I'm not being euphemistic. I actually probably would have killed him because I figured you'd ruin my life. You took away my purpose. You took away a job that I love. Now, and I know exactly where he lives. I know his address. I know his phone number. I know everything about him. He is one of the greatest angels in my life. That's why I was able to forgive those that abused me. They put me where I was supposed to be. They put me in front of officers who need this type of training. They put me in front of people on the show who need a little bit of healing by letting their stories out. Because while letting your story out is very, very hard. And there's going to be repercussions afterwards.

The more you do it, it's like exposure therapy. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. comes. So all these bad beats that I used to think were bad beats, I'm unlucky, they were angels, even going back to college, getting kicked off campus. Well, guess what? That's what needed to happen at the time. Suffering is, you're always put in the right place at the right time. Don't think you're unlucky. Don't think you have a bad beat. This is what's supposed to happen because it's preparing you for somebody. You know, and like I said, I refound my faith in, And when I lost my faith in that one chapter in Samuel, I think it's Samuel 1, when David had to go cut off the penises.

I'm recently watching House of David with my oldest son. And that scene comes on. This is recent. This is like within the last three months. That scene comes on. And I'm looking at the scene. I'm like, holy shit. This is the exact moment I lost my faith.

And I'm watching it through faith eyes. And I'm like, this is God putting you into the way. worst place as possible because God's always with you. God's always shielding you. You're never fighting alone, even though you think you are. He's always there. He's always got his shield in front of you and he's never going to let you fall because he does lose. And, you know, I watched my faith bring both my boys into their faith. They come to church with me every weekend. Of their own volition, I do not, I do not, I never make them go to church. They came that way. So there's all these different things. There's there's all these angels put in my life, both good ones and bad ones.

You know, Anthony Vokentoro was an angel. My, my offenders as a child, they were angels. Mike Falesce was an angel. They're all meant to teach you something. Sherry Alsup is an angel. And Sherry and I are actually writing a book right now called A Life Unfolding with Dr. Dorothy Novitsky doing the clinical background called it's all about childhood sexual assault. because we want people to read it, and there's going to be people who read it saying, you're telling my story, because some of the pain and trauma, whether it's police shooting or whether it's sexual assault or whether it's childhood trauma, you're going to find a lot of commonalities in between there.

Do you find that the individuals that you talked to that were once in your shoes on that kind of moment about to take their own life, had that same come-to moment that you did? they can certainly see me as I'm nobody special. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not Superman.

I have no special powers. Um, you know, I, I have no particular talents. I have just been where they are. So if I made it out, and I'm not fully out, but if,

if I've made, if I was able to continue with my life, and they look at me and say, okay, he made it out and he's nothing special and he's not superman. He doesn't have. any particular talents, well, that means I can make him out. I can make it out. So it's hope, right? It's giving them some form of hope and hope is going to carry on to the next day.

I have this mantra that I constantly say to myself and I started it after Mike's death, whatever is going on in your mind, whatever bad thoughts are happening in your mind, I want you to just keep repeating this mantra. Not today. Not today. Put it on the back burner until tomorrow. And then tomorrow, if you're still thinking that way, address it then. But I guarantee you, I guarantee you tomorrow is going to look much different.

When the sun rises, it's going to look a little bit different. It's not going to look the same. So whatever you're thinking of doing today, just tell yourself, not today. Just not today. It's keeping your world small. Alcoholics use it with the one day at a time. You know, I'm not going to say I'm never drinking again. I'm just going to say one day at a time.

If I'm out running and I'm having a bad run where I know I got to do five miles, right? I want to do my, that's my goal, five miles. And I'm having a bad run. Well, I don't think about the full five miles. I think about getting to the next telephone pole. If I'm, I'll take everything minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. So if you live by that, no matter what you're going through, you know, I don't have to stay sober forever. I just have to stay sober today.

And then one day turns into two, two turns into a week, a week turns into a month before you know it, you got 12 years under your belt. Because there's so much in this life worth living. The blessings that have come my way because of my pain and suffering are beyond anything. You know, I'm not the laziest white man alive. I'm not just good for nothing. I'm not a bad kid. I know that now. I didn't know that back then.

I know it now. So it's all about hope. It's all about hope. What would you tell young, broken cabin? I wouldn't tell him a damn thing. Because everything that he went through, he had to go through. I'd never be sitting here in front of you. I wouldn't. This would not have happened had I not had gone through that. And this is pretty awesome.

I'm on locked in with Ian Bick. You know, it's pretty awesome. So was it really bad? Yeah, it sucked. Don't get me wrong. I don't suggest it to anybody. And I certainly don't think anybody should go out and seek it. But all those bad things that happened in your life, one day you're going to look back and say, you know what, I survived that. And that makes me pretty strong. And it just builds up that strength, that muscle of resilience and discipline and all those good things. I hope people have an easier life than me. But I wouldn't tell little Kevin anything. I'm like, just hang on till the end. You know, it's kind of like social media reels.

Watch till the end. It's the same thing. I'd have to tell Kevin, just watch to the end. And maybe one day he'd grow up and say, well, my older self said watch to the end, so I guess I got to. I guess I got to. Well, Kevin, I appreciate you coming out here today and doing this. This is an incredible conversation. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. And listen, I'm just proud to be here. I'm proud to meet you and I've heard so many good things from our little Lebanese friend, Keith, about you. And I'm just grateful. Thank you so much.