The Rich Roll Podcast - The Awakening Of Jeff Grant: From Addiction & Incarceration To Prison Ministry

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

An epidemic of colossal proportions, millions struggle with substance addiction. Suffering in silence, they too often slip through the cracks, desperate and alone. As a society, it’s incumbent upon us to better address the problem. Improve our collective understanding of its underlying causes. And enhance access to the resources required to heal the decaying hungry ghosts among us. It is for these reasons I felt compelled to share the story of Rev. Jeff Grant — a former well-respected New York City attorney who got hooked on painkillers and started making decisions so bad, he lost everything. Like so many, Jeff’s using started rather innocently in the aftermath of a basketball injury. But it didn’t take long before the tectonic plates of his ethical landscape began to shift. Under the influence, he perpetrated a series of financial misdeeds that led to losing control of his law firm. A suicide attempt prompted sobriety, but the long shadow cast by past actions revisited Jeff with a felony fraud conviction and a federal prison sentence. After serving 18 months, Jeff was faced with re-entry. His old life was no longer an option. He had to create an entirely new one. Searching for a meaningful spiritual life line to help make sense of his transgressions and inform his trajectory moving forward, Jeff entered the Seminary, earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York, with a focus in Christian Social Ethics. Upon graduation, he began serving at an inner-city church in Bridgeport, Connecticut as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. It is here that Jeff finds his calling assisting convicted felons and their families to navigate the treacherous waters of civilian re-entry. Now an ordained minister with 16+ years of continuous sobriety, Jeff is the co-founder of Progressive Prison Ministries, the world’s first ministry created to provide confidential support to individuals, families and organizations with white collar incarceration issues. He has been profiled in a variety of media outlets including Inc., Forbes and Business Insider, has graced the stage at The Nantucket Project (where we first met) and hosts the Criminal Justice Insider Podcast. This is his story. It’s a conversation about the perils of addiction and the joys of sobriety. It's about the the opioid epidemic and the prison industrial complex it supports. And it's about how spirituality and divinity can pave the road to redemption. Not just a cautionary tale from the perspective of a white collar felon, this is also discussion about what happens to the by-standing family members and loved ones, often overlooked casualties in the perpetrator’s wake. But ultimately this is a story about absolution. It's about confronting past misdeeds. Making amends. Finding grace. And giving back to those in need by sharing the experience and wisdom procured along the way. For the visually inclined, you can watch our entire conversation on YouTube at bit.ly/jeffgrant440 (please subscribe!)  Peace + Plants, Rich

Guilt is about what you did and shame is about who you are. And I was able to navigate that at some point, but it probably took a decade. Yeah, it was hard. You know, so much of it is about how we live and how we behave and living in right thinking and right action and right intent. And, you know, these are Buddhist ideological tenets within the Eightfold Path and all of that, you know, and I didn't know that at the time, really. I just knew that there was some kind of commonality, but I definitely needed a theology of looking forward, of transformation and of rebirth. And I found that in Christianity.

That's Jeff Grant. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. Before we get into today's episode up front, I wanted to do something I do from time to time, which is read an email that I received from a listener. This one's particularly powerful. I'm going to leave the author anonymous for reasons that I think will become obvious imminently. And it goes like this. Rich, you are such an inspiration.

I've been listening to your show for about a year. I found you from a therapist after my fiance broke up with me and left me in a deep depression. To medicate myself, I turned to drugs and alcohol. I was suicidal and often held a gun to my head, wishing the pain would stop. You and your guests on your podcast are the reason I am living today.

I am starting my journey into self-awareness and self-love finally. I cannot thank you enough for how you have impacted my life. Peace, love, and plants. So it's pretty crazy to get an email like that. And I just want to say, first off, my heart goes out to you. I feel your pain. I sympathize and empathize with your situation. And I just, I can't tell you how much I appreciate receiving messages like this, these words. Certainly, I can't take credit for this person's recovery, but I am glad and proud to have played a small part in it. And part of the

reason why I share these kinds of messages from time to time is really to remind me why I do this. Because too many people are out there without a lifeline. Not enough, get the help they need, slipping through the cracks. I think it's incumbent upon us to do better in how we address addiction, provide recovery, and really support the millions of people out there who suffer in silence. It's also the why behind I wanted to share the story of this week's guest. It's a tale of drugs and alcohol precipitating an epic fall from grace, the suicide attempt that followed, and the hard-fought journey to put the pieces back together to heal, to find meaning and channel that experience in service for the betterment of others.

And our servant for this exploration today is Reverend Jeff Grant. Jeff is a former New York attorney who, like a lot of people, became addicted to painkillers, specifically Demerol in his case, in the wake of a ruptured Achilles that he suffered playing basketball, which is an all-too-common path, I'm afraid to say. And like so many, Jeff's using started innocent enough, but it didn't take long before he started making bad decisions, terrible decisions eventually, under the influence, fueled by his dependency that led, let's call them ethical transgressions,

financial misdeeds, losing control of his law firm, and again, the suicide attempt that followed. Jeff survives his suicide attempt, obviously. He ends up entering treatment, he gets sober, and begins the process of putting the pieces of his life back together again. But then at about a year and a half into sobriety, he ends up getting arrested for fraud, fraud that relates to some falsified loan documents that he executed while under the influence many years prior, shortly after 9-11. He ends up pleading guilty to this crime and ultimately ends up serving 18 months in federal prison. There's a lot more to Jeff's story and this redemptive journey that he's been on ever since. And we're going to get to that in a couple of minutes, as well as the why behind why I wanted

to share Jeff's story on the podcast. But first, DK, you have experience with depression. You've had friends that have committed suicide or been addicted to opioids. What are your thoughts? Yeah, man. I mean, depression is definitely something that I've dealt with for 15 and 20 years, been on a lot of different SSRIs, and it's difficult. I think it's tough to get out of the ditch once you put yourself there and trying to figure out what the lifeline is and how do I change this. And that mixed with addiction, it's just very difficult. Yeah, well, it's an incredible story.

And like I said, it's coming up in a couple few, but shall we take care of a little business first? Yeah, let, it's an incredible story. And like I said, it's coming up in a couple few, but shall we take care of a little business first? Yeah, let's do it. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn

helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by

insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com,

who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself,

I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Jeff.

So after his federal prison sentence, Jeff was faced with the prospect that every convicted felon faces, which is reentry. And of course, he can't go back to his whole life. He is compelled to create this new one. his whole life. He is compelled to create this new one. And he goes on this search for meaning, looking for this spiritual lifeline to help make sense of what had happened to him, why it had happened, and where he should go from there. And he ends up entering the seminary, earning a master's of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in York with a focus in Christian social ethics. And after graduating, he begins serving at an inner city church in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as an associate minister and director of prison ministries. And it's really there that he begins to find his calling,

helping those who are emerging from jail and prison sentences, convicted felons, navigate the treacherous waters of civilian reentry. Today, he's an ordained minister with 16 plus years of continuous sobriety. He's the co-founder of Progressive Prison Ministries, the world's first ministry created to provide confidential support to individuals, families, and organizations with white collar incarceration issues. And so this is his story. It's a conversation about addiction, sobriety, the opioid epidemic, public shaming, redemption, the prison industrial complex. It's about spirituality. It's about divinity. But it's not only about the individual

experience of being convicted of white collar crime. It's just as much about what happens to the bystanding family members and the loved ones who become casualties in the crosshairs of the perpetrator's actions. But ultimately, this is about redemption. It's about moving forward in the face of one's misdeeds, making amends. It's about the search for grace and the path to service as a means of making sense of it all, getting back to those in need by sharing the experience and sharing the wisdom procured along the way. Like several of my guests, I met Jeff at the Nantucket Project last year. I was very impacted by his story and compelled to share it with all of you here today. So I hope you enjoy it. And without further ado, here's Jeff.

All right, we're ready to go. Good. So just to illustrate the strange, magical magical mystical ways that the universe works we've been going back and forth for a little while trying to schedule this podcast we met in nantucket we did in september as part of the nantucket project and uh and on the day of our appointed interview, actually the day before, I get a text from Tom Scott, the founder of the Nantucket Project, who also has happened to be on this podcast in the past. He said, I'm in town.

I want to meet. Can we meet on this day? The same day that you're coming over here, you as somebody who's presented at Nantucket Project in the past. Tomorrow, I have Nadia Bowles-Weber coming over to do the show. Somebody I've been trying to schedule forever as well, who I met at Nantucket Project. I don't know how that happens. How does the universe—

It's convergence. In your experience, in all things divine, how do you account for that and explain that? I'm not sure I have any better insight than anyone else. But it was nice to see Tom today. And please say hello to Nadia for me. I will. Yeah, what an amazing person she is. So I'm going back to back with all of these people who are steeped in all things spiritual, in matters divine.

So it's cool to have you here today. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. You have an amazing story. So let's just start at the beginning. Paint the picture for me. Baller lawyer. Baller lawyer. in New York. Super successful by normal standards in this country, I guess. And a big staff and real estate clients of note and working 16 hours a day. And I was a normal kid. You know, I grew up with my share of-

Did you grow up in like the suburbs of New York City? I did, yeah, in Long Island. You know, and I was a normal kid there, partier, you know, and tried to stop, didn't stop, tried to stop. But made it through high school and college and law school and kind of ran that all up. Did you do the big law firm thing for a while before you started your own? No, no, no.

I was a— Always. No. Always going to be your own boss. Yeah. Well, I was a marketer from way back. I actually sold shoes on Madison Avenue to put myself through law school. So definitely—

So you know how to put the hustle on. A little bit. Oh, yeah. Definitely. So you know how to put the hustle on. A little bit. Oh, yeah. They buy the shoes and you stick the shoe trees in and you upcharge them before they get to the register.

I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. I'm already learning things. Oh, yeah. You make 10% on the shoe trees, but only 2% on the shoes. So you have to know that. Yeah, yeah. So worked your way through law school, went to law school in Manhattan. In Manhattan.

And did you start your practice? I know that you ultimately, you were up in like Mamaroneck, right? Where you had your practice, but did you start in Manhattan. In Manhattan. And did you start your practice? I know that you, ultimately, you were up in like Mamaroneck, right? Where you had your practice, but did you start in Manhattan? Started in Manhattan. And after about 10 years there, moved it up to Westchester County. And right away, I was a big fish in a small pond, as opposed to being lost in Manhattan. But like a transactional lawyer, right? Real estate deals? Mostly real estate deals and business deals. And I kind of found myself up there. There were a lot of lifestyle changes I needed to happen and I was flirting with them. And at that point, I'd been sober probably about five years. On your own? On my own. And I was in therapy, but I wasn't committed to it. I didn't really know what it meant.

Just like I should probably dial back the partying, maybe stop drinking. Was it just, was it alcohol or was it something else at that point? It was something else. It was everything actually. It was pretty much everything. What's your favorite?

Well, if lewds were still around, I'm not sure I'd be sober today. Those went the way of the dodo, unfortunately. Oh, yeah. So that was your main thing? Well, it was for that. Until you couldn't find them anymore? Well, that decade.

Okay. Yeah, kind of like rolled through by decade. So this is like early 90s? What are we talking about? I moved up to Mamaroneck in 91 and opened my practice up there. And my biggest client was a big real estate client. I had tens of thousands of units, and I was their general counsel. And then the head of his, one of the divisions asked me if I wanted to go across the street and play basketball in the elementary school that was kind of across from the headquarters.

And top of the key, crossover move, ruptured my Achilles tendon, went right down. And called an orthopedist friend of mine and said, you're not touching me unless you give me a prescription for Demerol. And I hadn't done anything in almost five years, but it was instantaneous. And my head went right to that. To Demerol, not Vicodin, not morphine. Had you done Demerol before? Probably. Yeah. I like how you're the one who's prescribing the pain medication to yourself. Oh, yeah. Making the demand. Oh, yeah.

I made the demand. Oh, yeah. So they did the surgery and I had a drip because I had some complications and I had a drip. And so the drip is going for the morphine and I had hidden the vial of Demerol under the bedsheets and they didn't know about it. And I was high. And that's it. I was back on the horse, man. And that lasted 10 years.

I didn't realize that you had taken a stab at getting sober prior to the Achilles incident. Yeah. But without AA, 12-step or anything like that, just kind of like your own therapy, white knuckle, do it yourself version. Well, I went to a therapist in the city who was very helpful.

Didn't lead me to AA or to psychiatry at that point, but he was, I learned a lot from him and I stayed clean for quite a while. And I thought I would always be clean. Yeah. I didn't, you know, I had no idea how. But then this injury, it's the perfect opportunity. Perfect opportunity.

No one's gonna say anything. Oh yeah, I was a lawyer. You know you can get what you need. It was a lawyer's dream, except I was the one who went down. Right, and walk me through how that initial fix with Demerol ends up snowballing into basically a full-time habit.

Well, I had friends who were doctors and it was a kind of a professional club and none of them probably knew at first that they were contributing to something that was more dangerous. Although every one of them kind of said the same thing to me, just be careful. And I guess

they didn't want me to, uh, to stop breathing on their watch. Yeah. But meanwhile, still writing the script. Um, every two or three days. Did you have to, I mean, I've, I've heard crazy stories from lots of friends of mine who, you know, have navigated the, this world and the lengths to which they would go. Like I have doctor friends who get hooked on fentanyl and things like that. And like, they just tell the most elaborate stories about how they're able to, whether they're stealing script paths

or even doctors who are falsifying their own scripts and how they would rotate which pharmacies they would go to. And they knew the shifts of who's gonna be behind the counter at a certain time, like all this shenanigans to make sure that they would be able to cop. There was a little bit of that, but mostly they just wanted free legal work. Right. Oh, so that was an eye-seeker. Yeah, there was quid pro quo there for sure.

Wow. You know, and the other thing I found out is that I possessed all their secrets. I was all their lawyer. I was their lawyer. So, you know, they had a vested interest in keeping me happy. That's a very interesting devil's bargain. Well, I didn't know that. I didn't even realize how manipulative I was being.

You know, I wasn't interested. I just wanted the drugs. Right. I didn't really understand any of that at the time. And was it always Demerol or did that morph into Oxy and other things? Well, after six or seven years or so, the change was pretty imperceptible from a day-to-day basis. It was hard to be able to... There's no way I could have figured it out. But if you had looked at me kind of in a cut of time of two years or three years, you would have seen massive changes of personality and of

weight. And I'd blown up to 285 pounds at one point. And just kind of like the pores open of someone who is continually going through withdrawal. Yeah. And then- Sort of that clammy pallor. Oh, yeah, yeah. I can't even, I look like Luca Brazzi. That's what I look like actually, you know. Well, the other interesting thing, and I think it's important to point this out, just to be completely, you know, kind of intellectually honest about the whole thing is that in the first phase of this, your law practice blossoms, right? Because you become kind of this unqualified id. Like, you're able to aggressively pursue these deals without fear. Like, it kind of masks all of these things that hold us back in certain respects. And I think, you know, that's what initially hooks the drug addict in because it

works for a while until it stops working. Well, it was a disinhibitor for sure. And I was willing to take on a lot of risk. And so things were flying. I mean, it was go, go, go. And it was the run-up to the dot-com boom. And some of my clients were offering me pieces of their companies in exchange for legal services and other kind of seichel I had. And then at some point, I stopped being able to show up. And it was getting pretty tense. And then at some point, I stopped being able to show up. Yeah. And it was getting pretty tense. And I had a client who had hurt himself badly. He had neck surgery, and it was ugly. And he walked into my office one day, and he suspected what was going on with me a little bit.

And he just dumped a handful of Oxycontin on my desk. And he had a limitless supply because he could back then. And that was it. I mean, there was a tipping point where there was no return from, no way. Wow. So that guy was like the ultimate enabler. He knew you were doing this and he knew that you had a problem and he's like, here's your unlimited supply. He wanted a friend and he wanted someone, there was no question, you know,

and for days I didn't go to work. I sat in his den and we watched the golf channel and just zoomed out, you know, it was, it was. So no one's showing up to work. Well, I wasn't showing up to work. The people who worked for me, they were concerned, but I didn't understand that. And what I've learned since how much undiagnosed

bipolar disorder, you know, that I had back then and how I was really self-medicating. And it had been bad my whole life. I just didn't really know because I had been medicated in one way or another throughout. Just in your own way through partying, trying to... Yeah, trying to quiet my mind. Yeah. Mostly manic. Have you had... So you've had manic episodes? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. What does that feel like? Feels great. Yeah. That's what I've heard. That's the problem.

That's why people that have bipolar don't want to be medicated, right? Yeah. I mean, I've always, since I was diagnosed and that had certainly was concurrent with my fall, I've been hypervigilant. But I would go through phases kind of where I was semi-normal, and then I would get super smart and be able to solve, see connections other people couldn't see and solve all kinds of problems, and then slide into megalomania. And so I would have a doctor, for example, client who wanted a way to put his business together. And then in the same conversation, 10 minutes later, I'm talking to him about opening up 10 offices instead of one. And he would look at me like I'm crazy. Like, you know, we're having enough problem with one, you know, like what's this about? And then inevitably the crash would happen and I'd fall into depression. It's almost like cocaine talk. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Very much. Is it the most, the most accurate representation that I've ever seen in media, like in narrative

media is, is the character in Homeland. Did you watch that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Because her episodes seem to be, from what I understand of the disease, to be the most kind of naturalistic and realistic compared to what it's actually like. When I saw some of her manic episodes, and it refreshed my recollection of some of the things I did. And people around me knew. I mean, I had- Of course. Yeah, but I didn't know. And my staff would line up at my office door, which would be closed, and my assistant was outside, and they would be checking in with her, like where I was on the

My assistant was outside, and they would be checking in with her, like, where I was on the sine curve. On the sine curve. On the sine curve. And if I was being smart or I was being crazy, and, you know, they knew, but I didn't know. Well, we have a chalkboard here if you want to start writing equations down and pinning out pictures. Yeah. I mean, does it work like that, where you're up all night, like, brainstorming, solving the universe's problems? It pictures. Yeah. I mean, does it work like that where you're up all night, like brainstorming, solving the universe's problems? It did. Yeah. It did. No, not anymore. I mean, but it took a lot of years of medication trials and things like that to figure it out.

But what's it like when you pour Demerol or OxyContin on top of that? What does that mixture translate into? Well, I mean, that was pretty soporific. So that kind of brought me down out of my mania for the most part. But the bouncing up and down was the worst thing that could possibly happen. Yeah. As was the stress of being in that kind of a law firm too. So I didn't know. And what's going on at home with your wife?

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, she claims that, you know, this is my ex-wife. You know, she claims that she didn't know, and I believe her. And she claims that she didn't know, and I believe her. Because I was just this big, gregarious personality, back-slapping personality. And people made a lot of – because the money was there and the personality was there, people made a lot of, cut me a big wide swath. But I'm sure behind my back. Jeff will take care of it.

Don't worry about it. He's the guy. Back then, I was a fixer. But I'm not sure that that's a good term anymore. But back then. Like in the Michael Clayton sense of it? Michael Clayton fixer, not the Michael Cohen fixer. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess. But, you know, Michael Clayton sense of it? Michael Clayton fixer, not the Michael Cohen fixer. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess. But, you know, Michael Clayton, I mean, he's, you know, hitting the poker games and doing a lot of kind of underground stuff too. Yeah. Is that part of your lifestyle also? Well, you know, I might have thought I was like George Clooney, but probably not really. Right. Probably not really.

So the wheels are progressively falling off the wagon. But really, the life changer is a couple of lines that you crossed. Yeah. You can't really ever take back. No, no. So walk me up to those points. Well, I mean, the firm started to decay. And I didn't really know it.

And the day came when we ran out of cash. And it wasn't a large amount, really. And there's a lot of things I could have done with a phone call. But instead, I told my office manager to move some money out of the client escrow account and into the operating account. And she looked at me like I was crazy. I mean, I remember the conversation, you know, like, is this, you sure this is something you want to do? And I said, yeah, do it. And, you know, it was just. A couple of clicks on the keyboard. The screen was open and problem solved for the day.

And I had no idea that that was the beginning of the end. Yeah. Yeah, no idea. But you knew it was a no-no. Oh, yeah. You knew. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But, you know, so were the end. Yeah. Yeah, no idea. But you knew it was a no-no. Oh, yeah. You knew. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, but so were the drugs. I mean, it was just part of that pathology. It was just playing out. The decision-making is not so good at this point. No, I can't blame it on anything other than, I don't blame it on anything other than, I don't blame it on the drugs, you know, but I certainly, I wasn't fully aware of what the consequences

were going to be so life-altering and so permanent. Well, part and parcel of being an addict is an inability to ask for help, right? So you trying to solve this problem, like let's just, I'd rather break the law and violate every ethic that has to do with being a lawyer than raise my hand and say, hey, look, I have a problem here.

Like I can't meet payroll. Can somebody help me out? That would be to admit weakness. And that's for whatever reason, very difficult for somebody who's in the throes of addiction. Yeah. Well, also I wasn't going to get caught. I mean, there was, you know, this was something private and small.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. You're going to be able to manage this. Oh yeah. And I can, I'll put it back tomorrow, which I did. And then the day after tomorrow came and I did it again, and it became a wallet for our firm. Right. Once you do it once, then it becomes easy to do it again.

Yeah, there's no question. And where does this all catch up to you? There was an investigation that started through the, uh, ethics committee, the grievance committee and, uh, over something small. And, uh, I had a higher ethics lawyers and I was being, uh, investigated and there were a lot of interviews and, um, and I thought I was doing well. And I thought that maybe I was going to slide through it because I'm sure that was denial. But at no point did I think that my career was over. And I was taking in new clients and then 9-11 happened.

And I just felt everything fall out from under me. Just there was like every sense of safety or structure or just went in that moment. And I became a madman and clients started, just clients started to shrivel up. And within a couple of months, there was a, there were ads on the radio and on TV for businesses that, businesses that had been adversely affected by 9-11. And in truth, I didn't know if it was the drugs or 9-11 or what, but I was sitting there with a shattered firm. And I called up the SBA, Small Business Administration, that was advertising for businesses to get in touch with them.

And I asked them, I told them my story, and they told me I would qualify. And they sent me an application and I filled it out. And I just couldn't help myself but to embellish that application and claim I had a office that was a block away from ground zero. And I didn't need to do it. So you write up this application that you have a Manhattan office right down in the Wall Street area.

Exactly. Actually, in Trump's building at 40 Wall Street. Oh, you were that specific? Oh, yeah. Oh, no, you had to be specific. And in truth- And so easily verified. But in truth, I had a conference room relationship with a law firm there. And so that address was on my letterhead.

Oh, I see. So it wasn't- Okay, so there is, I see. Okay, all right. But there was no economic effect. And you were never really going there, right? I'd never been there actually. And there was no economic effect. And you were never really going there, right. I'd never been there, actually. And there was no economic effect of having lost that office on me or my firm.

And I embellished that. I actually had. Right. So you get this loan. It's like 200 grand. Yeah, $247,000. $247,000. Yeah.

Which alleviates your need to dip into the client trust account, I would imagine. That's also drying up because the clients are running for the hills because you're a lunatic. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And your staff is down to a skeleton crew at this point? Well, at some point, I figured out that this was not going in a good direction. And I made arrangements for all my staff and all my files and everything to go to another law firm. And so for the last three or four months before

I hit my bottom, I was pretty much alone in that office. Uh-huh. What's interesting is you hit your bottom and you get sober before the chickens come home to roost on the loan thing. So what precipitates your bottom? Well, what happened was a business associate of mine that I had treated badly in the couple of years before, he wound up preparing an affidavit or a letter, a lengthy one, detailing everything I had done wrong I had done to him, including my opioid abuse and things like that and all kinds of other things. And my ethics attorney became aware of it sent me a copy and I read it And I called him up and I said is this it I mean are we done? And he said yeah, you're pretty much done. There's nothing we can do from here So I said to John in terms of being tried. Yeah exactly. Trying to defend my law license. Yeah.

So I said to him, all right, why don't you just resign my law license for me? And I went to my doctor friend and I got a prescription of Demerol, you know, 40 tabs. And went home. And after my wife and ex-wife and kids went to sleep, I took the whole vial. It's like 40 tabs. Yeah. Yeah. And I knew what I was doing. I mean, I was trying to kill myself. Was it a real suicide attempt or was it a desperate call for help? I mean, 40 seems like enough, but your tolerance must have been insane. My tolerance was insane, but I don't think, I thought 40 would be enough.

That was the point. I thought 40 would be enough. And I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out whether or not it was a real attempt or a cry for help, but I wanted the noise in my head to stop. There was like no way. And just what the price to pay, I didn't understand it. I just knew that everything that I had and this life and this house and the cars and the prestige.

this life and this house and the cars and the prestige. And at that point I was on the local school board and I owned health clubs and I owned real estate. And it was all- You have like a restaurant too? I owned a restaurant. Yeah, I was, you know, I was just one of those guys. And I knew it was all gonna tumble down. It was gonna tumble down anyway, you know,

but I knew it was gonna tumble down. So I took it was going to tumble down. So I took it. It's interesting that, I mean, I can see that it was a real attempt in the sense that you kind of calmly relinquished all of it. You're like, just let go of my, you just let it all go rather than fight it. Yeah. There's a giving up in that where it's like, it's, it's done. It's done. It was actually the least dramatic part of the, of those 10 years, probably it was just, it was the feather on the, on the scale and just landed. And that was it. Just go do what I got gotta do. And that was it. With addicts, there's also,

there also tends to be a narcissism in these attempts. It's like, now I'm gonna, you know, this is how I'm gonna go out and people are gonna say, oh, poor Jeff, you know, like there's, was part of that thinking? Oh, well, I definitely was, I definitely was, you know, wanted to know how many people were gonna show up at my funeral. Right. You know, that kind of thinking, yeah. You know, but I were going to show up at my funeral.

Right. That kind of thinking, yeah. But I had been thinking that for a long time. I didn't know if there was anything of myself left at that point. Did you have a conscious awareness of how you had been the architect of your own destruction? No. Or were you in a victim mentality of everyone's out to get you and you're just doing what you need to do to survive and why is this happening to me?

It wasn't like I had clarity at that point because it wasn't like I was clear and then took that vial of drugs. I was probably stoned already. Right. So it was probably a victim mentality in there. Sure, everything was my parents' fault kind of thing. And so how do you not die after taking 40 Demerol?

I think you hit it. I had a huge tolerance, but I woke up in the floor in the morning and I vomited all over myself. And I didn't go kind of the Jimi Hendrix way. You woke up on your own or did your wife? No, no, I woke up on my own. It was pretty early. And I knew where in the kitchen we had some more,

we would have had some more things I could take. And I kind of crawled to the kitchen. I remember hoisting myself up to try to get it. And I realized I had taken them too. I mean, and so then there was the, there was a trip to the, you know, a couple of days later, I actually detoxed. I didn't go to the hospital. But a few days later, I called Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan.

And I wanted to go there. I knew to go there because clients of mine who had OD'd went there. That's where they went. So you made a decision like I'm done and you did your own self-styled detox at home. Well, I had done it a hundred times before. So it wasn't as if I was ignorant

of what a withdrawal would be like. This was just the super one. This was the biggest one I'd ever been through. And certainly the first one I overtly tried to kill myself. Opiate withdrawal is gnarly. It was bad. It was bad. And-

How long did it go on for? I don't know, three or four days probably. It was bad. So you waited until you'd weathered that before you checked yourself into treatment? Oh yeah, because I knew better than anybody. You didn't wanna look like shit going to treatment. Oh no, no, I mean, yeah.

But you know what happens with people who have a lot of experience in these things, you become kind of like a mad professor of drugs. I was like, I had a Merck's manual and a PDR there. And so I knew my drugs. And were you doing it total cold turkey or were you cleaning yourself up? Yeah, that was the problem.

I was going through all the physical manifestations. It was bad, but then not. No, that was the problem. You know, I was going through all the physical manifestations. It was bad, but then not. But I knew that that was it. You did. So you had a sense that this, as somebody who's tried to get sober many times on your own, you know what it's like. It's like, okay, this time I'm never going to do it again. But kind of in the back of your head, you're like, you're not really sold on the idea, but this was qualitatively different. You knew.

Well, every other time it was two hours or two days later, I was back at it, but something was different here. This was, well, I didn't have a life to go back to. I knew that, you know, I knew everything was gone. I didn't, I didn't really understand at all at that point, Everything was gone. I didn't really understand at all at that point the gift of a hard bottom. That's something I learned later, but everything was gone. And so going to rehab was a blessing. And you were in rehab for like seven weeks or something like that? Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Yeah. weeks or something like that? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I remember I was about, first I had to go to the acute care unit where they put people who were endangered to themselves or who could OD or could die from detox or whatever. And then five days later, I got moved to a step-down facility. And clear of all those opiates I'd been taking, I started to have amazing awarenesses of what I had done and all this victimization that I'd been going through my whole life. And I started to see things, the first little pieces of clarity started coming through. Well, that could also provoke quite a bit of anxiety without your medication to buffer

the impact of that truth landing on you like, wow, my whole life is decimated. Well, they had already started me on bipolar meds at that point. I mean, I got diagnosed pretty fast. And so there was a whole different kind of haze I was in for a while. I was adjusting to- You did the Thorazine shuffle? A little bit. Yeah.

Okay. I- That was a shame, one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I've never told this before, but I wandered into the creek at the rehab, and they found me just walking through the creek in the water, like a guy in his bathrobe in the creek. Right. That kind of image. Go get Michael Clayton.

He wandered off the reservation. So I had a- In his bathrobe. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And a few weeks before I hit my bottom, of course, I had to go out and lease a brand new BMW 7 Series. Of course.

You know, of course, because, you know, I was insane. So I had driven that car up to the rehab. insane. So I had driven that car up to the rehab. So it's sitting there like as a testimony to my old life and I could barely look at it. And so there's a whole story how I got rid of that car, which is amazing too. But I knew that I just couldn't go back there, that's for sure. So how do you begin to piece your life back together in the aftermath of all of this? Well, certainly through recovery. I mean, seven weeks in rehab, and they brought recovery meetings in, and I kind of took to them. And I kind of took to them. And more, I think, to the structure than to anything I was,

I was too out of it to learn anything. I was gone. And on the first day out of rehab, I did what I was told to do. I showed up at the meeting and I raised my hand. And I said, I'm Jeff and I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and I need a temporary sponsor. And I gave, you know, like three seconds on my drug of choice, or I can't remember right now, but at the end of the meeting, the leader who had been leading the meeting, and I thought it was the boss, you boss. I didn't know. It was my first meeting. I didn't know.

And he came up to me and he said, this is for alcoholics and you've done drugs and you're in the wrong meeting. How dare that guy say that? I've never heard anybody say anything like that. Well, you're a West Coast guy. Yeah, that's interesting. Wow.

And this other guy came up to me who was standing right there and he was the spitting image of Freddie Mercury. I am telling you this guy, I thought it was Freddie Mercury in my haze. And he said to me, don't mind that guy, I'll be your temporary sponsor. And Brian T was my sponsor. And he gave me very clear instructions, you know, like,

you know, what to do. And for 30, 60 days, I went to a noon meeting every day and I fell asleep with my head against the wall because I couldn't even focus. But you showed up. I showed up. Took direction. Yep. Made yourself known. Yep.

And then- Began to take accountability. Did all that stuff that seems completely unrelated to staying sober. Like- Yeah, I was just struck in. People, take numbers, make coffee. Lie a lot. Lie a lot.

Lie a lot. Keep coming back. Yeah, exactly. But we had to get rid of the house. And of course I did what every... You have no income at this point. No income at this point. And a little, you know, some savings, but no income.

And I did what every sane guy does when they lose their house and their career and their reputation. I moved to Greenwich, one of the wealthiest communities in the country. Why would you do that? Because I had started going to AA meetings there, the recovery meetings there. And those meetings were so important to me that I had to be there. And also, it was only six miles from our home. And although the state line is huge in terms of media and in terms of interconnectivity,

but I figured my kids would still be able to maintain relationships with their friends. And that was true. That happened. But there we were in Greenwich. And for the next 20 months or so, I was living in an apartment in Greenwich and going to meetings. And I went three times a day,

four times a day sometimes. And I was a lockstep in recovery. That was my life. And this saves your life. Saved my life. Yeah. Absolutely. It's interesting to me.

I'm always encouraged when I hear stories like yours of people whose lives have been spared as a result of the 12 steps. Because in our fast-paced modern culture, it seems like every year there's some new hot take on what sobriety is or should be. And now we know more about addiction and alcoholism than we ever have before. And all these other ideas are antiquated. And, you know, maybe there's truth in that. Maybe there's not. But I know that 12 Step and Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. It saved the lives of so many people that I know.

And it works. Well, it worked for me. Yeah. It worked for me. I have no opinion on how people get sober if they find other ways of doing that, more power to them. I just know that this is what has worked for me and continues to work for me and remains my number one priority. Well, it's a big world. And I assume there's people getting sober other ways. Yeah, of course.

But for me, it worked. And it gave me a home, a family, people who weren't judging me. And I had abandoned all my people, places, and things because nobody would talk to me. I was a pariah. And so I didn't have the places, I didn't have the things, and I didn't have the people. So that hard bottom was a blessing. Yeah.

And it had to force you to right-size your ego and take stock in the inventory of how you were living and figure out a new approach to how you were going to get through the day. Yeah, inch by inch. Big thoughts like that probably didn't happen for a while. I was just trying to survive. But little did you know that you had another bottom waiting for you in the midst, right? It was lurking. So I was sober about 20 months, So I was sober about 20 months, and I got a call on my cell phone from two investigators from the government. I remember them as FBI agents, but in retrospect, they were probably from another government division. And they told me that I had a, there was a warrant out for my arrest

in connection with that loan. And I had no idea. When I tell you I was in complete denial. I mean, I had done my ninth step, my eighth step, my ninth step. And I wrote down everyone who I had harmed and what my wrongs were. And there were 136 names on that list and not the government.

Huh. Had you made payments on that loan or repaid it? No. No. So you even, setting aside the fact that it was a fraudulent loan, you had defaulted on it as well. Oh, yeah. But it still didn't make your ninth step? I had no idea.

That's a big blind spot. Yeah, well, as it turns out, it's not uncommon. Yeah, I know. Listen, man, I'm not judging. I know, I know. I've done analogous things. So you're like, man, I thought I was on the mend here. Well, it had a 30-year repayment schedule.

So I thought I had some crazy, I had 30 years to repay it or something. I don't really know. But it was, I'm not being flip about it. I'm just telling you the truth is that I had no idea whatsoever. Right. So you're like, wait, what? That loan? And were they like get in the back of the Suburban?

No, no. I mean, I was certainly conscious enough in that conversation to ask them. I asked them, you know, what do you want me to do? Do you want to come get me or do you want to give me some time to come down? You know, I've been a lawyer for a long time. And they said, I had two weeks, you know, I said, I'll go hire a lawyer. I'll come down. And'd been a lawyer for a long time. And they said, I had two weeks. I said, I'll go hire a lawyer. I'll come down. And I did. And so two weeks later, I had to appear at the US courthouse at the 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan. And I hadn't been down there since 9-11. So when I got down there, it was still like a war zone and with the barricades

and the checkpoints and military with machine guns and things in front have felt worse. It was, you know, like, and, um, and I knew that my, my crime was, you know, having taken advantage of, uh, an, an economic benefit relating to 9-11 and it was searing, you know, it was just, it was, it was, there was nothing I could do. You know, I wanted, I wanted to get high, but there was no way I was going to ever go back. And so it was the first time I was ever handcuffed and put in a cell until my arraignment. And did you plead guilty or did you try to fight this? No, I don't remember what happened at my arraignment, to be honest. I just know that I was released without a bond and I would be sentenced at some point in the future. Were you released on your own recognizance?

So you could go home before sentencing. I went got yeah and then it took two years to get sentenced oh really oh my god so you have to live with the looming inevitability that you might be going to jail for two years and for that reality and and the hope that i wouldn't and in the and the reason i went to jail probably the reason I went to jail, probably, the reason I went to prison was no judge was going to give a non-confining sentence to someone whose crime was somehow related to 9-11. Not in that climate. It just couldn't happen. Right, taking advantage of 9-11 for your own personal gain. Exactly. Is there anything more reprehensible in a civil context?

And he said that during the sentencing. He said that. You know, that at the same time, because I had been in recovery and had done a lot of service and had sponsees and had 50 letters of recommendation and everyone, and the room was packed with people from Greenwich recovery. He came down as character witnesses. Yeah, he downward departed me. So I had a lesser sentence than I otherwise would have had. So what was the sentence ultimately?

18 months. 18 months. What was the sentence, short of all of those character witnesses showing up, what do you think it would have hit you with? It could have been anywhere from 21 to 28, as I recall, something like that. So I wouldn't say I was happy with the 18 months. I mean, I was happy with the 18 months.

I was expecting something, but there was a huge sense of relief that went along with the fear. Like this phase is over. I don't know. It had been delayed and delayed and my family was in- Just because now you know what you're contending with. Yeah, yeah.

And so three or four months later, no, maybe two months later, I had a report to a prison, Allenwood, low security prison out in Pennsylvania. Uh-huh. And I had been told that I was going to go to Club Fed, to a camp where white collar guys go. And I had a security level of zero. Read a lot of books, play some tennis. Yeah, sure, of course. Okay.

And at that point, I had read a lot of books on confinement. And I had read Mandela and Bonhoeffer and Man's Search for Meeting Viktor Frankl and a lot of things that kind of put me in that headspace where I was. Preparing for this. Yeah, and because at that point I'd been sober almost four years, there's no doubt that was the biggest influence on me in terms of making it part of my recovery. making it part of my recovery. But I found out that I was designated to a low security prison with bars and controlled movements and walls and dogs and fences and razor wire. What happened, like no vacancy at the country club?

It's exactly what it was. On the day I was designated- You didn't have any chits that you could call in? I tried. From the Michael Clayton days? No, I tried. Did you? I tried. Actually, I-

You were like, I know a guy. Here's the guy you called. No, I hired a prison consultant who took money from me. There's guys, I didn't even know that there was such a thing. Oh, of course, yeah. It's a sub-industry for everything, right? Yeah. And he took money from me and then did nothing.

He's supposed to broker this deal that- A change of designation, yeah. As it turns out, like five years or six years later, there was a special on Dateline or 2020, one of those shows. And he was the subject of one of those episodes where he was wanted for murder. Oh, man. So it was- That's dark.

That is some Michael Clayton shit. You know what I mean? Like this guy's probably, you know, on the speed dial of a lot of hedge fund managers and guys like that who are in the crosshairs of the feds. Oh, there's a whole story. Right. Yeah, but you know,

I hadn't heard a word about the guy in all those years and I like pointed at the TV and- Like that's the guy who didn't do anything? Yeah, and I don't know if I was remarried at that point, but I said to Lynn, my wife, I said, that's the guy, you know, that's the guy. So no country club for you. No.

But still minimum security. But was it filled with like more violent offenders or were they all like sort of white collar financial offenders? No. There were 1,500 inmates on that compound. And there were five former stockbrokers, two former doctors, five former stockbrokers, two former doctors, one former lawyer, that was me. And the other 1,500 were drug dealers and violent criminals. And that's just the way it was. That's got to make for an interesting social dynamic. Yeah. I mean, it was nothing I knew about and back then it wasn't like it is now where there's a lot of information out there and on the internet and there's a lot of resources to be able to pull from and we were alone i was i had no information going in and um

and i walked in the door and I was handcuffed and strip searched. And as, again, another divine moment, my sentencing judge had made a mistake on my report date. So I reported on Easter Sunday. And when we got up there, there was no intake people. I mean, it was Easter Sunday. So I was actually, I was actually admitted by the, by the head Lieutenant of the entire compound. And he was standing there with a clipboard and looking pretty fierce. And I was naked. And he said to me, so you're the lawyer. And I said, no, I used to be.

And I didn't know that was exactly the right answer. You know, I was, there was- Right, it's a test. Like, is this guy gonna cause problems for me? Well, yeah, he wanted to know if I was gonna be making money off other inmates and if I had a hustle going and things I knew nothing about. I was just showing up and trying to tell the truth.

And what's the day-to-day reality in a place like that versus what we might know only from movies or television? Well, if you take Orange is the New Black, for example, there's an example of a pretty low security prison. And you take everything that happens there in one episode, if you spread that out over a year or two, that's pretty much what happens in a prison. So everything happens, it just happens on a different timeline, a more expansive. Mostly it's people sitting around reading, doing very little. You go to work, you work for three or four hours, you come back. There's not that much drama. You don't have to form alliances for protection. You know, maybe if I was younger, at the time I was 48 years old, and maybe if I was a young buck and part of the pecking order or if I was a gang guy or something, it might have been different.

But mostly I was left alone. But just like if you worked in, you know, if anybody works in a sea of cubicles for some company, you know, it's the humdrum existence, I imagine. You know, I never did that. But you show up and you do your work. But when something exciting happens, something exciting happens. In prison, when something exciting happens, it's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, it's dangerous.

And I saw some things I never thought I would see. Like the shanks and the lockdowns. And my only point of reference is what I see on the tube. Yeah, well, I mean, I saw a couple of people get killed and it was really, really frightening. It was surreal. You know, I couldn't really believe what I was seeing. Like I'd never seen people behave that way. And it was fast and very, very fast and very violent.

And you stayed sober. I stayed sober. Was there AA? There was AA, there was NA. And there were classes I had to take for substance abuse classes. And the AA was remarkable in there because it was mostly inner city guys. And when I first got there, because I had four years of sobriety on the street, when I got to the AA meeting, there were guys who we went around the room and they introduced themselves in their day count

or their year count. And there were guys who were reporting that they had three, four, five years of sobriety, but their sentences were longer than that. So they were getting stoned in prison. And not one person in that room had ever spent one day clean on the street. And they were fascinated by-

So that gives you some stature, I guess, right? Like as somebody who has an experience that they don't have. Well, there was certainly a trade going on. I mean, the trade going on was that they taught me how to stay sober in prison. And the greatest fear they had was going back out on the street

and being tempted quickly by women, drugs, whatever. Yeah, because you're no longer in a controlled environment, right? Oh yeah, well, this is the first sense of community that most of them have ever had in their lives. You know, you don't realize even how much isolation people live in. And this was, I mean, people don't really know what it's like in a prison. I mean, there's a, it's a family in a way.

Of the white-collar criminals that were in this prison, how many of them were there in some way related directly or indirectly to drugs and alcohol? Were there offenses kind of intertwined with drinking and using? I think that 100% of them. But I don't know that they were drug crimes, but massive part of- But just compared judgment. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And you do the whole 18 months? I did 13 and a half months. 13 and a half, okay. And then I came out to a halfway house and then to a home confinement. And I lived with a friend in Connecticut for a few months until my sentence was over. And then I started three years of federal probation. And the first wife, when did she split? I was kicked out. Are you okay? I was kicked out.

When did that happen? That was right, that was right. Before prison, during prison? Oh no, that was right after I got arrested. So that was back in 2004. And for good reason, she was right. Yeah, what's your relationship with her now? Do you talk to her at all or?

Yeah, it's civil. It's civil, you know, relationship with her now? Do you talk to her at all? Yeah, it's civil. It's civil. I hurt her. I hurt her, I hurt my children. It took a lot of years to reform relationships with my children. How old are your kids now? 34 and 30.

And I have three grandchildren and one on the way. And I didn't know if I would ever see them. I didn't, but things are better now. So you get out of prison, you're in halfway houses, sober living, trying to figure out how you're gonna make your way in the world without being able to do the one thing you know how to do, to make a living.

Yeah, apart from it. Yeah. And, but I had a drug and alcohol counselor. I was also, also in my sentence, I had to go to one year of drug and alcohol counseling after prison. And it just so happens he was a ex-priest who became a ex-Catholic priest who became a drug and alcohol counselor. And he asked me, what are you going to do? And I was a product of recovery. So I said, well, I'm going to go to recovery and I'm going to have sponsees and I'm going to do my thing. And he said- My job is AA. Yeah, my job is AA. And he said to me, well, maybe it's a good idea to do some things that you can put on a resume. And that was like an aha moment.

And so like, oh yeah, resume. I never really had a resume before. So I called up Silver Hill and I told them my story that I'd been to prison and I want to come volunteer there. And they told me to come right over because I happened to be in the area. And I went over there, and I sat down with them, and we talked for a while. And they told me that they wanted me to become a volunteer, and they made me fill out an application,

and they were going to do a background check. And I wasn't quite sure what the background check was about because I told them everything that, but of course that's their process. And I left there thinking, if I can't get a volunteer job in my own rehab, how am I ever going to be able to do anything? But I got a call from them two hours later

and they told me I could start. And I collated paper. I did stapling. I did whatever. I did whatever and worked my way through to more and more responsibility there. And where does Divinity School enter the picture? Well, I was volunteering in a couple of different places for a couple of years.

And it became clear that I wanted to be in a helping profession. And kind of like when I first started, wanted to be a lawyer. I thought it was a helping profession. And kind of like when I first started, wanted to be a lawyer, I thought it was a helping profession. I didn't realize how much the money would subsume all that. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to see a pastor at the church and I was Jewish at the time.

I didn't think we said that yet. No, I was gonna get to that. I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that. I know you're aware. How does this Jewish guy end up, you know, becoming a reverend? Well, you know, there's a transformation that happens, you know, not just in recovery, you know, you know that. I mean, you know, you there's no question that I was embracing a different form of theology that I really understood. But I hadn't converted. I hadn't been baptized at that point. And so I went to the pastor in the church that Lynn and I were going to. And I told him that I want to do something meaningful.

And he said, why don't you consider going to seminary? And I had no idea what that meant. I mean, I really, I'm- I'm a nice Jewish kid from Long Island. Yeah, but I thought a seminary is where monks walked around with the hoods and all. And he said, no, it's a progressive seminary and it was a place where you learn about social justice.

And that resonated with me. So I applied and I had to write down, I had to tell my story really for the first time in writing. And I had no illusions that I was gonna get admitted to the seminary, but a little while, didn't take that long and I got admitted. And so-

To Union, it's called Union? Union Theological Seminary. And it's in Morningside Heights. It's a part of the Columbia University family, yeah. When you were practicing law and using and just doing you, living the Michael Clayton life, what was your relationship to spirituality then? I was a cultural Jew,

certainly not a religious or an observant one, but my daughters had been bat mitzvahed and we showed up to shul on high holy days. But I'd abandoned all of that. I mean, there's no question that once I got into drugs that any shred of spirituality had, was, it was gone. So then when you find yourself in treatment

and in 12 step, you have to, you know, reconnect with that aspect of who you are. And one of the things that, you know, people who are struggling or who are suffering find difficult is this concept of God that's kind of packed into 12-step. And it's alienating for a lot of people. They're like, look, I know I need to get sober. I got to stop drinking or using. But this whole God business, it's just not for me.

So I'm just going to find another way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for me, it was, you know, it wasn't quite a guy with a white beard, but there's no, I was connecting to the God of my childhood for sure. You know, some omnipotent, omnipresent being, you know, there was an anthropomorphic aspect to it, but certainly I was praying. I was on my knees praying to something and it was forming, you know, it was forming as I kind of went through the next few years. And how did that evolve? Like, what does that look for, look like for you now? Well, now I consider myself a double belonger, you know, meaning I'm Jewish and I'm a Christian.

And that was a phrase coined by Paul Knitter, who was one of my professors at Union Theological, who was a Christian and a Buddhist. You can do that. Yeah. There's no rules. Who's giving permission? Exactly. And in truth, so much of it is about how we live and how we behave and living in right thinking and right action and right intent. And these are Buddhist ideological tenets within the Eightfold Path and all of that. And I didn't know that at the time, really.

I just knew that there was some kind of commonality. I didn't know that at the time, really. I just knew that there was some kind of commonality, but I definitely needed a theology of looking forward, of transformation and of rebirth. And I found that in Christianity. When you're in divinity school, are you exposed to these different modalities or is it a very Christian oriented? No, this is the most liberal, progressive seminary in the world. I mean, this was, I got introduced to all kinds of things I had never been around. And I was the, you know, I was the minority there because it was feminist and womanist and gay and transgender

and, you know and beautiful people, all of mostly who came out of some kind of suffering and were finding themselves in religion and faith and service. And it was the school of Bonhoeffer and of Niebuhr. And so it had a, and James Cone and black liberation theology. So it had a very, it was steeped in social justice.

But I was the odd ball out. I mean, it was then they were, it was Occupy Wall Street and I was one of the one percenters, you know? I mean, I- Plus you're like twice as old as everyone, right? I'm more than twice as old. But you mentioned before we were recording that you lived in the dorm.

For a while, for a while the dorm. For a while. You did. No, for a while. I was coming down from Greenwich every day and taking Metro North down to 125th Street. For a little while, we took a place in the dorm, mostly because I couldn't keep up with the work. I'd been out of law school for almost 30 years at that point. And I just couldn't do the reading. It was massive. I found it much harder than law school, much.

Wow. And are you employed at the rehab at this point? Like, do you have any income? Yeah. Or how do you make ends meet? Yeah, well, I'm up in, well, in that first year, it was probably, it was a little tough. Yeah.

But then I was up in Bridgeport and I was doing reentry work. And so living in Greenwich and going to school in Manhattan and taking the train up to Bridgeport. Right. And trying to work my way through the issues of why I was in seminary to begin with, because that wasn't abundantly clear. And for a while, I hid my background from everyone because I didn't want to be known as the prison guy. I didn't want that moniker on me.

But at some point, I knew I was having an inauthentic experience if I wasn't actually being honest about what my background was, what was informing my work and informing my papers and things like that. And once I did that, then everything just broke open. Was there, were you blocked out of fear of being judged

or what was the impediment to you just owning that aspect of why you were there? Yeah, I think it was that. And also that I was so busy that I was going to very few And also that I was so busy that I was going to very few AA meetings, very. And so I was sliding backwards into kind of a more selfish. I was in seminary, ironically, but feeling more selfish. And the awareness came to me at some point there that it's not about what I get from it.

It's what I put into it, which I had known from AA, but for some reason- A little daily reminder. Exactly. And once that happened- You're not in charge. Your self-will needs to be sublimated a little bit. So the polarity changed and I got through it. And it was a beautiful day when I graduated. And where does shame enter into all of this?

Like, what is your relationship to that? How have you weathered that aspect of your past? It's better now, mostly. of your past? It's better now, mostly, but on any given day I could wake up and the specter is there, you know, just everything. It could be overwhelming. And certainly service has changed all that, you know,

being helpful to others and seeing my, and identifying with their stories and little by little, I was able to move through and, you know, shame, you know, shame is, guilt is about what you did and shame is about who you are. And I was able to navigate that at some point, but it probably took a decade. Yeah. It was, it was hard. Yeah. I find that we're harder on ourselves than, than others are. And our community is more willing to forgive us than we're willing to forgive ourselves. Oh, that's true. That makes sense. Yeah. And I could see the change manifesting in my friends and the people around me, but I couldn't see the change in myself. Earning trust slowly, inch by inch with your community. Yeah. Yeah. But was that part of

not wanting to share your story with your peers in divinity school? I think so. I think so. I think so. I think so. It's so powerful. I mean, everybody loves a redemption story. As part of why you're sitting here, we love somebody who's coming back. And the ability to kind of own that past and shine a light on it is the ultimate way to kind of drain it of all its shame power. Well, I was in the middle of it at that point.

So it wasn't like I was, you know, I understood it as a story arc. You know, I was in the midst of it. And on any given day, it was just overwhelming. And I was just putting one foot in front of the other. Harder than law school. Harder than law school. Much harder than law school. Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah. So you get out and you find yourself at a church, right? I- Become a pastor, a reverend? Like how does all that, I don't understand how all that stuff works. Well, there was a, I had been working in Bridgeport for a while. And I developed a relationship with a pastor in an all-black church, Black Baptist church. And I knew I needed an experience- Like full-on Baptist, fire and brimstone, choir, like the whole thing?

Not Southern Baptist, but their own brand. And I went to him and I said, I asked him if there was a place for me. And I knew him pretty well at that point. And he made a place for me. And Lynn and I were the only white people in the church. And it was full of beautiful, beautiful people. But waning, you know, like a lot of those urban churches are, you know. But waning, like a lot of those urban churches are. It was a sanctuary that could fit 600 people probably. And on any given Sunday, there were 40, 50 maybe.

And so it was an awakening as to church polity and church, what it was to work in a church and to actually be pastoral. And I was developing a prison ministry at that point. And I was on the preaching rotation and doing all the worship that I'd experienced some of in divinity school, but certainly now it was on the ground and it was happening.

And when I would preach, Lynn, my wife, she would go outside under the overpass and speak to the homeless people and ask them if they wanted to come into church. And she would negotiate with them because they wanted things like a blanket or a jacket. They were cold. And she said, come into the church and we'll get you that stuff. And she brought them into the

church and they're all sitting in the back row. And she came up to me because I was preaching that day. And she told me that she had bartered with them. She was making, and she needed blankets and coats. And I said to her, where are we gonna get that? This church is poor. This church has nothing. But we lived in Greenwich. So that's when we started making the rounds of the churches in Greenwich and getting resources for the people in Bridgeport.

Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah. And so how long did you do that for? Two years. And at the same time I was doing that, I had been asked to join the board of a criminal justice nonprofit, which was an amazing experience because, you know, this was, I knew that I was, you know, I felt accepted. that I was, I felt accepted.

And so I was a, I was a formerly incarcerated person on a board of directors of a major nonprofit. And I was helping guys in Greenwich through AA who were on their way to prison or coming home from prison. And that's where I was kind of known as the prison guy. And there were, I would say over the 10 years I did that, I don't know, maybe a hundred guys I had helped.

And these were captains of industry. I mean, these were, you know, some of them you read about. This is where I feel like you really find your calling, right? You become the go-to guy for somebody in Greenwich who got in trouble, who's headed to prison, or somebody who recently got out of prison and is trying to figure out how they're gonna live in the world again.

And you're the man with experience. So a lot of people knocking on your door for advice. And this becomes not just a calling, but you sort of institutionalize this. You start this progressive prison ministries company that's now really the focus of what you do, trying to be a helping hand to people who have found themselves in your predicament. Well, I got a call from a reporter at a hedge fund magazine. And he asked me if I was the minister. Was I the minister to hedge funders? Uh-huh.

Yeah. And I told him the truth. I said, well, I'm ministering in Bridgeport, and I'm working in recovery with hedge funders in Greenwich, but those two concepts have never merged. And he said- And one's more interesting to the press than the other. One's a little more clickbaity. Oh, they love the white collar stuff. Yeah. And it's really interesting what you've done in this world. And we should say, like at the outset, there's definitely a sympathy issue here.

You're a guy in Greenwich. There's lots of big time money dudes, hedge fund guys, private equity, investment bankers, all those kinds of people. They get into trouble. They're looking at jail time. It's like, okay, so what are we, cry me a river for these guys?

Yeah. But I've learned a lot researching you and hearing you speak about the realities of what happens, not just to these individuals, but all the people that are in the wake of these offenses. Yeah. So walk me through that so we can better understand this whole dynamic.

Well, at that point, I didn't really know what we were going to do. I didn't understand it other than I knew that there was a constituency of people out there who weren't being served at all because I hadn't been served. And I knew from my experience in working with them in AA. So we went to the biggest church in Greenwich and we knew the pastor there. We knew the rector. And we said, listen, we have this crazy idea to become a white collar ministry and it's never been done before. And we don't even know if it could work. We have no idea. And he said to us, well, it's intriguing. And I explained to him, I believe that they're everywhere, especially in a place like Greenwich or Darien or New Canaan. And they're living in isolation and they're living behind closed blinds, and their families are affected, and we knew at that point that they were being asked to leave not just social clubs and country clubs and things like that, but they were being asked to leave their churches and their temples and their synagogues.

but they were being asked to leave their churches and their temples and their synagogues. And their kids were being ostracized, and parents wouldn't let their kids play with the children of these families as if they were infected. And I explained that. And what the rector said to me was, listen, why don't you go do your research, go take this on the road and see what's out there and come back to me because I need institutional support for this to happen. And for the next year, year and a half, we hit the road and we preached and hit conferences and it was amazing, the response. And the big turning point moment was at the Nantucket Project.

So that's why my heart is there. You got asked to speak. I got asked to speak. And share your story. Yeah. And so it was the first time out of a room that I would have ever actually told the whole story. Right, in a public forum. And I was scared to death.

I was scared to death. But you'd shared your story a million times in closed groups, right? You'd think it would help. You'd think it would be the same, but it wasn't. It wasn't at all the same. And also, I mean, you know that you develop kind of an AA banter, kind of a way of communicating, you know, and when I got up on the stage, I got brought to my knees. I mean, it was an experience like I'd never had, like a lightning bolt. There was none of the banter. There was none of the pithiness.

There was none of the making people laugh a little bit. It was raw. It was raw. I was shaking like a leaf. And I spoke there. Well, you spoke there this past year, but this was- It was like two years ago when you were, when you gave that speech? No, this was 2013. Oh, wow. Yeah, wow. And I couldn't hear a pin drop. I mean, the audience was,

there was no feedback whatsoever. And I became aware of that and I was scared. And at the end of it, when I'd finally gotten through the whole story, there was a standing ovation, which I don't remember. The only way I knew was from the tape afterwards, and then here was the pivotal moment because now there's, I was on the first night. I was in between Steve Case and a blind boy who sang Christian songs in perfect pitch.

So it was like I was between them of one of five speakers the first night. And the next three days we walked around and Rich, I'm telling you, a hundred people came up and hugged us and thanked us and told us their AA day counts and told us about their relatives and their children who were in rehab and deaths. And we went back to our hotel room. And Lynn and I looked at each other and said, like, what's going on? Like, the conversation that people want to have is no one's having it. And somehow we gave them permission to talk about their frailty and talk about their issues in a way outside of, you know, outside of anything we've ever experienced other than in an AA room.

Well, true emotional vulnerability is the ultimate connective tissue. Yeah, that's true. You know, and I think when you get up there and you allow yourself to be that raw and unedited and honest, people know that, you know, and it resonates with people. And it becomes that thing that you're so scared of that ultimately becomes your greatest strength and asset. Oh, it was liberative. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a turning point. You know, it was a moment that I knew that I had to do this.

Right. This was- An affirmation. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, so you start helping not only the underprivileged community in Bridgeport, but also the well-heeled in Greenwich. It's this bizarre dichotomy. Oh, my God. And when we talked last, you were kind of sharing with me some aspects of what that's like. And I read something also that kind of filled in, that colored between the lines for me on this, which is in the underprivileged community, when a member of that community is arrested for, let's say, a drug offense or something like that, the community congeals around that individual and that family and shows up to support them before, during, and after. In the white-collar, well-heeled

context, it's quite the opposite. It's immediate ostracization. Like you just said, everyone flees. No one wants anything to do with these people. And you're left with families that are, you know, a shell of what they used to be with spouses who are unable to pay the bills, you know, who have to go on food stamps, like all these things that you don't really think about or consider without any community support whatsoever. So as much as it's easy to, you know, not be sympathetic to offenders of this nature, there is real damage and consequences that extend beyond that individual's bad behavior. Well, also because we've been influenced by the media to paint everyone with this very broad brush. very broad brush, you know, an overwhelming majority of people who are prosecuted for white collar crimes are, are not the big name sensationalized stories that you, that you read about in, in the paper or you see on, uh, on CNBC. I mean, they're kind of just normal people who've, um, were desperate or, um, or, um, or addicted or, um, had mental health

problems or something went wrong and they found themselves at that tipping point. And I would say the great commonality of the great commonality is that, um, it's mostly guys, so I'll just talk about it as a male thing, that they didn't have the core character or ego strength to walk into the bedroom and say to their wives, look, I'm not the man I thought I was or I'm not capable of doing the things that we thought I was. So what we should do is we should simplify, you know, sell the house, sell the cars, simplify. And the reason they don't do it, and this is reported by maybe 95% of the guys I've worked with, a huge number, is because they were afraid their wives were going to leave them. And mostly because they spent a long time lying and not being a partner and being emotionally distant, overworking and being emotionally distant. And they were afraid that their wives, without the money,

that there was nothing left there and their wives were going to leave them. And what we found out as we progressed in this ministry was that most of the wives would have liked nothing better than to have the husband who they married 10 years before to have apologized and just said, you know, this, I've been on this, this train that, that, that left the station and, and I can't do it anymore. Yeah. It's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. Yeah. Or it's a context in which the water just is brought to a boil at such a slow rate that it's imperceptible what's happening until it's too late. It's death by death.

You know what I mean? Like I asked you if you knew Tom Harden, Timber X, and you're like, of course. And I was like, really? For longtime listeners of this podcast, you'll remember that he came on the show, it must be four or five years ago at this point, infamously known as the most prolific FBI informant in securities fraud history. Sure. A guy who crossed the line, made some trades he shouldn't have made,

got a tap on the shoulder, said get in the back of the Suburban and was faced with the prospect of prison or becoming a dutiful informant for the government, which he was more than happy to do, he fulfilled that role. And his work culminated in the arrest and prosecution of like a litany of big time high rollers. But he suffered the consequences of being, you know, when he was sentenced, everybody knew there was Tipper X, nobody knew who that was. When he was sentenced,

his name became publicly known. And that ostracization took place swiftly in his family. And I was able to get him on and share his story for the first time, really in a long form public format, while he was in the midst of grappling with what he was going to do with his life. And if you go back and listen to that, I'll share in the show notes, a link to that episode. It's one of my most favorite episodes because he's so raw and honest. And you can hear the desperation in his voice and the confusion because he hadn't, he was not figured out at that point what he was going to do. He was very unclear. He was new. He was a newbie. Brand new. And I shared this story with you and I'm going to do. No, he was very unclear. He was new. He was a newbie. Brand new. And I shared this story with you and I'm going to do it here just because I don't know that I've ever publicly said this about, I think it was a year ago. I was in New York. I was giving a talk

at a big investment bank that had brought me out to give a speech. And they usher me into this theater, amphitheater, and they said, oh, the people that are, there's a little panel going on right now, they're almost done, and then you'll go up. And I opened the door and I looked at the panel, and it was Tom Harden on stage, sharing his story of what he went through with a group of traders,

private equity people, investment bankers, in the hopes of sparing them the pain that he had suffered and the transgressions. And I just thought, what a beautiful, incredible, full circle moment to be able to bear witness to that after the experience that I had had with him initially. And I think his experience perfectly encaptures the kind of characters that you're of service to but also a success story in that he's found a way to take

this shame and everything that he's gone through and channel it for the betterment of other people yeah Tom's definitely involved in the cautionary tale aspect of it and trying to prevent things from happening or people from behaving in ways that are ultimately self-destructive. Because all of this is really about self-sabotage.

Yeah. Just trying to relieve ourselves of some inner demons somehow and people just blow themselves up. Or an ego that's so out of check that you just can't fathom that you'll ever be caught, that your experience is gonna be different. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so what's it like when you're dealing with these families and these individuals?

You know, what I've learned, what I've learned through this mostly is that, um, when I was in AA, I was, uh, I did a lot of 12 step work, a lot of service work. And, um, what I've learned is that my concept of service has really changed because it's not so much me trying to help anyone. it's not so much me trying to help anyone. What it is, is radically sharing my journey with them and inviting them into the emergence of my own authenticity. And hopefully that gives them the license and the permission, the agency to do that for themselves. And so there's very little filter right now between what I go through and what I experience and what I'm willing to share with anybody who's going through it. And that could be difficult for them because I'm telling them the truth. That could be difficult for them because I'm telling them the truth. But there's something, it's really about the healing.

It's there. Because until someone, you know this, until someone practices acceptance and surrender and that kind of honesty, those lives just aren't going to get better. But to be told from the outset with compassion and empathy and kindness that your life has value and that this isn't the end, but what we're going to do here is we're going to get real. We're going to get real. And that's been, and I do that by being real. Right, by just being an example of that. Mostly.

Provides a space and gives permission for that person to follow in suit. As opposed to, look, here's what you need to do. Here are the five things. It's like, it doesn't work, right? No. here's what you need to do here are the five things he's like it doesn't work right no but the power and just sharing your experience and owning it a hundred percent gives people a sense of hope that if they can do that then they can have a transformative experience as well and that i mean that's look we're talking about the work that you do with, you know, the underprivileged community in Bridgehampton and also this. Bridgeport.

Bridgeport. Bridgehampton. Bridgehampton. Yeah, that's even more high tone. You know, yeah, that was a bad. There we go. There we go. Very different communities and Greenwich, right?

So, but these are lessons and principles applicable to anybody that you would counsel through hardship. And that's happened because there's no question that we came to the realization that everybody, everybody is going through some kind of difficult life-altering experience, whether it be a death of a child or cancer or a divorce or a career death or whatever it is, and that these principles are universal and that we can help a lot of people through. And so there's a few things that we got to figure out along the way

and that the things that we were most afraid of were really probably the things that were best for us. And that this transformative moment is kind of in the middle. It's a liminal place where guys coming home from prison basically have refugee status. Yeah, it's not the end. It's the beginning, really. Yeah, but there's got to be a time period there where you're practicing acceptance and surrender and hopefully no longer mourning the past or anticipating the future. But this is about my development, my healing right now.

And where does forgiveness live in this liminal space? That's a hard one, you know, because there's forgiveness and then there's self-forgiveness. And I had overcome a lot of denial to really start to parse out forgiveness. And because I'd hurt a lot of people. Because I'd hurt a lot of people. And I only became aware of the level of people that I hurt by working with so many other men. And it became obvious to me about them that they'd hurt people. But all of this work is self-reflective.

So I started to understand that I hurt my ex-wife, I hurt my wife, I hurt my kids, I hurt my community, I hurt everybody. And with that level of acceptance and certainly being involved in a faith community that is about forgiveness, I started to forgive myself and felt forgiven. That's a big deal. Is there a difference between acceptance and self-forgiveness? Like they're pretty close. They're pretty close. Yeah, they're pretty close. I mean, for me, it's acceptance of reality. So the reality was where I was living in that moment. I mean, the fantasy had been broken, but to move to probably higher orders of acceptance and compassion and empathy, those moves took a long time. It took a long time. What do you think is the hardest part of this arc of healing that hamstrings the most people that you work with?

That we are prisoners of our own making. It's a strange thing. When I started this, the world was very different politically and economically. And then the criminal justice conversation has developed in the last 10 years to the point where it's a dinner table conversation. But we've gotten to the point now where companies and institutions will accept people who've been to prison. And maybe it's driven by, I don't know, under 4% unemployment and they need the help. I don't know. There's a lot of factors.

And the jobs, for example, is that the people who come home from prison, including white collar, don't have the ability to emerge. They're in these tight prison cocoons and they're trapped. And so we can't even get to job interviews. Don't have the self-awareness of, I mean, imagine the amount of capacity that is lost of tens of thousands of people who have advanced degrees and have so much experience and they're driving Uber or they're working in construction. And so much of that is about their own making. And can you find the opportunity in the dismantling? I mean, obviously, I would imagine you look back and you have some gratitude for these experiences that were on paper quite tragic and challenging and difficult to navigate, but you now live a life that I would presume

is much more fulfilling than the life you were living before. Yeah, I mean, I had no way of knowing. So to be able to kind of navigate that treacherous landscape from there to here is really the goal. And when I kind of canvas, when you scale up and look at it from 10,000 feet, it's as much a social problem as anything else.

Like we're in a time right now where, you know, we herald the billionaire like we never have before. We put a purported one in office and this is the ideal, the manifestation of the American dream. And so we've created institutions that funnel young people into systems that lead them to believe that the billionaire dream is possible for them. They become perhaps worn out by those systems and then cut corners because they're still adhering to this idea that they could be that person and end up on the wrong side of the law with that. But what's driving all of this? It's ego. It's greed.

It's our consumerist culture. It's a crisis of values and ethics that is fomenting what's beneath all of this, right? And as somebody who now lives in a spiritual place, how do you think about cultural mores and how we can raise the collective consciousness of society and culture at large to be a prophylactic against this kind of thing even happening to begin with. Well, that's the big idea. I mean, there's no question that it can't be just about being on the road and telling cautionary tales to business school students and prospective lawyers and hoping that 1% of that information will get through. There's got to be a radical shift.

But the things we honor are really strange because we might think that we honor the billionaire, for example, or we honor the rich and famous, but underneath it all is a deep sense of schadenfreude. We're waiting for them to fail we want them to fail and and um so there's this you know the you know the devil's not far from the door you know there's a sickness involved in it and and um so you know we um so do we do we do we really love Justin Bieber or do we love the fact that he's in the back of a squad car having been arrested? And I'm involved in the various stages of that with people.

it's one of the reasons why we've, well, first it's the reason why I accepted the job at Family Ranchery. You know, about three years ago or so, I was on the board of directors there and they asked me to become the executive director and CEO of that organization and which ended about three weeks ago but I would I was the first person who had been incarcerated for white collar crime in the country to be made the head of a major criminal justice organization. So that's not

the first person who's been to prison. That's the first white collar criminal. And that was a big move. I mean, it was a bold move for the board of directors, but I accepted the job because I wanted to be able to say that we can be trusted, that we can be in positions of respect and authority and that we don't have to live in shame. And at least that was the theory. And whether or not I've helped to move the needle even one degree, I don't know.

I mean, the proof will be in the pudding for that. But the conversation out there has certainly shifted. And there was a time when I couldn't get invited to any parties in Greenwich, for example. I mean, I was a pariah. I mean, I was a pariah. And then there was a time where I was an interesting story. Wait till you hear what Jeff has to say. Or I was the The party trick? Yeah, the token party trick, for sure, yeah. But I don't feel that way anymore.

And I'm certainly invited now to things that I wouldn't have been invited to in the past. And I'm walking erect and with my head held high. And so are a lot of other people. So is Tom Harden. This is a perfect example. Yeah. Because we don't have to live in it. And what does this mean more broadly in terms of trying to change our culture? Well, I mean, we're a culture

that at one point in our history, I believe, held basic character issues in high regard. Certainly ethics and morality were at the center of our university system. I mean, the first colleges in the country were seminaries. And somewhere in the middle of the last century, we abdicated that kind of training to professional schools. And then, for example, the business schools created something called business ethics. I don't even know what that means.

So how do we find our way back? I think it's happening. I think it's happening. I think that— Do you think it's happening as a reaction? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that people are much more aware. And I think that there's a few things going on at once. I think there is a call back into character and values. And you just see it even in people's lives. I mean, 20 years ago, dads weren't coming home to play soccer, you know, to coach soccer.

But now you see a whole backlash, I think. Backlash is probably the wrong word. But you see a new generation of people who are reinvested in their families in a different way. who are reinvested in their families in a different way. And it's certainly one of the reasons why, what we've taken on kind of a, what we'll call a ethical rehab approach. And so it's for people, either in prevention education

or in kind of the redemptive process, or then in the reunification of families and the restoration of people into whatever their new norm is going to be. But we're providing kind of the services that people would have in a drug and alcohol rehab, but specifically oriented towards ethical issues. towards ethical issues. So an example is Tiger Woods. He has ethical lapses of his own sort. Right. He gets chased down the driveway by his wife with the pitching wedge or the nine iron.

And he goes to his lawyer's office and his life is over. And the lawyer says to him, well, go to rehab. And he did for 90 days. And when he came out, he was someone who had evidenced a willingness to go through some kind of transformative experience. evidenced a willingness to go through some kind of transformative experience. And I'm not at all interested in what his lawyer has to say or anyone's lawyer has to say. I'm interested in the person. I want to help people actually change. And I'd love to do it before there's some kind of precipitating event. But the reality is that these guys and women, when they've been tapped on the shoulder by the FBI or someone else, they're in survival mode. Yeah, it creates a heightened reality that precipitates a willingness that otherwise would not be found.

Yeah, and they don't even know what kind of sum game they're in at that point. They don't know. Yeah, I think, you know, look, rehab can be this perfunctory stop on the PR rehabilitation trail for people that find themselves in the crosshairs of some crisis of their own making. But every once in a while, it works. You know, we saw it with Michael Phelps. Sure.

You know, it's effective for certain people. Some people, they're just doing it to check the box so that, you know, they'll be ingratiated back into society again. Only time will tell whether that's real. And the only way to know is to pay attention to people's behavior. Well, you know, at the end of many AA meetings,

there's a line of people with little white sheets that go up. Yeah, I was one of those guys. I used to fraudulently write the signatures on there for the judge. Yeah, well, so for people who don't know, basically you have to document you going to meetings. So you could tell the judge, yeah. And, you know, for the rest of us, anything that gets you in the room is fine. I mean, there's a lot of different motives to get in the room.

We wanna help you get well. And so we've taken this to a step that's non-substance abuse related. And it has all kinds of co-occurring things. There's mental illness and there's drug and alcohol. And we're working with different groups and people. And this will evolve. It's in its infancy.

But I think that what we need is a commitment to that, to character and to ethics. And I certainly search continually to become that person I was at 12 years old before I found my first joint. Yeah. Yeah, that's beautifully put. And I think it's needed now more than ever, given that we have on the one hand, this massive and ever expanding opioid crisis, and we have incredible problems with our prison industrial complex.

And these two things are colliding with each other to really just exacerbate the problem, making it worse. And you're somebody who basically was at the intersection of both of these things. So when we look at the opioid crisis, do you know, are you familiar, as somebody who's been involved in criminal justice reform, like what are those numbers right now? Staggering. What are we doing about this and how can we do better? the resources weren't there until it became a, there was a financial incentive or a political incentive to do it.

And now there's a lot of resources being thrown at the opioid crisis, the so-called opioid crisis, because not that there isn't one, but it's really no different than the crack epidemic that there was. It just is touching a different strata of society. So it's a shame that we criminalize behavior that affects the inner city people, but we show such empathy and compassion for the same kind of problem, but it's affecting people in the more affluent communities. But, you know,

anywhere we can get the resources, I'll take them. I'll take them. I mean, it is, but it's also, I mean, you know, look, they call Oxy Hillbilly heroin. Like it's, you know, very deleterious in a lot of, you know, underprivileged communities throughout the South, particularly, you know, in areas like that. Like, it's touching all different demographics, I think, from the guy on, like yourself, the Park Avenue guy who gets the surgery and gets, you know, wants the Demerol, down to, you know, up the OxyPills and, you know, being stuck in your basement for six months. Last year, I became the volunteer chaplain to the fire department in the little town I live in. Oh, wow.

In Connecticut. Uh-huh. And so I had to go through a certain amount of orientation. And so they're talking about the different kinds of calls they go on. They go on fire calls, they go on cat up a tree calls, they go on all kinds of different calls. And one of the calls they go on are exploding meth labs.

And I'm in this bucolic little town. Right, you're like kind of in Connecticut. Like, you know, Litchfield Hills, beautiful, exploding, that happens here. But, you know, in front of the church on the hill are crosses with the names of all the kids from the high school who died that year. Wow.

Yeah, so it's real. And what about our prison system? We're like right in the wake of this prison, isn't it in the Bronx that like lost its heat during the- No, in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, right. The heat went out during the polar vortex. We got problems here.

What's going on there? Well, it's subhuman conditions. I mean, it was subhuman conditions before the heat went out and it was just exacerbated, and it's terrible. And I know a lot of, I wasn't there, but I know a lot of people who were there. And it's terrible. And it's the warehousing of people,

and it doesn't make a difference what your economic background is. It is making money on the backs of other people. And so we live in a culture where criminal justice basically make $50,000 roughly per year per person. And so just do the math. If we have 2.something million people behind bars, that's the size of consumer and someone's going to make money on it

is there any way out of this privatization scenario that we find ourselves in short of changing campaign finance laws and how lobbyists work I don't see this changing. Too much money is being made. You know, my personal theology is not to, it is to be positive. And I do believe that there's a lot of awareness going on. But I believe that, I also know that this is a conversation

that's been going on for centuries, maybe for millennia. And that the advocates will advocate and the people in power, it's truth to power, and the people in power will probably grant little wins to people so that they're placated. To appease. To appease. And they'll find other ways to make the money. We have to wind this down,

but I wanna leave people with a place to go and something to think about, particularly people that are listening who are suffering, continue to suffer, or know somebody who suffers from a substance abuse problem, as somebody with long-term sobriety, who's kind of steeped in the traditions, what do you have to say?

What kind of lifeline can you throw to someone who maybe is wrestling with this privately and has yet to really come to terms with the reality of their situation? I don't mean it all for it to sound hokey or trite, but there's hope. And I'm not special. There's hope. And I'm not special. I'm sure you don't view yourself as special. We've been granted grace somehow, and all we had to do was show up every day and do the work and live one day at a time,

and then some higher power decided what our fate was. So if it could work for us, it could work for anybody. And I don't take it for granted for a day because the us is today. Tomorrow is going to have its own issues and I trust I'll be sober tomorrow, but maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. But if there's anyone out there who thinks that it's impossible or thinks they're so desperately in the throes of their addiction or their problems or whatever. And the answer is just like when I sat at my desk and

I had a stack of files or a stack of paper, how do you get through it? And the answer is start at the top. And that's what this is about. Just turning myself over or anyone turning themselves over to things that they don't know about and that's okay. As dark as the prison of your own design may appear or feel to you, I assure you and I promise you that there is hope, just like you said, that there is a light available to you. just like you said, that there is a light available to you. And I say that not to be trite, as you mentioned, but only because I've seen this transpire in thousands of people over the years. People coming from circumstances and situations so dire that it's actually mind-blowing

the extent to which they've been able to turn their lives around. So I implore anybody out there who's listening, who has a sense that they may have a problem, please reach out for help. There is help available to you. If you do not wanna drink or use again, you do not have to, but you've gotta raise your hand.

You've gotta make your voice known, seek out help in your area. There are plenty of resources. I'll link some of my preferred resources in the show notes to this episode. And please take advantage of them because you're worth it. And the world needs you to be the best version of who you are, which is sober and conscious. Amen to that. Right on.

Thank you. I really appreciate the work that you do. It's beautiful, actually. And your story of transformation really is quite wonderful and amazing. So I wish you the best. As is yours, by the way. Well, maybe I still need to go to divinity school. I don't know. My mother would be happy, probably. I don't know. My mother would be happy probably. If people are desiring to connect with you, where's the best place for them to go online to do that?

At prisonist.org. So like womenist or feminist, prisonist.org and all the information's there. And we have a lot of resources, a lot of content that's valuable. You do like a radio show too. Yeah, we do a radio show. Yeah, usually I have the headphones valuable. You do like a radio show too. Yeah, we do a radio show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, usually I have the headphones on.

You do. Next time. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Thank you, Richard. Come back again sometime. Thank you.

God bless you. Peace. Peace. Incredible story. Jeff's an amazing human. And I think what I take from this is the power of redemption. This is a guy who sank really low, almost met his end, and yet has been able to find meaning in his life and to give back and repair the wreckage of his past. And I think there's a lot of lessons in there for all of us, no matter where we find ourselves on our respective life paths. So do me a favor, let Jeff know directly what you thought of the conversation. You can hit him up on Twitter

at RevJeffGrantz. Also make sure to check out his website, Prisonist.org to learn more about his amazing work. And of course, as always, you can check out the show notes at richroll.com on the episode page to dive even deeper. If you're struggling with your diet, if you're really trying to figure out this nutritious eating thing, and you're committed to finally making it work, I implore you, check out our Plant Power Meal Planner. When you go to meals.richroll.com, you'll get access to thousands of delicious and easy to prepare, nutritious recipes customized based on your personal preferences. In addition, you'll get unlimited grocery lists. It integrates

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see you back here next week with the great comedian pete holmes oh that's a big one right yeah pete's so amazing i can't wait to share this conversation he's super cool in any event, until then, life is an adventure, is it not? And no matter how far down the scale you have gone, know that there is always an upward trajectory available to you. Peace. Plants, namaste. Thank you.